Collaborating student-led research labs to study digital ethics and crisis communication

April 10, 2023 • Jonathan McVerry

The Arthur W. Page Center at Penn State is partnering with the Crisis Communication Think Tank at the University of Georgia to support collaborative student research. As part of the partnership, the Page Center’s Graduate Student Lab Group and CCTT’s Crisis Insights & Analytics (CIA) Lab will join forces to produce innovative and timely research on a number of topics within the areas of ethics, digital technology and crisis communication.

The collaboration between the Center and the Think Tank will support two student-led research projects – one led by Penn State graduate students and the other led by students at Georgia. The two research projects will be funded by the Page Center.

“This partnership inspires important work and delivers practical results for the profession,” said Denise Bortree, Page Center director. “And best yet, it provides a forum of collaboration for our amazing graduate students. We are so happy to join Georgia’s Crisis Communication Think Tank in strengthening graduate work at our universities.”

Experienced researchers from both universities will mentor and train selected students. Potential research topics include handling ethical dilemmas involving artificial intelligence (AI), responding to analytic data misuse, AI’s effect on public relations ethics, and other crises caused by evolving technologies in the industry.

“We are excited to embark on this innovative, cross-institutional research collaboration with Penn State’s Page Center,” said Yan Jin, CCTT director. “Digital ethics and leadership integrity have become more critical than ever, especially when managing challenging and complex crisis issues across organizational, health, disaster and technology arenas. Our Page Center x CCTT collab projects, co-led by student researchers and mentored by lab leaders from both institutions, will chart a new frontier for collaborative research that advances ethical and effective public communication theory and practice.”

Expected outcomes from the projects include summaries of the research published on the Page Center and CCTT’s websites, conference and publication submissions and a panel discussion at a future conference. The Page Center and CCTT will host a kick-off meeting in August 2023 at the annual Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication (AEJMC) conference in Washington, D.C.

The CCTT’s CIA lab is co-directed by University of Georgia faculty members Yan Jin, C. Richard Yarbrough Professor in Crisis Communication Leadership at Georgia, Bryan Reber, professor emeritus of public relations, and former Yarbrough Professor and Kate LaVail, Executive Vice President of Ketchum. The Page Center lab is co-directed by Penn State faculty members Denise Bortree, professor of advertising/public relations and associate dean at the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications, and Holly Overton, associate professor of advertising/public relations and the Page Center’s research director.

The Page Center is a research center in Penn State’s Bellisario College. The CCTT is a thought leadership entity located in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia.