Dr. Xinzhi ZHANG

My research areas include political communication, health communication, digital journalism, and computational social science. I study people’s communication on social media on politics and public health; and how emerging technologies—especially platforms and algorithms—are changing how media contents are produced and distributed to audiences.

I have published numerous articles in top-tier journals such as Journal of Communication, Computers in Human Behavior, Journalism, Social Science Computer Review, Health Communication, Digital Journalism, Journalism Practice, and International Journal of Communication.

I was awarded two research grants from the General Research Fund (GRF) by the University Grants Committee (UGC), the Hong Kong SAR, a prestigious internationally competitive funding scheme (2019 and 2020, respectively). I have completed a project funded by the Public Policy Research Funding Scheme (PPR) from the Policy Innovation and Co-ordination Office (PICO) of the Hong Kong SAR Government (2022).

I have been appointed as the founding Programme Director of Master of Science in AI and Digital Media (2019 - Present), a pioneering postgraduate programme of its kind in Hong Kong. I was also one of the founding members—and later was appointed as the Programme Director—of Data and Media Communication Concentration (2017 - 19), the first interdisciplinary undergraduate concentration in Hong Kong, focusing on data-driven storytelling and computational journalism.

I am an Editorial Board Member of Digital Journalism, a leading journal in digital journalism studies and computational social science.

I am the recipient of HKBU’s Performance Award as Young Researcher (2021). I also received the HKBU’'s Performance Award in Teaching (2022).