Aurora Silavong

Aurora Silavong is a PhD student with a concentration in communication studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. A proud returning Volunteer, she earned both her Bachelor of Science in Communication with a major in journalism and a Master of Science in Communication and Information with a concentration in communication studies from UT.

Silavong’s research interests span radicalization and online communities—areas she explores both independently and at their intersection. Her central scholarly goal is to expand knowledge on the communicative dimensions of radicalization, examining how communication functions across the full arc of the radicalization process: before, during, and after it occurs. Her work seeks to illuminate the mechanisms through which individuals are drawn into, shaped by, and potentially move beyond radical ideologies. This focus took shape during her master’s work, in which her thesis examined Asian American men within a racialized right-wing internet forum. That project attended not only to the dynamics of online extremism, but also to how identity categories such as race and gender operate within these spaces.

Silavong’s trajectory from journalism to communication studies speaks to a broader commitment to understanding how information, narrative, and discourse shape public life. As she continues her doctoral work, she remains focused on building a body of research that contributes meaningfully to scholarly conversations around extremism, identity, and the communicative forces that underlie them.