The Information Integrity Institute recently hosted a research brainstorming breakfast that brought together faculty and PhD students for fast-paced research discussions led by the institute’s fellows: Tombras School of Advertising and Public Relations Assistant Professor Oluseyi Adegbola, School of Information Sciences Assistant Professor Hope Chidziwisano, Tombras School of Advertising and Public Relations Associate Professor María De Moya, School of Journalism and Media Associate Professor Mustafa Oz, and School of Communication Studies Associate Professor Michelle Violanti.
Participants at the breakfast formed small groups to sketch out research projects and plan the next steps. A wide range of topics were discussed, including improving rural Appalachian access to health information (especially mental health) via offline chatbots and SMS services with a human-centered design approach, and examining how trust in AI differ across medical, scientific, political, and commercial contexts through a qualitative study with potential United States focus groups comparing Gen Z and Gen Y.
The institute is housed within the College of Communication and Information at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and it aims to generate interdisciplinary research designed to enhance the understanding of underlying mechanisms that shape how the public consume, share, and are influenced by the large amounts of information that they continuously encounter. Events such as this brainstorming breakfast provide a venue for research ideas to be imagined and explored.