Allissa Richardson’s decade-long research on using mobile devices to report on social movements and police violence led to her new book, Bearing Witness While Black: African Americans, Smartphones and the New Protest #Journalism.

Josh Kun, professor and Chair in Cross Cultural Communication, talks about the act of listening. In this short video, the award-winning cultural historian and expert on the intersection of arts, culture and politics shares how his focus on music extends to performative lectures, books he has written, a collaboration with the Los Angeles Public Library and a popular undergraduate communication course he teaches.

Communication (PhD) student Perry Johnson studies the intersection of popular music with issues of diversity, representation and equity. She started her research studying the statistics in the Billboard Top 100 and later shifted the study to examine how the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements started to change that conversation.

USC Annenberg Professors François Bar and Hernán Galperin have spent years studying the digital divide and its implications in Los Angeles and around the world. One of their most recent collaborations is with the Los Angeles Community Action Network (LACAN) who work with the homeless population on Skid Row in Los Angeles. Together they worked with the community to co-design a solution to a pressing problem for the homeless population — charging their phones.

Interested in the broader questions about sports? Ben Carrington, associate professor of sociology and journalism, examines how race, mass media, and popular culture play roles in what happens on the field and the effect of sports on society.

Lisa Pecot-Hébert, associate professor of professional practice, researches theory and gender body image in the media, including by framing cosmetic surgery through a feminist lens.

Taj Frazier, an associate professor in communication, is a cultural historian who explores the arts, political and expressive cultures of the people of the African Diaspora in the United States and elsewhere. When he was a teen, he had the chance to study in China and it was there that he became fascinated with how black American’s were treated differently. This short piece highlights one aspect of his research.

Sheila Murphy, professor of communication, created a study to test ways to motivate women to get screening for cervical cancer. Trained in social psychology, Murphy specializes in identifying the individual, interpersonal, community, ethnic and cultural factors that shape people’s knowledge, attitudes and practices.