Ji Hyeong Choi
Ewha Womans University · Social Sciences
About the Lab
Professor Ji Hyeong Choi's research lab specializes in media effects, political communication, and digital news consumption, with a strong focus on how emotions, social media use, and online engagement influence civic participation and information processing. The lab investigates the interplay between digital news experiences—such as reading, sharing, and endorsing content—and political behavior, particularly through the lens of social networking sites (SNS). Key research directions include the emotional impact of news visuals, the role of risk perception in misinformation, and the mediating role of political social capital in online political engagement. The lab also examines how major events, such as the Iraq War, reshape media coverage quality and diversity in international news.
Research Overview
Research Output Trend
Figures are computed from collected data and may differ slightly.
Selected Papers
15This study sheds new light on the relationship between emotion and engagement. Specifically, we investigate how the six discrete emotions that news visuals deliver, as well as the positiveness of news text, are associated with three engagement activities: sharing, commenting, and reacting. The findings show that users are less likely to share or comment on news posts that convey positive emotions, although they tend to react to such news frequently. The most prominent kind of emotion associated
This study addresses how social media interaction affects misperceptions about COVID-19 via risk perceptions thereof and whether political orientation moderates the relationship. Using original two-wave panel survey data (<i>N</i> = 679), this study reveals that social media interaction increases misperception directly, as well as indirectly by reducing the extent of risk perception. The extent of risk perception is found to be a negative predictor of misperception. The deleterious role of socia
The present study sheds light on the changing patterns of news experiences by defining it as news sharing. The study attempted to explicate the concept of news sharing by identifying the subdimensions of it in the context of online social networking sites (SNSs). Findings showed that news sharing is comprised of two distinctive behaviors: news internalizing (by those who read news) and externalizing (by those who offer news to others). Furthermore, news internalizing and externalizing have two s
The present study clarifies the role of the informational use of media in facilitating citizens' political participation by focusing on three distinctive modes of news experience (i.e., news reading, posting, and endorsing) within the context of online social networking sites (SNSs). The findings show that news posting contributes to greater participation in politics by positively mediating the relationship between the use of SNSs and participatory activities. In contrast, news reading and endor
본 연구는 어떤 메커니즘을 통해 SNS 사용이 시민의 정치참여에 의미 있는 영향을 미치는지 좀더명확한 탐색을 위해 정치적 사회자본이라는 개념과 SNS 이용 동기에 초점을 맞추어 분석을 진행하였다. 그 결과, SNS 사용은 정치적 상호작용 확대 및 온라인 네트워크 내 정치전문가 집단과의접촉 기회 증가 등 정치적으로 유용한 사회자본 획득에 기여하는 것으로 드러났다. 또한 SNS 사용 자체는 정치참여에 직접적 영향을 미치지 못하지만, SNS 사용을 통해 획득한 정치적 사회자본을 매개로 시민은 더욱 활발히 정치활동에 참여하는 것으로 나타났다. 정치적 사회자본을 매개로SNS 사용이 정치참여에 미치는 간접적 영향의 정도는 개별 사용자의 SNS 사용 동기에 따라 차이를 보이는데, 특히 SNS를 사용하는 데 있어 오락적 동기가 높은 사람 사이에서 SNS가 정치참여에 미치는 긍정적 영향의 정도가 오락적 동기가 낮은 사람 집단에서보다 낮게 나타났다.
The objective of this study is to explore how the Iraq War affected the patterns of newspapers’ foreign news coverage, specifically how the war affected the quality of foreign news in three prominent US newspapers, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Miami Herald in 2001, 2003, and 2005. Diversity was adopted as a criterion to measure the quality of foreign news coverage, employing the Herfindahl Index to calculate the level of diversity. The study reveals that, in general, the div
In an era of news abundance, people increasingly feel uncertain as to whether they possess adequate information to participate in politics. However, previous research has not paid attention to the issue of such efficacy. To fill the gap, this study examines (a) how different types of news repertoire are associated with political information efficacy and (b) how perceived news overload mediates the relationship. The findings show that people have three distinct types of news repertoires, such as
Political participation has long been considered a cornerstone of democracy. While most studies on political participation have been grounded on a normative approach, which assumes that political participation is driven by positive civic actions, recent studies suggest that political participation is also driven by negative forces such as overconfidence in knowledge and partisan communication flows. This article builds on the latter line of research by exploring the role of affective polarizatio
This study investigated whether exposure to fake news leads to more confusion about public affairs and how SNS news use and characteristics of SNSs – network size, political heterogeneity and political expertise of networks – are associated with exposure to fake news and the confusion about political reality. For that, we theorized confusion as the composite of strengthening of misperception and weakening of right perception. Findings show that those exposed to fake news are more likely to be co
이견노출과 정치참여의 관계에 대해 선행 연구들은 모순된 결과를 보여줬다. 본 연구는 이처럼 복잡한 관계를 이해하는 실마리를 찾기 위해 온라인 소셜 네트워크 사이트 상황에서 이견노출과 정치참여의 관계에 대해 알아보았다. 연구 결과 SNS에서 자신과 반대되는 의견을 접하는(이견관찰) 빈도가 높은 이들은 특별히 높은 참여 성향을 보이지 않았다. 반면 이견을 지닌 타인과의 토론에 관여하거나 반박하는 등 의미 있는 상호작용(이견관여)을 자주 하는 이들은 더욱 활발히 정치적 활동에 참여하는 것으로 나타났다. 이는 이견노출과 정치참여의 관계에 대한 기존 연구의 상반된 결과는 이견노출이라는 개념 자체에 대한 명확한 정의가 선행되지 않은 데서 기인했을 가능성을 시사한다. 또한 SNS를 자주 이용하는 이들은 이견관여적 행동을 더 자주 하게 되고 그 결과 더욱 활발하게 정치에 참여함을 보여줬다. 한편 본 연구는 SNS 사용, 이견노출, 정치참여로 이어지는 과정에서 당파성의 강도가 어떤 역할을 하는지도
Incivility has been a primary concern of healthy debate in the online environment. Realising the individual and societal impacts of incivility, much research has investigated the role of incivility; however, a consensus has not yet been reached on how it plays a beneficial role in politics. In the current two-wave survey study (N = 933) of Americans in the context of the 2016 presidential election, we revisit the role of online incivility in cross-cutting attention and online/offline political p
To reveal a complete picture of people’s disagreement-related experiences, we explored the relationship between encountering and expressing disagreement in the context of social media settings. We also shed light on the role of three types of emotions – anxiety, enthusiasm, and anger – in determining people’s willingness to express disagreement. Our findings show that frequently encountering disagreement is a positive predictor of expressing disagreement. Those who felt enthusiasm toward the out
Research Areas
Dive deeper into Ji Hyeong Choi's research on Nubint
Open this lab's papers in the app to read with AI, summarize, and cite in your writing.