Heesoo Jang

Heesoo Jang

Social Scienctist

UNC-Chapel Hill

đź‘‹ About me

Hi! I’m a Royster fellow and a Richard Cole fellow at the Hussman School of Journalism and Media, Univeristy of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. My advisor is Dr. Shannon McGregor. I’m also affiliated with the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life (CITAP), where I am working as the policy collaboration graduate assistant for 2022-2023. In Febraury 2023, I have been selected as one of the 12 NexGen Leaders of the U.S.-ROK Alliance by CSIS Korea Chair with support from the U.S. Embassy Seoul and the State Department. Previously, I worked at SNU FactCheck Center, the first and only fact-checking platform in South Korea.

👉 My Research

I study how strategic actors communicate about emerging media and technology and their multifaceted impacts on people, industries, and society. During my years in the PhD program, I have been focusing on artificial intelligence (AI) systems and digital platforms. I believe how different actors (e.g., tech companies, government agencies, media, civil society, publics) strategically communicate impacts and harms makes a big difference, and I am passionate about my research because of its implications for justice and democracy. The aim of my research program is to ensure that the voice of the publics are not marginalized and meaningfully heard in these conversations around media and technology. My research program largely includes the following themes:

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) Ethics
  • Harms and Biases of AI Systems
  • Digital Harms of Transnational Platform Ecosystems

I approach my research with a “social science salsa-dancing," perspective, using a diverse set of computational, quantitative, and qualitative methods.

Download my CV.

đź’ś Acknowledgement: My research is generously supported by the Royster Society of Fellows and the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life (CITAP). My dissertation project, in particular, is generously supported by the William Francis Clingman Jr. Ethics Award and the Minnie S. & Eli A. Rubinstein Research Award.

👉 Public Scholarship

Interests
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Digital Platforms
  • Power and Ethics
  • Mixed Methods
  • Computational Methods for Social Science
Education
  • Ph.D. in Communication, Expected

    University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA

  • M.A. in Communication, 2018

    Seoul National University, South Korea

  • B.A. in Media and Mass Communication, 2016

    Korea University, South Korea

Skills

Languages & Software

R, Python, SQL | SPSS, STATA, Qualtrics, MTurk

Quantitative

survey, experiment, content analysis, statistical analysis

Qualitative

interview/focus-group, textual analysis, grounded theory