Research 

My research seeks to understand how social and cultural differences become consequential for public attitudes and behavior, particularly through their interactions with political, media, and institutional communication. 

Across political communication and science communication, I investigate the social, cultural, psychological, and communicative processes underlying political polarization, challenges to scientific authority, and public engagement with science. A central objective is to develop explanations that go beyond partisan identity. 

My research program develops across three interconnected areas: 

Political Communication: Social Divisions, Cultural Backlash, and Democratic Participation

This area examines how social positions and cultural values contribute to political attitudes, polarization, and civic behavior.

I am particularly interested in the diploma divide, socioeconomic inequalities, perceived status threats, and cultural backlash as potential foundations of political grievance. I investigate when and why differences in educational and social positions become associated with resentment toward political and institutional elites, and how perceived cultural changes influence political identities and institutional evaluations.

A central communication component of this research concerns how political elites, news media, and other communicators frame social and cultural divisions, and how these messages may reinforce or challenge grievances, shape political polarization, and influence civic and political participation.

Legitimacy of Scientific Authority: Social Grievances, Populism, and Institutional Communication

Building on my interests in political communication, this area examines why scientific authority becomes accepted, questioned, or challenged in democratic societies.

I investigate how social inequalities, cultural grievances, political orientations, and legitimacy-questioning beliefs — including science-related populism, anti-intellectualism, and “Do Your Own Research” orientations — shape public responses to scientific expertise and institutions.

I am especially interested in distinguishing trust in scientific institutions from perceptions of the legitimacy of scientific authority, including whether scientific institutions are regarded as appropriately entitled to establish standards of credible knowledge and inform collective decisions.

An important communication dimension concerns how political elites, media organizations, and scientific institutions construct, communicate, defend, or challenge scientific authority. This includes examining how public agencies such as the CDC, FDA, and EPA communicate scientific evidence, uncertainty, risk, and institutional decisions in contested environments.

The broader objective is to understand how these dynamics influence public acceptance or rejection of scientific recommendations, support for science-related policies, and health behaviors.

Science as a Brand: Public Perceptions, Engagement, and Emerging Technologies

This area examines how people understand and relate to science beyond conventional measures of trust, knowledge, and attitudes.

My Science Brand framework conceptualizes public perceptions of science across three dimensions: functional meanings, concerning the usefulness and benefits of science; experiential meanings, concerning feelings and experiences associated with science; and symbolic meanings, concerning the identities and values science represents.

I examine how these perceptions differ across social and political groups, how they relate to communication environments, and whether they help explain public engagement with science, expectations of scientific solutions, and responses to scientific developments.

I am also extending this framework to controversial scientific issues and emerging technologies, including human gene editing, human brain organoids, climate change, vaccination, and artificial intelligence. These contexts provide opportunities to investigate how different meanings attached to science may shape public acceptance, opposition, and engagement.

This research also seeks to inform communication approaches that recognize differences in how publics perceive, experience, and identify with science.

Methodological Approach

Across these areas, I draw on political communication, science communication, political psychology, and social identity theories. My work emphasizes quantitative methods, including survey research, experiments, content analysis, psychometric measurement, and latent variable modeling.

A central methodological interest is developing and validating theoretically grounded measures that distinguish related but conceptually different orientations toward institutions, science, and political authority.