Research Projects – The C-centre, CUHK

Research Project

Collaborative Research Fund (CRF)

Year	Principal Investigator	Project Title
2021-22	Prof. Ran Wei	(Mis)communication, Trust, and Information Environments: A Comparative Study of the COVID-19 “Infodemics” in Four Chinese Societies (http://coviddata.com.cuhk.edu.hk)

General Research Fund (GRF)/Early Career Scheme (ECS)

Year	Principal Investigator	Project Title
2025-26	Prof. Tian Yang	Unpacking the Black Box of Algorithms: Personalization and the Formation of Deliberative Publics in High-Choice Media Environments
2025-26	Prof. Hsuan-ting Chen	Enhancing News Diversity with Algorithm Literacy and Chatbots: A Comparative Study of User- and System-Driven Interventions in the U.S. and China
2025-26	Prof. Michael C.M. Chan	Developing and Testing a Cross-national News Literacy Scale and Intervention for the Discernment of Online Misinformation
2024-25	Prof. Francis L.F. Lee	Generalized Rejection versus Diet Management: Explicating News Avoidance and Its Impact under Democratic Backsliding
2024-25	Prof. Lik Sam Chan	Understanding Dating App Use and Non-Use Among Transgender People in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Taipei: An Integrated Approach
2023-24	Prof. Francis L.F. Lee	Journalistic Risk Assessment and Management under Uncertainty: Implications on Press Freedom in Hong Kong
2023-24	Prof. Hai Liang	Leaderless Organization: A Systematic Examination of the Leaderlessness of Twitter Protests
2022-23	Prof. Oliver N.K. Chan	Moral Economies of Labor Platforms: A Comparative Study of Platform Power in Hong Kong and Taiwan
2022-23	Prof. Michael C.M. Chan	Examining the Effectiveness of Social Media Fact-check Labels to Mitigate the Effects of Misinformation: A Cross-national Comparison
2022-23	Prof. Fang Kecheng	Paywall and Journalism Culture: A Comparative Study of Six Newsrooms in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan
2020-21	Prof. Hai Liang	The Political Consequences of Uncivil Talk on Social Media: Political Emotion, Attitude, and Participation in Hong Kong
2019-20	Prof. Sara Xueting Liao	Digital feminist activism in China: Promises, pitfalls, and futures
2018-19	Prof. Anthony Y.H. Fung	Reading Online Fiction in China: Cultural Consumption, Production and Identity Formation of Youth Culture
2017-18	Prof. Donna S.C. Chu	Mediated Memories, Interpretive Communities and Cultural Identities: Forty Years of Mass Protests in Hong Kong
2017-18	Prof. Christine Y.H. Huang	Picking Your Poison: An Analysis of Public Risk Perception, Institutional Trust, and Crisis Communication during Food and Water-safety Crises in Risk Society
2017-18	Prof. Lokman Tsui	“HTTP ERROR 451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons”: Global Internet Platforms and the Political Economy of the Free Flow of Information
2016-17	Prof. Anthony Y.H. Fung	Reading Border-crossing Japanese Comics / Anime in China: Cultural Consumption, Fandom, and Imagination
2016-17	Prof. Angela X. Wu	Sense-making under China’s Censored Abundance: The Transformation of Political Orientations through Reflexive Media Practices
2015-16	Prof. Sora Kim	Explicating the Role of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Communication in the Process of Organizations’ CSR: Focusing on Chinese Consumers’ Perspectives
2015-16	Prof. Saskia Witteborn	Transit Communication and Forced Migration: A View from Hong Kong
2015-16	Prof. Jack L.C. Qiu	Working-Class Public Spheres: Media and Activism Since “Foxconn Suicide Express”
2015-16	Prof. Hsuan Ting Chen	The Network Agenda Setting Model and Partisan Selective Exposure: Examining The Issue of Universal Suffrage for The Chief Executive Election in Hong Kong
2014-15	Prof. Anthony Y.H. Fung	Produced in China, Consumed in Hong Kong: The Study of Transforming Hong Kong Cultural Identities and Comic Production
2014-15	Prof. Francis L.F. Lee	Media, Public Opinion, and the Dynamics of Political Scandals: A Communicative Event Perspective
2013-14	Prof. Joseph M. Chan	Media, Social Organizations, State, and Social Remembering: Testing the Public Contestation Model of Collective Memory with the Tiananmen Incident in Hong Kong
2013-14	Prof. Michael C.M. Chan	The Use of Social Media for Political and Civic Engagement: A Study of Hong Kong Citizens
2012-13	Prof. Francis L.F. Lee	The Protest Paradigm Revisited: Media Coverage of Contentious Collective Actions in the Movement Society

Direct Grant (Grant from the Chinese University of Hong Kong)

Year	Principal Investigator	Project Title
2024-25	Prof. Hsuan-ting Chen	The Effect of AI Conversational Agents on Enhancing Depression Treatment
2023-24	Prof. Hai Liang	Understanding Coordinated Information Operations through Experiments on a Self-developed Social Media Platform
2023-24	Prof. Saskia Witteborn	Next-generation Technologies and Climate Migration
2023-24	Prof. Kecheng Fang	Using Generative AI for Content Analysis of News Articles: A Pilot Study
2022-23	Prof. Hsuan-ting Chen	Motivation or Algorithm Matters: How Motivation and Nudges Influence News Feed Curation on Algorithmic News Platforms
2022-23	Prof. Hai Liang	How do Newsroom Policies Impact Journalists’ Social Media Practices and Audience Engagement?
2021-22	Prof. Saskia Witteborn	Mobilities in the Metaverse: Socio-technological Imaginaries from Asia
2021-22	Prof. Francis L.F. Lee	Journalistic Risk Management under Political and Legal Uncertainty: The Case of Hong Kong
2021-22	Prof. Lik Sam Chan	Dating across Difference: Demographic, Psychological, and Communicative Characteristics of Individuals Who Are Willing to Date across the Political Divide
2020-21	Prof. Hsuan-ting Chen	The Antecedents and Consequences of Exposure to Fake News and Fact-checking Behaviors
2020-21	Prof. Rolien Hoyng	Modelling Ecology: Climate Uncertainty and Technologies of Speculation
2020-21	Prof. Michael C.M. Chan	That Can’t Be True! Examining Audiences’ Social Media News Authentication Behaviors in the Era of Fake News
2019-20	Prof. Hsuan-ting Chen	Pathways to a Deliberative and Active Citizenry: The Outcomes of Political Disagreement and the Approaching and Avoiding Strategies
2019-20	Prof. Sora Kim	Public Expectations and Online Engagement of Crisis Communication: Focusing on Pandemic Crises
2019-20	Prof. Saskia Witteborn	Migration and Start-up Cultures in Hong Kong
2018-19	Prof. Francis L.F. Lee	Cultural imagination of investment and home-buying under real-estate-centric financialization: A follow-up study
2018-19	Prof. Hai Liang	The Ideological Bias of Perceived Incivility Online: A Survey Experiment in Hong Kong
2018-19	Prof. Sara Xueting Liao	In Bed with Trolls: Online Misogyny in the Aftermath of #MeToo in China
2017-18	Prof. Hsuan Ting Chen	Social Media Use and Deliberative and Participatory Engagement: A Comparative Study of University Students in Hong Kong, Taiwan and China
2017-18	Prof. Christine Y.H. Huang	Revisiting the communicative response model in Mainland China: Multi-case studies of how the Chinese State Media Communicate Food Safety Crises in the World Consumer Rights Day
2017-18	Prof. Francis L.F. Lee	The impact of online incivility on public opinion formation and expression: An online survey experiment
2016-17	Prof. So Jung Kim	Effects of Pre-Crisis and Post-Crisis Corporate Advertising
2016-17	Prof. Francis L.F. Lee	Critical Event and Memory Re-negotiation: Collective Memory about Tiananmen in Hong Kong after the Umbrella Movement
2015-16	Prof. Huang Y.H. Christine	Food and Water in Risk Society: A Content Analysis of Traditional and New Media Reactions to Crisis Communication during Food and Water-Safety Crises
2015-16	Prof. Michael C.M. Chan	Multimodal connectedness, media multiplexity and psychological well-being: A lifespan perspective on the impact of interpersonal communication technologies on quality of life
2014-15	Prof. Hsuan Ting Chen	The use of mobile social media, privacy concerns and democratic engagement: A study of Hong Kong citizens
2014-15	Prof. Christine Y.H. Huang	Towards a Chinese model of crisis communication: Revisiting the applicability of western crisis theories in Mainland China
2014-15	Prof. So Jung Kim	Investigating Consumer Engagement in Social Media Mobile Applications
2014-15	Prof. Angela X. Wu	On the Human-Machine Frontier: The Rise of Data Science Expertise in Digital Capitalism
2013-14	Prof. Hsuan Ting Chen	The role of emotion in individuals’ cognitive process, political attitudes, and political behaviors: A study of political satirical content
2013-14	Prof. Christine Y.H. Huang	Contaminated food, crisis communication, and media response in three Chinese societies
2013-14	Prof. Louis Leung	Linking Telecommuting to Quality of Life : An Investigation of Motivating and Inhibiting Factors for Adoption in Hong Kong
2013-14	Prof. So Jung Kim	Investigating the Effect of Brand Attachment in Crises
2012-13	Prof. Saskia Witteborn	Forced Migrants and ICT in Hong Kong
2012-13	Prof. Michael C.M. Chan	Multiple uses. Diverse effects? The impact of mobile phone usage on social capital and subjective well-being

C-Grant (Grant from the C-Centre)

Year	Principal Investigator	Project Title
2024-25	Prof. Hai Liang	Human-AI Communication: Speaking Like a Human or Machine?
2024-25	Prof. Hsuan-ting Chen	Why Do You Betray Me? The Roles of Human Agents and Social Bots in the Response to In-Group Counter-Attitudinal Opinions in Online Communities
2023-24	Prof. Michael C.M. Chan	Assessing the Transformative Potentials of Young Social Media Influencers on Political Engagement: A Cross-national Analysis
2023-24	Prof. Nishant Shah	In Search of the Digital Author: Author Function in the Age of Generative AI
2023-24	Prof. Tian Yang	Platformization and News Engagement: A Comparative Study
2022-23	Prof. Sora Kim	A Quantitative Review of CSR communication Research in Public Relations from 1980 to 2021: Its Trends, Challenges, and Future Directions
2022-23	Prof. Francis L.F. Lee	Journalistic Risk Management under Political and Legal Uncertainty: The Case of Hong Kong
2022-23	Prof. Jinping Wang	Being Both Fake and Real: Explicating Factors Influencing Perceived Authenticity in Virtual Influencers
2021-22	Prof. Jinping Wang	Understanding Algorithm Awareness in Digital Advertising: A Consumer Perspective
2021-22	Prof. Oliver N.K. Chan	Folk Theories of Algorithms and Content Moderation across Social Media Platforms in Hong Kong
2021-22	Prof. Kecheng Fang	Hyperlocal Journalism in Hong Kong: Journalistic and Civic Resilience through Community Media
2020-21	Prof. Ran Wei	Communicating Environmental Protection via Virtual Reality: An Experiment to Examine Effects of Spatial Presence and Realism on Risk Perceptions of Discarded Face Masks and Intention for Protection in Hong Kong
2020-21	Prof. Clement Y.K. So and Prof. Kecheng Fang	Journalistic Role Performance in Hong Kong: Evaluation and Comparison under International Context
2019-20	Prof. Lik Sam Chan	Political Uses of Dating Apps Among Hong Kong College Students
2019-20	Prof. Kaman Lee	A Study on the Intergenerational Wars in the Families during the Anti-extradition Movement
2019-20	Prof. Kecheng Fang	Mobile Live Streaming in the Media Coverage of the 2019 Hong Kong Protests
2018-19	Prof. Sora Kim	Characteristics of Online Firestorms in Social Media: Comparative Research between China and USA
2017-18	Prof. Michael C.M. Chan	“With our flesh and blood, let us build a new Great Wall!” Does National Anthem Exposure Influence Individuals’ Processing of News?
2017-18	Prof. Hsuan-ting Chen	Media Coverage and Public Opinion on PM2.5 in China: A Networked Agenda-Setting Study
2017-18	Prof. Sara Xueting Liao	The Creative Multitude in Becoming: Women’s Culture of Fashion Imitation in China
2016-17	Prof. Hsuan-ting Chen	Antecedents and consequences of mobile devices as second screen use: A case study of the 2016 Legislative Council Election in Hong Kong
2016-17	Prof. Christine Y.H. Huang	Internet use, dialogic capacity, authoritarian value and their effects on institutional trust
2016-17	Prof. So Jung Kim	An examination of CSR information processing in a crisis
2016-17	Prof. Sora Kim	Public Comment Policies of Online Platforms on Harmful Online Communication: Focusing on China, South Korea, Germany, and the US
2016-17	Prof. Hai Liang	The Impact of Warmth on Altruism
2016-17	Prof. Angela X. Wu	Comparing Web Use Patterns in the Old and New Internet Worlds: Demographic Profiles of Chinese and American Internet Traffic
2015-16	Prof. Donna Chu	A Bachelor’s Dream: The Facts and Fictions of a Chinese Reality Show
2015-16	Prof. Christine Y.H. Huang	Relationship Orientation of Chinese Netizens – An Online Survey Study of the Dual-Factor Relational Model among University Students in Mainland China
2015-16	Prof. Kim So Jung	Shopping Motivation and Social Commerce Behavior
2015-16	Prof. Lokman Tsui	Do We Have The Right to Access Our Own Information? The collection, retention, disclosure and use of personal data under the Personal Data Privacy Ordinance in Hong Kong
2014-15	Prof. Michael C.M. Chan	The role of ethnic identification in the linguistic intergroup bias: Examining how stereotypical attitudes towards Mainland Chinese by Hong Kongers are manifested through language
2014-15	Prof. So Jung Kim	Investigating Antecedents and Consequences of Korean Wave
2014-15	Prof. Angela X. Wu	The Rise of the Global South on the World Wide Web: Bridging Internet Policies and Web User Behavior
2012-13	Prof. Christine Y.H. Huang	National Work, Life & Gender
2012-13	Prof. Francis L.F. Lee	Comparative Research on Social Media Usage and Civic Engagement
2012-13	Prof. Annisa C.H. Lee Lai	Compare Development Strategies for Creative Industries in Singapore and Hong Kong
2012-13	Prof. Louis Leung	Predicting Smartphone Addiction: A Comparative Study of Procrastination, Leisure Boredom, Impulsivity, and Personality among University Students in China, Hong Kong and Singapore