Annenberg Postdoctoral Fellows Share Research Across Disciplines

Annenberg School for Communication postdoctoral fellow Ennuri Jo explores how humans communicate visually, particularly in film. On-screen, a thunderstorm ripping through an urban landscape can show how communities reckon with climate change or signal a sole character’s fight against loneliness — all without an actor speaking a single line, she says.

At the recent Postdoctoral Fellows Colloquium at the Annenberg School, Jo was one of many fellows who shared their research. Scholars from five different centers at the School — the Annenberg Center for Collaborative Communication, the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication, the Center for Media at Risk, the Center on Digital Culture and Society, and the Media, Inequality & Change Center — brought their research center stage and participated in interdisciplinary discussions moderated by fellow researchers.

Among these scholars is George Gerbner Postdoctoral Fellow Cerianne Robertson, who studies the social costs of urban development. Robertson has spent years talking with members of communities facing displacement when mega-arenas are slated to be built in their neighborhoods.

On the surface, and quite literally, Robertson’s and Jo’s research is miles away — Jo is focused on cinema in Taipei, and Robertson’s recent research revolves around residents of Los Angeles — but they found common ground during the panel discussion. For one, they both engage with the human costs of environmental changes, whether in a neighborhood disrupted by a super-stadium or in a city captured on film over time.

This discovery encapsulates the colloquium’s purpose — to bring together scholars who explore communication across disciplines, methods, and forms, engendering unexpected and unique discoveries.

Bridging Disciplines and Starting Conversations

Throughout the day, scholars spoke across four panels: Journalism Under Duress, Genealogies of Data, Media in/as Space, and Global Flows of Culture and Critique, exploring advancements in theory, culture, and community engagement.

Vice Dean Emily Falk opened the event by emphasizing the importance of sharing research with the greater community. She noted that the most impactful research often emerges from the intersection of different disciplines and minds.

“This colloquium is a celebration of the curiosity and depth and creativity that defines scholarship at Annenberg,” Falk said. “The conversations that begin here today have the potential to shape new ideas, new collaborations, and new directions of research here at Annenberg and to define the field.”

Jeanna Sybert (Ph.D. ‘24) is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Media at Risk. At the event, she shared her research on the working conditions of journalists, something she’s been investigating since she first arrived at Annenberg as a student. Her recent work examines the risks journalists face on the job, from reporting outside during hurricanes to attending protests, and how these risks shape news work as a whole. 

In the current moment, “journalism's relationship with risk emerges as a specific governing force that shapes journalists' actions and understandings,” she told the audience. Sybert explained that when journalists are at risk, they are seen as vital to society, which creates a “culture of risk-taking” in newsrooms, noting that risk-taking journalists get rewards like promotions, awards, and higher social media followings, and their employers gain readers and esteem.

Sybert says that hearing Robertson’s talk on mega-arenas and communities impacted how she will think about her research going forward.

“My research typically centers events — analyzing the sensemaking and discourses around them — rather than specific places and physical structures, so what caught my attention was how Cerianne started from a single material point (the stadium) and traced the network of sites, stakeholders, and relationships that both emerge from and constitute this central node,” she says. “Seeing Cerianne’s approach made me realize we’re both looking at layers of connection, just with a different orientation and emphasis …. [A]s I’ve been thinking more about mobility in journalism lately, this approach could enhance my understanding of the physical spaces where news ‘happens’ going forward.”

Lucy March, a postdoctoral fellow at the Center on Digital Culture and Society, shared her research on music criticism online. Like Sybert’s work, March’s scholarship investigates the transformation of journalism — in this case, the shift in music criticism from traditional media to social media, highlighting the decline of outlets like Rolling Stone and Pitchfork and the rise of social media influencers like Anthony Fantano, who runs the popular music review YouTube channel, The Needle Drop.

Celebrating Community

Aswin Punathambekar, director of the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication, highlighted the importance of exchanging ideas. "Postdoctoral fellows at Annenberg are doing research at the cutting edge of our field,” he said. “And in a moment marked by deep cynicism about research and higher education, a colloquium like this is a vital affirmation of the importance of coming together to share ideas and insist that the work we do matters."

Vice Dean Falk underscored the fact that the colloquium was not just an information exchange but also a celebration of early-career scholars already making significant contributions to the study of communication as a whole.

“This colloquium is a reflection of the broader intellectual community that we've cultivated here at Annenberg. One that values interdisciplinary dialogue, critical inquiry, and a commitment to addressing these huge challenges in our community locally, nationally, and around the globe,” she told the audience. “The conversations that begin here today have the potential to shape new ideas, new collaborations, and new directions of research here at Annenberg and to define the field.”