R UOXU WA NG Assistant Professor, Department of Journalism & Strategic Media
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need to observe and document the effects of contemporary forms of mass media is what drives Dr. Ruoxu Wang, one of the most active research scholars at the University of Memphis and recipient of the 2021 CCFA Dean’s Award for Research. Wang joined the Department of Journalism and Strategic Media as an assistant professor of advertising in 2017. Before arriving at the UofM, she received her PhD from Pennsylvania State University, and her master’s and bachelor's degrees from North Dakota State University. She teaches a range of both graduate and undergraduate classes, including courses on visual media, creative strategy, web publishing, media planning and quantitative research methods. Wang’s research focuses on the intersection of media effects and persuasion under the context of strategic communication and communication technology. Her work has been published in a wide variety of peerreviewed journals, including Mass Communication and Society, Telematics and Informatics, International Journal of Human Computer Interaction and Social Media + Society, among others. “I am passionate about research as it relates to social media, websites and user experience,” she says. “At first, my research interest was pretty much just focused on the psychological impact of the emerging technologies, but as I continued my study at Penn State, I started to learn more about strategic communications such as public relations, advertising and persuasion. So right now, I like to focus on where technology and advertising meet.”
I AM PASSIONATE ABOUT RESEARCH AS IT RELATES TO SOCIAL MEDIA, WEBSITES AND USER EXPERIENCE
With a mind geared toward the intersection of advertising and technology, it is no surprise that much of what Wang studies is related to things like web design, mobile gaming and virtual reality. In 2019 and 2020, Wang secured Communities of Research Scholars (CoRS) grants from the University of Memphis to engage in the study of mobile VR gaming.
Other studies by Wang include examining the most effective ways to display advertising messages on wearable devices and the many factors that can influence ad effectiveness, as well as a study titled, “Catch them all: Exploring the psychological impact of playing Pokemon GO,” that explores the impact of the 2016 mobile game phenomena.
“For the mobile VR gaming study, Dr. Jin Yang and I collaborated with Dr. Amy Cook with the Department of Computer Science to create a simple racing game that displayed two different ads, the impact of which was measured on user experience,” Wang says. “It’s still an ongoing process, but it is very exciting.”
“We conducted the study in 2016 when everyone was crazy about the game,” Wang says. “We looked at the connection between these different gaming features it offered and how that can impact a sense of community and psychological well-being among players.”
12 VOICES | UNIVERSITY OF MEMPHIS