Research
My research focuses on social impacts of new media. Specifically, using big data studies, my past and on-going work aims at understanding:
(1) how new media platforms induce social biases online;
(2) how policies and strategies can help mitigate social biases,
(3) how individual-level motives online can lead to unintended consequences when aggregated.
To build knowledge in these three areas, I use a wide variety of quantitative methods (e.g., quasi-experiment, multilevel model, survival analysis, topic modeling, and agent-based modeling), while grounding my research in theory. Below are my peer-reviewed publications by topics:
Identifying Policies and Strategies that Help Mitigate Social Biases
Yu, C. , & Margolin, D.B. (forthcoming). Topic Territoriality and the Cost of Civility: Examining the Impact of IP Address Disclosure on Weibo. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication.
Park, M.*, Yu, C.*, & Macy, M. (2023). Fighting bias with bias: How same-race endorsements reduce racial discrimination on Airbnb. Science Advances. (*co-first; DOI)
Yu, C.*, Liao, W.*, & Margolin, D.B. (2021). The differential impacts of blinded online reviews: Comparing socio-emotional features of guest and host reviews on Airbnb, Telematics and Informatics. (*co-first author; DOI)
Fownes, J. R., Yu, C., & Margolin, D.B. (2018). Twitter and climate change. Sociology Compass, 12(6). (DOI)
Detecting Social Biases on New Media Platforms
Yu, C. , & Margolin, D.B. (2022). Sharing inequalities: Racial discrimination in review acquisition on Airbnb. New Media & Society. (DOI)
Yu, C., & Margolin, D.B. (2021). The disproportion of crowd wisdom: The impact of status seeking on Yelp reviews. PLOS ONE, 16(6). (DOI)
Yu, C., & Margolin, D.B. (2021). Food “taste” on Yelp: Displays of cultural omnivorousness and authenticity in dining choices and online reviews. Food, Culture & Society, 1–21. (DOI)
Exploring Unintended Consequences from Inconspicuous Individual Motives
Yu, C., & Margolin, D.B. (in press). Heightened scrutiny: The unequal impact of online hygiene scores on restaurant reviews. New Media & Society.
Yu, C., Margolin, D. B., Fownes, J. R., Eiseman, D. L., Chatrchyan, A. M., & Allred, S. B. (2021). Tweeting about climate: Which politicians speak up and what do they speak up about?. Social Media+ Society, 7(3). (DOI)