Doctor of Philosophy
Journalism & Media
The University of Texas at Austin
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Faculty
Faculty
Gyo Hyun Koo, Ph.D. ( she/her/hers)
Assistant Professor
Department/Office
- Communication Culture & Media Studies
School/College
- School of Communications
Biography
Gyo “Hyun” Koo, Ph.D. (The University of Texas at Austin) is an assistant professor at Howard University’s Department of Communication, Culture and Media Studies (CCMS).
Her research investigates the role of communication technologies and journalistic practices in shaping individuals’ knowledge, perceptions, and behavior, with particular emphasis on their effects on democracy, science, and public health.
In her research, she employs experimental and computational methods to examine how information technologies and their affordances, as well as the individuals who design and use them, shape people’s perceptions of other citizens and their beliefs about and dissemination of mis/disinformation. Her work also investigates how platform governance and content moderation policies influence online engagement. She designs interventions to support sustainable and culturally responsible media environments that promote constructive newsroom practices, correct public misperceptions, and advance news literacy.
She has received the Mass Communication and Society Research Award from AEJMC and the Gene Burd Urban Journalism Research Grant and has earned multiple Top Paper Awards from AEJMC.
She teaches Political Communication & Public Opinion, Computational Methods & Data Science, Ethical Issues in Communication, Technology & Health Communication, and Communication Theories & Research Foundation.
Education & Expertise
Education
Expertise
AI, Communication Technology and Social Media
Political Communication and Public Opinion
Health Communication
Computational and Experimental Methods
Academics
Academics
Computational Methods and Data Science
Communication Theory & Research Foundations
Technology & Health Communication
Political Communication and Public Opinion
Health Communication Seminar
Ethical Issues in Communication
Research
Research
Funding
Mass Communication & Society Faculty Research Award ($10,000)
Project: “Culture-Centered Strategies for Misinformation Intervention: Advancing Authentic Communication Across Racial/Ethnic Communities.”
- Grantee, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. (2025)
Gene Burd Grant for Research in Urban Journalism Studies ($2,500)
Project: “Promoting Inclusive Narratives: Enhancing Community-Driven Journalism in Reporting Urban Youth Crime.”
- Grantee, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. (2024)
Accomplishments
Accomplishments
Mass Communication & Society Faculty Research, 2025
Project: “Culture-Centered Strategies for Misinformation Intervention: Advancing Authentic Communication Across Racial/Ethnic Communities.”
- Grantee, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. (2025), $10,000
Gene Burd Grant for Research in Urban Journalism Studies, 2024
Project: “Promoting Inclusive Narratives: Enhancing Community-Driven Journalism in Reporting Urban Youth Crime.”
- Grantee, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. (2024), $2,500
Featured News
Featured News
Read: The Hilltop | “Rage Bait” Is Making Users Mad And Content Creators Money
Publications and Presentations
Publications and Presentations
Representing Public Opinion
Representing Public Opinion: Examining Ideological Extremity and Incivility in News Exemplifications
Exemplifications in news coverage can bring vivid and diverse perspectives to a story, yet they also raise concerns about accuracy and the potential misrepresentation of public opinion. This study explores the representation of opinions on highly contested social issues across the ideological spectrum and assesses the civility of viewpoints conveyed through news exemplifications. Grounded in the political economy of the media framework, this study analyzes how news outlets diverge in their use of extreme and uncivil exemplifications according to their political bias and reliability.
Different Country, Different Truth?
Despite recent shifts in support from major digital platforms, fact-checking journalism has been expanding globally over the past decade. However, little is known about how fact-checking varies across countries with different media systems and cultures. Taking a cross-national comparative approach, we explore how different political and media environments shape the fact-checking content. This study employs content analysis and statistical testing for group comparisons to analyze fact-checking journalism during the COVID-19 pandemic across five countries: China, Israel, India, Russia, and the U.S.
Solutions-oriented Framing and Responsibility Attribution in Urban Youth Crime
The Washington, D.C. mayor's November 2023 declaration of youth violence as a public emergency has sparked growing public concerns and intensified media attention. In 2025, President Donald Trump called to “fight crime in D.C.,” further drawing attention to the issue. This study aims to explore the role of solutions-oriented news framing and its “reason-giving” function in shaping effective policy efforts to curb urban youth crime. It examines how solutions-oriented versus problem-oriented news stories, along with societal versus individual-responsibility framing, influence policy preferences while shaping emotions and perceptions of social inequality.
The consequences of “The Bird is Free”
This research uses Twitter discourse about LGBTQIA+ people as a case study to investigate how changes in social media platform management and policies affect conversations about marginalized communities in digital spaces. We examine Twitter discourse before and after Elon Musk’s acquisition and the immediate dismantling of content moderation efforts to identify changes in aversiveness in conversations about LGBTQIA+ people and users’ engagement with such content.
Defining and Validating News Skepticism
This study explores the role of news skepticism in countering misinformation beliefs and skepticism’s connection to greater news literacy. We specifically test two types of misinformation: political and COVID-19. Using an online survey (N = 1,003), we establish that news skepticism, news cynicism, and news trust are separate constructs. We then test the role of these constructs in shaping misinformation beliefs and their linkage to news literacy, as measured by news knowledge. Our findings show that people with greater news knowledge tend to have greater news skepticism but lower news cynicism. While people with greater news cynicism are more likely to believe in misinformation, there was no significant relationship between news skepticism and misinformation beliefs. These results suggest that efforts to reduce news cynicism may be an effective strategy in combating misinformation.