It has been another incredibly busy year on the forty acres at UT – loads of students to teach, lots of research to conduct, and of course many administrative duties that need attention. Hence, I have not had much time to stay updated with my posts here :).

The most exciting thing I was able to participate in at UT this year was the Aspiring Leaders Academy offered through the Provost’s Faculty Development Office. This program was designed to teach aspiring leaders about management frameworks, dealing with the academic environment, handling difficult people and situations, as well as time management and work-life balance. It was an amazing program and I was able to meet 14 new friends in my cohort who provide valuable connections across our vast campus network. We all completed the program and graduated on April 19.

Beyond the leadership academy, here are the research projects that I had the pleasure of publishing with my doctoral students and research partners this year:

Published Journal Articles …

Iyer, Pooja, and Laura F. Bright (2024 – In press), “Navigating a Paradigm Shift: Technology and User Acceptance of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence Among Advertising and Marketing Practitioners,” Journal of Business Research, Accepted April 27, 2024.

Alavi, Setareh, Pooja Iyer, and Laura F. Bright (2024 – In press), “Algorithmic Awareness and Advertising: Implications for Consumers and Brands,” Journal of Digital and Social Media Marketing, Accepted March 15, 2024.

Sussman, Kristen, JoAnn Sciarrino, Gary B. Wilcox, and Laura F. Bright (2024 – In press), “Audience Response to Brand Activism: An Alignment Evaluation Framework,” Journal of Brand Strategy, Accepted December 15, 2023.

Published Book Chapter …

Sussman, Kristen, Jiemin Looi, Laura F. Bright, and Gary B. Wilcox (2024), “How Does Fear Drive the News of the Day? Examining Topic Salience During Trump’s Transition of Power,” In The Darker Side of Social Media: Consumer Psychology and Mental Health, Scheinbaum, A.C. (Ed.), London: Routledge/Psychology Press. ISBN: 9781032530680
DOI: 10.4324/9781003410058.

Upcoming Conferences …

Lee, Jihye, Laura F. Bright, Hyunji Kim, and Mikayla Francisco (2024), “Data for good in advertising? A computational analysis of social media advertisements for U.S. public benefits programs,” International Communication Association Annual Conference, Gold Coast, Australia, June 20 – 24.

Fun press mentions …

Saric, Ivana (2023), “Why TikTok retains is popularity, despite users having security concerns,” Axios, https://www.axios.com/2023/07/13/tiktok-popularity-national-security-threat, published July 13, 2023.

Kaur, Anumita, and Maham Javaid (2023), “Download. Scroll. Post. Repeat. New social media apps are exhausting us.”, Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/07/07/social-media-platforms-threads-twitter-fatigue/, published July 7, 2023.

Moore, Megan (2024), “Matthew McConaughey’s commercial experience landed him a unique teaching gig,” The List, https://www.thelist.com/1493514/matthew-mcconaughey-teaching-commercial-class/, published January 17, 2024.

It will be nice to welcome the Summer this year as it will include lots of transitions to new roles within my department, different research topics to tackle, and a new course to prepare for Summer school.

Off we go!

This whirlwind of a semester has come to a close and Summer vibes are floating through the halls at UT … students are gone, offices are empty, and the hallways are quiet. As we head into Summer hibernation mode, I wanted to share some of the fun projects I have been working on this semester with some fabulous PhD students and colleagues at UT …

Latest Journal Publications …

• Hendricks, Abby, and Laura F. Bright (2023), “Influencer Trends Shift: The Psychological Predictors of Influencer Engagement on Instagram,” Journal of Social Media in Society, Vol 12(1), pgs. TBD.
• Jang, Haneul, Eunjoo Jin, Laura F. Bright, and Gary B. Wilcox (2023), “#Sponsored by a Robot?: How the Human-Likeness of Virtual Influencers Influences Purchase Intentions Toward Sponsored Products,” Journal of AI, Robotics & Workplace Automation, Vol. 2(4), pgs. TBD.
• Sussman, Kristen L., Lindsay Bouchacourt, Laura F. Bright, Gary B. Wilcox, Michael Mackert, Aliza Norwood, and Brandon Altillo (2023), “COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitation on Social Platforms: A Textual Analysis of Social Media Mentions in 2020,” Digital Health, DOI: 10.2196/preprints.29569.
• Sussman, Kristen L., Laura F. Bright, and Gary B. Wilcox (2022), “Impact of Facebook’s automated placements: Advertising outcomes by placement, platform, and device,” Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, DOI: 10.1108/JRIM-10-2021-0265.
• Lim, Hyun Joo, Laura F. Bright, and Gary B. Wilcox (2022), “Is Repetition Really the Key to Success? The Impact of Ad Repetition and The Power of “Likes” on Facebook,” Journal of Interactive Advertising, DOI: 10.1080/15252019.2022.2106327.

Upcoming Conference Presentations …

• Iyer, Pooja, and Laura F. Bright (2023), “Transformation of the Advertising Industry: Big Data and AI make a case for revised Advertising Curriculum,” Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Annual Conference, Washington D.C., August 7 – 10.
• Alavi, Setareh, and Laura F. Bright (2023), “Navigating the Negative Impact of Algorithmic Mediascapes on Advertising: Exploring the Impact of Social Media Fatigue, Privacy Concerns, and Algorithmic Media Content Awareness on Advertising Avoidance,” International Conference on Research in Advertising, Bordeaux, France, June 29 – July 1.
• Ghosh, Charulata, and Laura F. Bright (2023), “Examining the relationship between consumers’ self-disclosure and digital advertising on Facebook post Cambridge Analytica,” International Conference on Research in Advertising, Bordeaux, France, June 29 – July 1.

Excited to see what the next few months bring with new research projects percolating and making a shift into some emerging topic areas for my first author work. And, you can’t beat a Summer trip to France for an academic conference – off we go!

This semester I have the extremely unique opportunity to co-teach with our UT Minister of Culture, Matthew McConaughey, and another film professor, Scott Rice from Two Shot West Productions here in Austin, Texas. The course does a critical analysis of all of Matthew’s commercial work including Salesforce, Lincoln, and Wild Turkey. There is a great deal of experiential learning happening with in-person visits from the Salesforce creative team, commercial directors, and creative professionals from the advertising and film industries. Students deconstruct the creative process behind each of these brands and then get to learn from the creators themselves about how it all came together for the chosen campaign. The picture below is from a recent class where we interviewed the Salesforce creative team to teach the students about how the commercial for “The March” was created. A wonderful learning experience all around – with special thanks to the student film crew who produced the whole show!

Salesforce Creative Strategy Head, Darren-Brady Harris, joining us for class in February 2023.

Excited to share that two of my top doctoral students had their work accepted to the International Communication Association Annual Conference happening this May in Toronto, Canada – very cool topics and interesting work that we have been chipping away at for the past six months or so:

• Safoui, Asma, Matthew S. Eastin, and Laura F. Bright (2023), “Failure to Notice or Noticing the Failure”: Defining the Social Contract Literacy, a Novel Approach to Understanding Users’ Literacy of Digital Contracts,” International Communication Association Annual Conference, Toronto, Canada, May 25 – 28.
• Li, Stan, Matthew S. Eastin, and Laura F. Bright (2023), “Rome Wasn’t Watched in a Day”: Influence of Sequential TV Binge-Watching and Playback Speed on the Effectiveness of Advertising and Product Placements,” International Communication Association Annual Conference, Toronto, Canada, May 25 – 28.

Also, finally punched my bingo card for most authors on a paper ever for a piece that is the first to come out of the grant work I have been doing with the Center for Health Communication at UT Austin – more to come on this as we continue the campaign:

• Mackert, Michael, Erin Donovan, Daniela De Luca, Haley Nolan, Audrey Shaffer, Weijia Shi, Karly Quaack, Jiahua Yang, Tracy Arrington, Jakki Bailey, Kaitlin Berns, Laura F. Bright, Catherine Cunningham, Lisa Dobias, Qinyan Gao, Lori Holleran, Mazmu Islam, Susan Kirtz, Ashley McDonald, Stephanie Menhart, Amaya Ngo, Sean Upshaw, Carmen Valdez, Jessica Wagner, Joy Woods (2023), “Developing a Health Campaign for Substance Use Prevention and Mental Health Awareness: Lessons Learned from a Large Mixed-Methods Project in the State of Texas,” International Communication Association Annual Conference, Toronto, Canada, May 25 – 28.

It is going to be another fun semester on the 40 acres – Hook ’em Horns :).

A few fun new publications from work completed with our fabulous grad students over the last year or so …

Anderson, Joshua, Lindsay Bouchacourt, Kristen L. Sussman, Laura F. Bright, and Gary Wilcox (In press – 2022), “Emerging Themes in Telemedicine Amidst a Pandemic: Social Media Textual Analysis,” Digital Health, DOI: 20552076221090041.

Bright, Laura F., Kelty Logan, and Hayoung Sally Lim (In press – 2022), “Social Media Fatigue and Privacy: An Exploration of Antecedents to Consumers’ Concerns Regarding the Security of their Personal Information on Social Media Platforms,” Journal of Interactive Advertising, DOI: 15252019.2022.2051097.

And, some new work showing up at AEJMC and NCA this Fall …

Hendricks, Abby, and Laura F. Bright (2022), “Influencer Trends Shift: The predictors of influencer engagement on Instagram,” Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Annual Conference, Detroit, MI, August 4 – 7.

Acaf, Yara, Lucy Atkinson, and Laura F. Bright (2022), “Celebrity Advocacy of Environmental Causes: The Impact of Credibility and Existing Beliefs on People’s Attitudes and Behaviors,” National Communication Association Annual Conference, New Orleans, Louisiana, November 17 – 20.

More coming soon in Fall 2022.