People
Faculty / Lab Directors
S. Shyam Sundar is the founding director of the Media Effects Research Lab and teaches courses on mass-communication theory, psychology of communication theory and research methodology. His research investigates social and psychological effects of technological elements unique to web-based mass-communication. In particular, his studies investigate the effects of interactivity, navigability, multi-modality and agency in web interfaces upon online users' thoughts, emotions and actions.
Mary Beth Oliver is the co-director of the Media Effects Research Lab and teaches courses on media effects, communication research, quantitative research methods and interpersonal communication. She specializes in media and psychology, focusing on both the psychological effects of media, and on viewers' attraction to or enjoyment of media content. Her research includes studies pertaining to media violence, reality-based television programs, gender differences in enjoyment of media entertainment, viewers' responses to melodramas and sad films and media potrayals of racial groups and the effect of such potrayals on viewers' racial attitudes.
Students
Erin Ash //
Dawn Behnkhen //
Saras Bellur //
Haiyan Jia //
Shannon Kahle //
Hyunjin Kang // Andrew Kegerise //
Hyangsook Kim
You Jeong Kim //
Guan-Soon Khoo //
Anamarcia Lacayo //
Tony Limperos // Sampada Marathe // Anne Oeldorf-Hirsch
Dan Tamul //
Julia Woolley //
Qian Xu //
Nan Yu
Media Effects Research Group [MERG]
The Media Effects Reserach Group brings together faculty and graduate students who are interested in Media Effects Research to engage in brainstorming sessions, planning research forming research teams, planning research projects, getting feedback and pre-testing, sharing study sessions and above all maintain a close-knit community of scholars which is indeed one of the strong points of the graduate program in Communications at Penn State.
