Jiyoung Han
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology · Social Sciences
About the Lab
Professor Jiyoung Han's research lab focuses on the intersection of media, political polarization, and social identity, with a particular emphasis on how partisan conflict framing, emotional responses like anger, and identity salience shape public opinion and misinformation dissemination. The lab investigates the psychological mechanisms—such as motivated reasoning, self-categorization, and identity affirmation—that drive polarization in digital and news media environments, especially during high-stakes events like public health crises. Using experimental and computational methods, the lab explores echo chambers, ideological crossovers, and the role of elite cues in amplifying or mitigating polarization across diverse populations.
Research Overview
Research Output Trend
Figures are computed from collected data and may differ slightly.
Selected Papers
15A survey conducted over South Korean adults (N=513) reveals that emotions, specifically anger, contribute to the broader spread of misinformation on COVID-19 by leading angry individuals to consider false claims to be “scientifically credible.” This pattern is more evident among conservatives than liberals. Our finding sheds light on new measures and journalistic interventions that could alleviate the public’s anger and foster science-based conversations during a public health crisis.
Existing research on conflict framing in the news-media has focused disproportionately on political-party membership, where prior polarization between party elites implies strong pre-existing differences of opinion. To determine whether conflict framing can elicit polarization in the context of other important social identities, we compare the polarizing effects of conflict framing along partisan versus gender lines. In two experimental studies using different samples—i.e., college students (Stu
Two experiments tested whether exposure to partisan conflict-framed news polarizes news consumers along party lines. Partisan self-categorization and motivated reasoning were examined as potential mediators of this effect. In two samples, path analyses showed that Democrats and Republicans exposed to partisan conflict-framed news adopted more polarized opinions on a disputed issue. This polarization effect was consistently mediated by perceived argument validity, an indicator of motivated reason
This study explored the presence of digital echo chambers in the realm of partisan media’s news comment sections in South Korea. We analyzed the political slant of 152 K user comments written by 76 K unique contributors on NAVER, the country’s most popular news aggregator. We found that the political slant of the average user comments to be in alignment with the political leaning of the conservative news outlets; however, this was not true of the progressive media. A considerable number of comme
The goal of this study is to theorize the relationship between the news and political polarization through a lens of group dynamics. Consistent with the salience hypothesis of the category fit and category accessibility interaction, we first articulate when and how news exposure makes news consumers think of themselves as Democrats or Republicans instead of unique individuals. Drawing on group polarization literature, we further hypothesize partisan self-stereotyping—an automatic reaction to par
Informed by uncertainty–identity theory, this study tested the polarizing effect of partisan-led politicization of science and ways to combat it. Using a national sample of South Koreans ( N = 840), our online experiment found that when partisan elites, as opposed to scientists (or civic activists), spearheaded politicization, attitude polarization emerged via partisan motivated reasoning. Such polarizing effects of party cues did not persist when subjective certainty and self-affirmation enhanc
Abstract. Although there is growing evidence that partisans believe they are further apart than they actually are, the causes and consequences of this misperception are not always clear. Informed by the literature on news framing and self-categorization theory, we hypothesize that the media’s focus on partisan conflict increases partisans’ perceptions of public polarization, which fuels partisan attitude polarization on disputed issues in news coverage. Study 1 supports this contention in the po
We conducted two studies to compare how anxiety and anger influence the online spread of information. Study 1 found that tweets expressing anger reached more people and had deeper retweet chains than tweets expressing anxiety, across all measures of retweet cascades (i.e., size, depth, maximum breadth, and structural virality). Study 2 used an online survey and confirmed anger’s supremacy in information sharing. Individuals who were angry indicated a higher intention to share emotional tweets of
This study analyzes the political slants of user comments on Korean partisan media. We built a BERT-based classifier to detect political leaning of short comments via the use of semiunsupervised deep learning methods that produced an F1 score of 0.83. As a result of classifying 21.6K comments, we found the high presence of conservative bias on both conservative and liberal news outlets. Moreover, this study discloses an asymmetry across the partisan spectrum in that more liberals (48.0%) than co
Two surveys investigated whether the exposure to COVID-19 news widens (polarization) or narrows (mainstreaming) the partisan gap in perceived seriousness of the pandemic, and how the perception affects individuals' susceptibility to COVID-19 misinformation that either exaggerates or downplays its health risks. Overall exposure to COVID-19 news homogenized the partisans' otherwise divergent risk perceptions, but the partisan divide was wider among those selectively approaching like-minded news ou
이 연구의 목적은 국내·외 양적연구를 중심으로 변혁적 리더십에 관한 통합적 문헌고찰을 하는 것이다. 변혁적 리더십연구에 관한 통합적 문헌 고찰을 통해 변혁적 리더십 연구의 동향을 파악하고, 연구 대상, 연구 방법, 관련 변인 등의 특징을 분석함으로써 향후 연구의 방향을 제시하였다. 구체적으로 이 연구에서는 첫째, 국내·외 학술정보DB를 통해 HRD 분야 저널에 게재된 변혁적 리더십에 관한 양적연구 논문에서 연구 대상, 하위요인, 측정도구, 연구방법을 분석하였고, 둘째, 국내·외 HRD분야 저널에 게재된 변혁적 리더십에 관한 양적연구 논문에서 변혁적 리더십 관련 변인을 분석하였다. 이를 위해 Torraco(2005)의 통합적 문헌 분석 방법 및 절차에 따라 2009년부터 2019년(10년)까지 국내·외 HRD분야 저널에서 변혁적 리더십 관련 키워드로 양적연구 논문을 검색하여, 논문의 목적에 부합되는 총 35편의 논문(국내논문 28편과 국외논문 7편)을 최종적으로 선정하여 분석에 활용하
A series of new sensors (1, 2, 3 and 4) bearing aromatic hydroxyl group shows the strongest binding ability for AcO- by UV-vis, fluorescence, 1H NMR titrations and theoretical investigation. The sensitivity for AcO- can be tuned by electron push-pull properties of the substituents on the aromatic ortho position of the sensor. Especially, sensor 4 containing nitro group shows the best sensitivity. The excellent sensitivity of 4 for AcO- is attributed to the structure match of host-guest. In addit
Raw data and syntax for the paper: Han, J.; Cha, M.; Lee, W. (2020). Emotion and misinformation in times of public health crisis. The Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Misinformation Review, Forthcoming. Available at: https://misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/
The purpose of this study is to analyze the perceptions of female farmers in order to establish support policies in the work-life field and to explore their awareness of the problems and improvement plans. In order to achieve the research purpose, focus group interviews (FGIs) were conducted with 20 female farmers from around the country, and word-cloud and semantic network analyses were conducted on their responses. In addition, 20 of the FGI participants were surveyed on the problems in, and i
Research Areas
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