ORCID iD: 0000-0003-3479-9327
Scopus Author ID: 55330999000
ResearcherID: S-9610-2019
Google Scholar Profile: iOFeIDIAAAAJ

Metrics for Academic and Research Impact

My expertise includes digital journalism, political communication, AI ethics, and computational social science. I study how AI and digital platforms are reshaping news production, public engagement, and policymaking. My research aims to empower citizens to engage in informed conversations and support the development of communication policies and interventions that foster innovation, productivity, and epistemic integrity.  

I have been awarded four grants by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council (RGC), including four General Research Fund (GRF) and one Collaborative Research Fund (CRF, as Co-PI), as well as one grant under the Public Policy Research Funding Scheme (PPR) of the Hong Kong SAR Government. I have published over 60 peer-reviewed articles in top journals, such as Human Communication Research, Journal of Communication, Social Media + Society, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, International Journal of Press/Politics, Information, Communication & Society, Policy & Internet, and Digital Journalism. 

Before joining CityUHK in 2024, I was a tenured Associate Professor in the School of Communication at Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU), where I served as the founding Programme Director of the Master of Science in AI and Digital Media, a pioneering postgraduate program of its kind in the Asia-Pacific region, supported by the University Grants Committee’s (UGC) Targeted Taught Postgraduate Programmes Fellowships Scheme. I also spearheaded the establishment of Hong Kong’s first data journalism undergraduate programme, the Data and Media Communication Concentration at HKBU, in collaboration with faculty from Journalism and Computer Science. I received the HKBU Award for Outstanding Young Researchers (2021) and the HKBU Award for Outstanding Performance in Teaching (2022). I was a visiting scholar at the Department of Communication of the University of California at Davis in the US in 2022. 

I currently serve on the Editorial Boards of five top journals in media and communication, i.e., Communication Research (CR), Human Communication Research (HCR), Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly (JMCQ), Digital Journalism, and Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media (JoBEM). I was a Guest Editor for Global Media and China (Sage/IAMCR). 

I actively contribute as a columnist to major media outlets, including Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK), Hong Kong Economic Journal, and FTChinese (the Chinese edition of the Financial Times). 

• 2026 - present. Principal Investigator (PI), General Research Fund (GRF), the Research Grants Council (RGC), Hong Kong SAR. Why Robotic Journalists Backfire: How Authorship, Transparency, and Platform Reach Shape Bias Perceptions and Responses to AI-Synthesized News. [521,720 HKD]. On-going.
• 2026 - present. Co-Principal Investigator (Co-PI), Collective Research Fund (CRF), the Research Grants Council (RGC), Hong Kong SAR. Understanding & Fighting Scams: Psychological and Social Perspectives & Effective Interventions. [5,900,000 HKD]. On-going. 
• 2024 – 2026. Co-Investigator (Co-I), General Research Fund (GRF), the Research Grants Council (RGC), Hong Kong SAR. How Does Censorship Drive Conspiratorial Beliefs? The Roles of Information Uncertainty and Motivated Reasoning. [411,855 HKD]. On-going.
• 2021 – 2022. Principal Investigator (PI), Public Policy Research Funding Scheme (PPR) of the Government of the Hong Kong SAR, Hong Kong Media’s Coverage of Political Polarization and its Effects on People’s Political Attitudes and Behaviors. [356,972 HKD]. Completed.
• 2020 - 2023. Co-Principal Investigator (Co-PI). The Interdisciplinary Research Clusters Matching Scheme (IRCMS) by the University Research Clusters, Hong Kong Baptist University. Engaging the Audience with AI-powered News Chatbots: Developing and Evaluating a Critiquing-oriented Conversational Recommender System for Digital News. [937,500 HKD]. Completed.
• 2020 – 2022. Principal Investigator (PI), General Research Fund (GRF), the Research Grants Council (RGC), Hong Kong SAR. Why Fact-Checking Fails? Factors Influencing the Effectiveness of Corrective Messages Countering Misinformation on Social Media: A Comparison of Hong Kong, the United States, and the Netherlands. [408,256 HKD]. Completed.
• 2019 – 2021. Principal Investigator (PI). General Research Fund (GRF), the Research Grants Council (RGC), Hong Kong SAR. The Making and Unmaking of the Public Sphere: Outcomes of Political Disagreement, Expression Avoidance, and a Filtered Information Repertoire. [445,520 HKD] Completed.

I am looking for PhD students and postdoctoral researchers to work on digital journalism, political communication, and the social impacts of tech-enhanced human communication, particularly content production and dissemination involving GenAI and social media platforms, using experimental design and computational methods.

Since 2018, I have supervised eight postgraduate students (as capstone project supervisor) and four research students. Most are now pursuing doctoral studies in Hong Kong, Europe, and the US, or working as full-time faculty in Hong Kong and mainland China. Students under my supervision have won best paper awards at ICA, presented at major international conferences in media and communication, and published in top peer-reviewed journals. If you are interested in working under my principal supervision, please email me your CV. I welcome applications for the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme (HKPFS), 2027/28 entry.

📢 JRFS Call – 2027/28 (call opening soon)

The RGC-funded Junior Research Fellow Scheme supports postdocs for 24 months at HK$425K/year. RGC funds the fellowship and I would host as supervisor. 

My current work examines GenAI-synthesized / robotic journalism, disinformation regulation, human-(Gen)AI relationship dynamics, and their impacts on epistemic integrity and public deliberation. Soon-to-graduate or recent PhDs (media, communication, HCI) welcome. Send me your CV. 

(Note: The 2027/28 JRFS call has not yet opened. The link below is for the current 2026/27 round, shared for reference: https://www.ugc.edu.hk/eng/rgc/funding_opport/jrfs/) 

• Digital journalism
• Political communication
• Computational social science
• The politics of public health 
• AI and media innovation 
• Comparative media studies

• Member, College Research Committee (CRC), College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (CLASS), City University of Hong Kong 
• Director of Research, Department of Media and Communication (COM), City University of Hong Kong