The future of media research resides at Grady College

Studio Not Found

Studio Not Found is a podcast studio acoustically designed for producing podcasts with some of the latest sound equipment. Grady Research Radio is one of many podcasts produced in the studio, in which faculty and students discuss Grady emerging research and expertise.

Brain, Body and Media Lab

Founded in 2020, the Brain Body and Media (BBAM) Lab provides space and tools for researchers to study psychophysiological responses to media and messages. Subjects are outfitted with electrodes to monitor heart rate, facial movements, and electrodermal activity, which tracks the sweat glands in the hands.

Center for Advanced Computer-Human Ecosystems

The Center for Advanced Computer-Human Ecosystems (CACHE) is one of the few research labs in the world with comprehensive in-house production capabilities for sophisticated virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed-reality experiences.

Center for Advanced Computer-Human Ecosystems

Through the CACHE Center, researchers use VR and MR to create virtual experiences, such as communicating risk to vulnerable populations, stimulating physical activity among at-risk children, analyzing advertisement persuasiveness, influencing environmental awareness and sustainability, and others.

Social Media Engagement and Evaluation Suite

The Social Media Engagement and Evaluation (SEE) Suite is designed to train students to analyze cross-platform social media data, engagement, and identify actionable insights. It serves as both a place for students to hone their media research skills and a hub for working with professional partners on related projects.

SEE Suite

Located on the first floor of Grady, the SEE Suite is equipped with 20 computer stations, two social media data screens, two cable news screens, and a large center table to transform the lab into a “social media war room.” The facility uses Brandwatch software for social media listening.

Digital Media and Cognition Lab

The Digital Media and Cognition (DMAC) Lab is dedicated to studying human behavior while processing media. Using eye-tracking and facial expression analysis, the user-centered design allows researchers to address the role content and information design play in shaping users’ attention, viewing or reading behavior, understanding, attitudes, and perceptions of the information’s accuracy.

For over 100 years, the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication has served as a destination for students building careers in journalism, media, advertising, public relations, and more.

In recent years, the college has added new facilities to help researchers investigate how people process information and messages, the effects of virtual reality immersion, and the use of social media platforms to send and find information.

Grady College faculty and graduate students contribute to understanding of media and mass communication effects and related areas by using new technologies and approaches, including psychophysiological measures to understand the cognitive and emotional processes underlying how people attend and respond to media messages.

Recent work, for example, uses psychophysiological response measurements and eye-tracking to investigate whether viewing body-worn camera videos of violent police-citizen interactions (compared to onlooker videos of similar interactions) results in racially biased responses in assessment of police and citizen culpability.

“The research labs and facilities are an essential part of our success on many fronts,” said Glen Nowak, associate dean for research and graduate studies in Grady. “They enable our faculty and graduate students to conduct timely and impactful research about how people pay attention to and understand information from different sources. They also enable us to help our students be well prepared for jobs in today’s complex media environment.”

Many Grady College labs are used for interdisciplinary research across the UGA campus. The Center for Advanced Computer-Human Ecosystems (CACHE), for example, is operated as a joint lab with UGA’s colleges of Engineering and Public Health.

The CACHE lab features some of the latest virtual reality technology and can allow up to 15 participants to conduct different studies simultaneously. The Qualitative Research Lab serves as a space for undergraduate and graduate students to work on qualitative research using top of the line analysis software.

Both the Digital Media Attention and Cognition (DMAC) and the Brain, Body, and Media (BBAM) labs study how individuals process media. However, the two differ by how they measure bodily responses: the DMAC Lab uses eye-tracking technology, while the BBAM Lab measures heart rate, movement of facial muscles on the forehead or around the eyes, and electrodermal activity—sweat glands—on the hands.

Learn more about the Grady facilities in the photo essay above and on the college’s website.

Editor’s Note: The feature above originally appeared on Research.uga.edu.

Author: Olivia Randall, UGA Research, olivia.randall@uga.edu