Research
My research interests are somewhat varied but do have some common themes throughout. In particular, I’ve focused on the audience’s media experiences and how external forces influence them. Those forces included content producers shifting the type of content they provide after converging, as was the case in my content analysis of the website FiveThiryEight.com after merging with The New York Times. They also included whether the network highlighted sports for which they owned broadcast rights, as examined in my coauthored content analysis of ESPN’s Top 10 Plays segment. Additionally, I’m interested in media effects and media psychology, as evidenced by my coauthored paper on the manipulation of voter preferences among viewers who see political debates with the inclusion of live polling overlays that skew toward one candidate versus the other.
I anticipated moving my area of research further into media effects and psychology, however the pandemic has made that difficult. One publication that I recently published analyzed how recommendation algorithms, like those on Netflix, may influence how people enjoy content.
Given the limits on human participants research, I’m focusing more on content analyses of digital and social media journalism. For that, I have multiple studies currently underway, including one on how the New York Times uses video on Facebook and how American broadcast channels are using Instagram.
Academic Publications
An up-to-date list of my publications is available on my Google Scholar profile.
Teaching
As the instructor of record, I’ve taught a wide variety of courses. Those include introductory- and upper-level journalism classes, the latter focusing on online journalism, web design, social media, and multimedia technologies. I have also taught courses on feature story writing, sports journalism, both of which included a master’s section. Most recently, I expanded into doctoral-level teaching with a class on Algorithms and Society.
Contact
Please feel free to contact me at jeremy (at) jeremysaks.com.