New research in communication finds that college students who are lonely tend to choose media likely to make them feel worse while those who are depressed or anxious tend to choose media that might im...

A new study in communication scoured the book buying histories and ratings of more than 35,000 Amazon shoppers and found that while some buy books that are similar to others they have enjoyed, people ...

Abstract. Information-seeking is widely understood as a curiosity-driven exploration behavior similar to resource foraging. However, it remains unclear whe

A substantial body of research has investigated how people’s transient affective state influences their media selection, as well as how selected media influences subsequent affective states. However, ...

XuanJun Gong is interested in media selection, computational modeling, communication networks, and information diffusion. He’s looked at how we choose media to manage our moods, how the sequence of ou...

How do people choose what book to read? At times, people choose to exploit well-known options that are likely to lead to high enjoyment. However, readers must also effectively explore novel books in o...

Media research is, in part, interested in accurately explaining and predicting people’s media selection. Explanation is an accurate description of the causal mechanisms that govern media selection w...

Behavioral science demands skillful experimentation and high-quality data that are typically gathered in person. However, the COVID-19 pandemic forced many beha...