Research Studies from Montclair’s School of Communication and Media Garner Hundreds of Millions of Worldwide Media Impressions
*Faculty, staff and students collaborated on seven projects on societal, cultural and hate speech issues during the ’22-23 academic year*
For the 2022-23 academic year, the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University formally launched the Joetta DiBella and Fred C. Sautter III Center for Strategic Communication, a state-of-the-art communications hub home to social listening platforms, content creation apps and consumer insights tools that is used for instructional, research and co-curricular activity.
A research team comprised of faculty, staff and graduate students authored seven studies during the year, and faculty members were interviewed about these topics, leading to hundreds of millions of global earned media impressions. Outlets that covered the Center’s studies included CBS National News, NBC News, ABC News, Yahoo, CNN, Fox News, USA Today, New York Times, Today Show, Good Morning America, Fortune, San Franciso Chronicle, Adweek, PR Week, 1010 WINS New York and KNX Los Angeles. Content also appeared in outlets in San Diego, Charlotte, Washington D.C. and many other Top 100 markets in the U.S., while stories also appeared in outlets in England, Italy, Sweden, India, Germany, Canada and others.
Here is a story from CBS Evening News featuring Dr. Bond Benton:
The seven studies were: How hate speech increased after Elon Musk acquired Twitter, the cultural phenomenon of Pumpkin Spice, an increase in “grooming” Terms on Twitter after the Colorado Springs Tragedy, the commercialization of Valentine’s Day, how a mass shooting and killing spree was influenced by extremist websites, and separate studies surrounding boycotts of the 2022 FIFA World Cup because of human rights issues and athletes and brands involved in the tournament.
As of mid-August 2023, more than 300 organizations including media outlets, government entities and 226 universities from 79 countries downloaded the studies more than 2,300 times via the Digital Commons platform.
The studies were led by faculty members Dr. Bond Benton, Dr. Jin-A Choi and Dr. Yi Luo, with assistance from Dr. Keith Strudler, Professor Keith Green and graduate students Tatiana Babara, Paulette Gando-Duenas, Gabrielle Meyer, Therese Sheridan and Rayane Yamout.