About Me

Welcome! My name is Siyuan Ma.
I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Communication department at Michigan State University.
I earned my bachelor’s degree in Educational Technology at Beijing Normal University, China (2016).
I also earned my master’s degree in Communication at Beijing Normal University (2018).

My research interest mainly seats at the intersections between computational communication and public opinion studies. Currently, I focus on polarization, misinformation, as well as other opinion dynamics on social media.  These works support my ultimate goal of explicating the development of civic society in the social media age.  

I have done studies including 1) the influence of media exposure and digital technology on polarization; 2) the cause and effect of political elites’ expressing affective polarization on social media; 3) the effect of external constraint on elites’ spread of misinformation and the effect of misinformation correction; 4) the expression dynamic of competing opinions, and 5) applying computational methods to multiple contexts, including polarization, misinformation, digital journalism, global south, and public health issues.

My expectation is to obtain a tenure-track faculty job in an international perspective, research-based university. I would like to 1) continue the study on the dynamic of polarization, 2) continue the study on misinformation and correction, 3) extend communication theories and concepts to different contexts (including both eastern and western contexts), and 4) teach computational method courses to encourage more students to try computer science techniques.

My research has been published in peer-reviewed journals including Human Communication Research, Complexity, Health Communication, Digital Journalism, Public Opinion Quarterly, IJPOR, IJERPH, Quality and Quantity, and some other top-ranking Chinese Communication Journals.  Some studies are under peer review in Communication Monographs, Education and Information Technologies, Communication Research, Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, etc.

I once worked as an intern reporter in China Youth Daily and the News channel of China Media Group. I contributed to the news reports such as Internet legislation, Industry policies in Northeast China, and UN peacekeeping operations in South Sudan. In my spare time, I do volunteer teaching and enjoy writing classic Chinese poems.

Please feel free to contact me at masiyua1@msu.edu