By Lenore Devore, B.S. Journalism, 1984
Yu-Hao Lee, an associate professor in the Media Production, Management, and Technology Department, started his career working at a magazine in Taiwan. But after four years he was burned out, realizing he yearned to do research and find innovative ways of telling complex stories.
“I was successful; I won several awards. But I was upset about journalists making very complex issues simple, dumbing them down. I like complexity,” said Lee, who received the College’s Outstanding Doctoral Mentor Award in 2024. “I like to think about all the moving parts and how they interact with one another.”
Lee, who also is director of research for the Center for Public Interest Communications, gravitated toward studying immersive interactive technology like video games and virtual reality. “There are a lot of things going on, and in order to do well you have to learn how all the pieces come together,” he said.
Unlike many technology scholars, he’s not interested so much in the technology itself but more about how humans react to changes in technology. He uses his social science training across sociology economics in his research, which helps him address diverse issues in his work at the Center.
The ability to do research and test the theories in practice attracted him to CJC.
“The emphasis here is not only on research but also on practice. We have a very strong tradition of training media professionals. I think this is the perfect place to experiment with these ideas,” Lee said. “I want to do solid, rigorous research but also see how they play out in practice. That balance between theory, research and practice, and professional training here allows me to work with people who have different expertise and also test a lot of these ideas.”
For example, in mid-2023, Lee and collaborator Tammy Lin, a professor in Taiwan, proposed a project to Meta (formerly Facebook) to study cross-cultural communication in the metaverse.
“Meta has been investing a lot of money in building the vision and hardware for the metaverse. Because they envision this as a world where people from different backgrounds, ages and cultures come together, there will be a lot of conflict between different cultural norms. For example, how closely people stand with each other. There are some body gestures like hugging that could be signs of affection in one culture but in another it’s violating one's space. For these tech companies, it’s very important for them to detect signs of discomfort and build ways to make people feel comfortable.”
They conducted several studies using Meta Horizon, an online virtual reality game with an integrated game creation system.
“One feature that we looked into was facial expression and other non-verbal expressions to see how different cultures responded to the existence or absence of these cues,” Lee said. “What we found is there is a huge difference in how different cultures perceive these non-verbal cues. Asian cultures are more collectivists so norms dictate a lot of the interactions. The lack of norms and expressions make Asians in the metaverse really uncomfortable whereas Western culture is more explicit. People here would say, ‘Oh, that’s hilarious,’ something Asians would never say. If it’s hilarious, you can see from my smile or my eyes. I don’t need to say that’s hilarious.”
They presented their findings at Meta Connect 2024, an event where Meta introduces new technologies, and it was “very well received,” Lee said. “It was a study that has gained some traction.”
He’s also studied virtual reality and the emotion of awe. “Awe is an emotion when we’re in the middle of something great or unfathomable like the eclipse earlier this year,” he said. “It’s much greater than ourselves and that’s out of the ordinary. Awe makes us calibrate our role in the world by making us feel small but also changing our perspective about ourselves. When we experience awe with others, we tend to feel more connected. A lot of studies show experiencing awe can make people more prosocial and more humble.”
“In a virtual environment like video games, we are constantly experiencing what psychologists call supernatural awe that has traditionally been studied in the context of religious miracles.” Technology can create miracles every day, he said. So his two studies were designed to see whether supernatural awe differs from natural awe.
“What we found is both types of awe make people feel smaller and more connected. Feeling small made people want to improve themselves. I think there’s a pretty strong implication there where experiencing this positive content in media can have positive outcomes,” he said.
As Center for Public Interest Communications research director, he works with non-profit clients, as well as graduate students, to apply research to their communication issues. “Usually, clients have one of two types of requests: they need training or they have a communication problem they are trying to solve or an issue they are trying to communicate more effectively.”
He works graduate students and partners to determine which issues they have the expertise to try to solve. “We work on issues like affordable housing, basic income policies, communicating health information to rural communities and how to build trust in institutions, foundations and organizations.”
“It’s very different but I find it rewarding – these are actual issues these clients have and they are coming to us for solutions. Through our research, we can provide direction and possibly solutions they can then take and implement in their work and help people they are serving to make society a better place. It’s an area that’s often overlooked in communication research.”
For example, in a partnership with UpTogether, a national organization that’s trying to find policy solutions to poverty, the Center helped with communications to gain support for guaranteed basic income. That income program is based on everyone getting the same amount of money to do whatever they want with – no strings attached.
“We believe that people, when given choices, will use the money for whatever serves them the most,” Lee said.
But it’s a liberal idea that conservatives have pushed back on, so UpTogether asked for help to better communicate the idea across the political spectrum.
He’s grateful the work at the Center allows him “to combine and test some of the ideas we have in communications and psychology in the real world to solve problems.”
