Chris Chao Su

Chris Chao Su’s research focuses on media audiences online, social media analytics, and mobile media use and consumption. He uses computational methods to explore how media audiences take shape in an increasingly fragmented digital media environment. He is also the East Asia Studies Career Development Professor and a faculty fellow at Boston University’s Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences. Before joining Boston University, Dr. Su had been a postdoctoral researcher at University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

His work draws upon social network analysis and media sociology and typically involves the analysis of data from audience measurement services. Specifically, his approach to measuring digital media use relies on passively measured behavioral data for a more accurate picture of media consumption and includes an expansive range of media products to construct a holistic account of the digital media environment. His previous work also examines the diverse effects of media affordance, with respect to the relationship between social media use and political behaviors.

Dr. Su’s work has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals such as Journal of Communication, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Digital Journalism, and New Media & Society. He won many awards for his scholarship, including the Michael Pfau Outstanding Article Award and the top student/faculty papers (ICA, AEJMC, NCA, CCA).

He believes in the power of empirical investigation, interpretive approach, and comparative perspective in data exploration.

I enjoy working with students who are interested in computational social science and interdisciplinary research.

Chris Chao Su