Research

My research focuses on political communication, digital media, and authoritarian politics. I use experimental and computational methods with large-scale datasets on political activity to answer questions about the role of digital media in authoritarian and democratic politics, including how political censorship, propaganda, and information manipulation work in the digital age and how preferences and behaviors are shaped as a result.

Publications

Pan, Jennifer, Xu Xu, and Yiqing Xu. 2024.” Disguised Repression: Targeting Opponents with Non-Political Crimes to Undermine Dissent.” Journal of Politics, Forthcoming.

Fan, Yingjie, Pan, Jennifer, and Tongtong Zhang. 2024. “Gender and Political Compliance Under Authoritarian Rule.” Comparative Political Studies, Forthcoming. (PDF, Appendix, Replication)

Dahlke, Ross and Jennifer Pan. 2024. “January 6 Arrests and Media Coverage do not Remobilize Conservatives on Social Media.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 121(23). (PDF, Appendix, Replication)

DeButts, Matt and Jennifer Pan. 2024. “Reporting after Removal: The Effects of Journalist Expulsion on Foreign News Coverage.” Journal of Communication 74(4):273-286. (PDF, Replication)

DeButts, Matt, and Pan, Jennifer. 2024 “China’s internet controls: What if citizens disengage?” Communication and the Public, Forthcoming. (PDF)

with Allcott, Hunt and Matthew Gentzkow. 2024. “The Effects of Facebook and Instagram on the 2020 Election: A Deactivation Experiment.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 121(21). (Link, Replication)

Appel, Ruth E., Jennifer Pan, Margaret E. Roberts. 2023. “Partisan conflict over content moderation is more than disagreement about facts.” Science Advances 9(44). (PDF, Appendix, Replication)

Guess, A., Neil Malhotra, Jennifer Pan, Pablo Barbera, et al. 2023. “How do Social Media Feed Algorithms Affect Attitudes and Behavior in an Election Campaign?” Science 381(6656):398-404. (Link, Replication)

Guess, A., Neil Malhotra, Jennifer Pan, Pablo Barbera, et al. 2023. “Reshares on Social Media Amplify Political News but Do Not Detectably Affect Beliefs or Opinions” Science 381(6656):404-408. (Link, Replication)

with González-Bailón, Sandra and David Lazer. 2023. “Asymmetric ideological segregation in exposure to political news on Facebook.” Science 381(6656):392-398. (Link, Replication)

with Nyhan, Brandon, Jamie Settle, Emily Thorson, Magdalena Wojcieszak. 2023. “Like-minded sources on Facebook are prevalent but not polarizing.” Nature 620(7972):137-144. (Link, Replication)

Fan, Yingjie, Jennifer Pan, and Jaymee Sheng. 2023. “Strategies of Chinese State Media on Twitter.” Political Communication 41(1): 4-25. (PDF, Appendix, Replication)

Lu, Yingdan, Jack Schaefer, Kunwoo Park, Jungseock Joo, and Jennifer Pan. 2022. “How Information Flows from the World to China.” The International Journal of Press/Politics 29(2): 305-327. (PDF, Appendix, Replication)

Earl, Jennifer, Maher, Thomas V. Jennifer Pan. 2022. “The Digital Repression of Social Movements, Protest, and Activism: A Synthetic Review.” Science Advances 8(10): 1-15. (PDF)

Muise, Dan, Lu, Yingdan, Pan, Jennifer, Byron Reeves. 2022. “Homogenized and Localized: A Comparison of Moment-by-Moment Smartphone Usage Patterns in Diverse Contexts.” Mobile Media & Communication 10(3): 487-509. (PDF)

Lu, Yingdan and Jennifer Pan. 2021. “The Pervasive Presence of Chinese Government Content on Douyin Trending Videos.” Computational Communication Research 4(1): 68–98. (PDF, Replication)

Pan, Jennifer and Tongtong Zhang. 2021. “Does Ideology Influence Hiring in China? Evidence from Two Randomized Experiments.’’ Political Science Research and Methods 11(1): 63-79. (PDF, Appendix, Replication)

Pan, Jennifer, Shao, Zijie, Yiqing Xu. 2021. “How Government-Controlled Media Shifts Policy Attitudes through Framing.” Political Science Research and Methods 10(2): 317-332. (PDF, Appendix, Replication)

Lu, Yingdan, Pan, Jennifer, Yiqing Xu. 2021. “Public Sentiment on Chinese Social Media during the Emergence of COVID19.” Journal of Quantitative Description: Digital Media 1. (PDF, Replication)

Pan, Jennifer. 2021. “Experiments on Political Activity Governments Want to Keep Hidden.” In Advances in Experimental Political Science, edited by James N. Druckman and Donald P. Green. New York: Cambridge University Press. (Amazon, Google Books Preview)

Lu, Yingdan and Jennifer Pan. 2020. “Capturing Clicks: How the Chinese Government Uses Clickbait to Compete for Visibility.” Political Communication 38(1-2): 23-54. (PDF, Appendix, Replication)

Pan, Jennifer and Alexandra A. Siegel. 2020. “How Saudi Crackdowns Fail to Silence Online Dissent.” American Political Science Review 114: 109-125. (PDF, Appendix, Replication)

Pan, Jennifer and Margaret E. Roberts. 2020. “Censorship’s Effect on Incidental Exposure to Information: Evidence from Wikipedia.” SAGE Open January-March 2020: 1-14. (PDF)

Hilbert, Martin, George Barnett, Joshua Blumenstock, Noshir Contractor, Jana Diesner, Seth Frey, Sandra Gonzlez-Bailon, PJ Lamberson, Jennifer Pan, Tai-Quan Peng, Cuihua (Cindy) Shen, Paul E. Smaldino, Wouter van Atteveldt, Annie Waldherr, Jingwen Zhang, Jonathan J. H. Zhu. 2019. “Computational Communication Science: A Methodological Catalyzer for a Maturing Discipline.” International Journal of Communication 13: 23. (PDF)

Han, Zhang and Jennifer Pan. 2019. “CASM: A Deep-Learning Approach for Identifying Collective Action Events with Text and Image Data from Social Media” Sociological Methodology 49(1): 1-57. (PDF, Appendix, CASM Dataset)

Reeves, Byron, Nilam Ram, Thomas N. Robinson, James J. Cummings, C. Lee Giles, Jennifer Pan, Angese Chiatti et al. Forthcoming. “Screenomics: A Framework to Capture and Analyze Personal Life Experiences and the Ways That Technology Shapes Them.” Human Computer Interaction. 2019. (PDF)

Pan, Jennifer. 2019. “How Chinese Officials Use the Internet to Construct their Public Image.” Political Science Research and Methods 7(2): 197-213. (PDF, Appendix, Replication)

Muise, Daniel and Jennifer Pan. 2019. “Online Field Experiments.” Asian Journal of Communication 29(3): 217-234. (PDF)

Pan, Jennifer and Kaiping Chen. 2018. “Concealing Corruption: How Chinese Officials Distort Upward Reporting of Online Grievances.” American Political Science Review 112(3): 602-620. (PDF, Appendix, Replication)

Field, Anjalie, Doron Kliger, Shuly Wintner, Jennifer Pan, Dan Jurafsky, and Yulia Tsvetkov. 2018. “Framing and Agenda-setting in Russian News: a Computational Analysis of Intricate Political Strategies.” EMNLP 2018. (PDF)

Pan, Jennifer and Yiqing Xu. 2018. “China’s Ideological Spectrum.” The Journal of Politics 80(1): 254-273. (PDF, Appendix, Replication)

Jaros, Kyle and Jennifer Pan. 2018. “China’s Newsmakers: How Media Power is Shifting in the Xi Jinping Era.” The China Quarterly 233: 111-136. (PDF, Appendix)

King, Gary, Jennifeer Pan, and Margaret E. Roberts. 2017. “How the Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction, not Engaged Argument.” American Political Science Review 111(3): 484-501. 2017. (PDF, Replication)

Pan, Jennifer. 2017. “How Market Dynamics of Domestic and Foreign Social Media Firms Shape Strategies of Internet Censorship.” Problems of Post-Communism 64(3-4): 167-188. (PDF, Replication)

Meng, Tianguang, Jennifer Pan, and Ping Yang. 2017. “Conditional Receptivity to Citizen Participation: Evidence from a Survey Experiment in China.” Comparative Political Studies 50(4): 399–433. (PDF, Replication)

Chen, Jidong; Pan, Jennifer; and Yiqing Xu. 2016. “Sources of Authoritarian Responsiveness: A Field Experiment in China.” American Journal of Political Science 60(2): 383-400. (PDF, Replication)

Monroe, Burt L., Jennifer Pan, Margaret E. Roberts, Maya Sen, and Betsy Sinclair. 2015. “No! Formal Theory, Causal Inference, and Big Data Are Not Contradictory Trends in Political Science.” PS: Political Science and Politics. (PDF)

King, Gary, Jennifere Pan, and Margaret E. Roberts. 2014. “Reverse-engineering Censorship in China: Randomized Experimentation and Participant Observation.” Science 345, no. 6199: 1-10. (PDF, Supplement, Summary, Replication)

King, Gary, Jennifer Pan, and Margaret E. Roberts. 2013. “How Censorship in China Allows Government Criticism but Silences Collective Expression.” American Political Science Review 107(2): 1-18. (PDF, Replication)

Zhang, Fujie, Hsu, Michael, Yu, Lan, Wen, Yi, Tuo, Jia, Zhang, Ruijuan, and Jennifer Pan. 2006. “Initiation of the National Free ART Program in Rural China,” in Joan Kaufman, Arthur Kleinman, and Tony Saich, eds. Social Policies and HIV/AIDS in China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 96-124. (PDF)

Zhang, Fujie, Jennifer Pan, Lan Yu, Yi Wen, Ye Ma, and Yan Zhao. 2005. “Current Progress of China’s Free ART Program.” Cell Research. 15(11-12): 877-882. (Link)

Zhang, Fujie, Yi Wen, Lan Yu, Ye Ma, Jennifer Pan, and Yan Zhao. 2005. “Antiretroviral Therapy for HIV/AIDS and Current Situation of China Free ARV Program.” Science and Technology Review 7(23): 24-29. (Link)