Seungahn Nah will join the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications (UFCJC) this fall as the inaugural Dianne Snedaker Chair in Media Trust and Research Director for the Consortium on Trust in Media and Technology (CTMT).

The Chair in Media Trust is funded through an endowment by UFCJC alumna Dianne Snedaker, B.S. Advertising 1970 and Hall of Fame 1991. Snedaker, now retired, is former Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of First Republic Bank in San Francisco and former President of Ketchum Advertising.

Nah is currently a journalism and media studies professor at the University of Oregon’s (UO) School of Journalism and Communication, where he directs the Digital Media and Civic Engagement Project and previously served as the Associate Dean for Graduate Affairs and Research. Prior to joining UO in 2017, he was Associate Professor of Communication and Associate Professor of Information Communication Technology at the University of Kentucky.

His scholarship centers on the interrelationships among communication/journalism, community and democracy with special emphasis on the roles of digital communication technologies, including AI-enabled technologies, and media credibility in community and democratic processes and outcomes. His research explores community storytelling networks through social and mobile media, AI communication, news trust, and civic engagement across diverse ethnic and racial groups as well as communities at the local, national, and global levels.

In his role as CTMT Research Director, Nah will coordinate trust-related research projects with UFCJC and UF more broadly. His own research focus, at the intersection of journalism, technology and democracy, will provide the foundation for CTMT’s work. His experience in bringing research to the field, notably as the director of the Kentucky Citizen Media Project, will be critical to CTMT’s mission of responding to the trust challenge with immediacy and practicality.

Nah received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea. He has authored or co-authored more than 70 journal articles and numerous book chapters about digital media, AI, news credibility, participatory communication, and civic participation. He is editor with more than 50 scholars from 15 countries for Edward Elgar Publishing’s Research Handbook on AI and Communication, which maps out the past, present, and future of scholarship regarding AI and its social and democratic implications in communication and beyond.

He is a recipient of numerous top paper awards from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, the International Communication Association, the American Political Science Association, and the World Association of Public Opinion Research. He received the Fund for Faculty Excellence Award, which is among the most prestigious honors bestowed on faculty at UO. He was also a recipient of the University of Kentucky Provost’s Outstanding Teaching Award and was a fellow of the Academic Leadership Academy.

He served as head of AEJMC’s Mass Communication and Society Division (2011-2012), and Korean American Communication Association president (2015-2017). He currently serves as an associate editor of the Journal of Communication and serves on a dozen editorial boards for such leading journals as the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, New Media & Society, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, International Journal of Communication, Mass Communication and Society, and Human-Machine Communication. He is a principal Investigator of the Worlds of Journalism Study, a global project with more than 120 countries involved.

Posted: July 26, 2022
Category: College News
Tagged as: Consortium on Trust in Media and Technology, Seungahn Nah