Political Communication & Behavior Lab

The PCB Lab is focused on the intersection between political communication and political behavior. We study the nature of news and social media, and the effects that media have on our political decision-making. We rely on a range of social-scientific methods including surveys, automated content analysis, and psychophysiological studies. Recent work from lab members has examined platform-based differences in both sentiment and campaign communication, cognitive dissonance and selective exposure, valence-based biases in news consumption, and news coverage of political figures and policies.

PCB Lab members include current and past graduate students at the University of Michigan:

• Sarah Bachleda Fioroni, Communication and Media, University of Michigan
• Guadalupe (Lupita) Madrigal, Communication and Media, University of Michigan
• Gavin Ploger, Communication and Media, University of Michigan
• Sydney Carr, Political Science, University of Michigan
• Dan Hiaeshutter-Rice, Advertsing + PR, Michigan State University

Here are some recent and ongoing projects involving lab members:

• Guadalupe Madrigal and Stuart Soroka. N.d. “Migrants, caravans, and perceptions of threat: The impact of news photos on immigration attitudes,” early access in The International Journal of Press/Politics..
• Gavin Ploger, Patrick Fournier, Johanna Dunaway and Stuart Soroka. N.d. The Psychophysiological Correlates of Affective Reasoning. In progress.
• Sarah Bachleda Fioroni and Stuart Soroka. N.d. “Emotion,” The Psychology of Journalism, Sharon Coen and Peter Bull, eds., Oxford University Press.
• Dan Hiaeshutter-Rice, Stuart Soroka and Christopher Wlezien. N.d. “Freedom of the Press and Public Responsiveness,” Perspectives on Politics.
• Sarah Bachleda, Fabian Neuner, Stuart Soroka, Lauren Guggenheim, Patrick Fournier and Elin Naurin. 2020. “Individual-level differences in negativity biases in news selection.” Personality and Individual Differences: 109675.
• Stuart Soroka, Mark Daku, Dan Hiaeshutter-Rice, Lauren Guggenheim and Josh Pasek. 2017. “Negativity and Positivity Biases in Economic News Coverage: Traditional Versus Social Media.” Communication Research 45(7): 1078-1098.

I did not have a lab group while I was in the Department of Political Science at McGill University but I did have some terrific students, now doing excellent work all over the place: check out Kelly Blidook, Blake Andrew, Marc André Bodet, Andrea Lawlor, and Anthony Kevins.