Jeanette B. Ruiz

Education

• Ph.D., Communication, University of California, Davis, 2015
• M.A., Communication, Sacramento State University, 2009

About

In addition to her appointment in the Department of Communication, Dr. Ruiz has served as a human resources and public relations consultant for various nonprofit, managed health care and finance organizations. She uses her experience in the field to help her students connect how research and theory relate to practice. Dr. Ruiz is a CAMPOS Faculty Scholar and she was recently honored with the UC Davis Distinguished Teaching Award.

Research Focus

Dr. Ruiz’s research is aimed at increasing our understanding of media uses and effects processes. Past work has looked at the effects of online media use on public health promotion. Currently, Dr. Ruiz’s work investigates the influence of exposure to stereotypical racial/ethnic content in the media on perceptions of self and others. 

Publications

• Yu, M., Carter, M. C., Cingel, D. P., & Ruiz, J. B. (2023). A content analysis of aggression in Netflix original, adolescent-directed series' subtitles. Communication Quarterly, 71(5), 588-609.
• Carter, M. C., Cingel, D. P., Ruiz, J. B., & Wartella, E. (2023). Social media use in the context of the Personal Social Media Ecosystem Framework. Journal of Communication, 73(1), 25-37. 
• Ruiz, J. B., & Bell, R. A. (2021). Predictors of intention to vaccinate against COVID-19: Results of a nationwide survey. Vaccine, 39(7), 1080-1086.
• Ruiz, J. B., Featherstone, J. D., & Bell, R. A. (2021). Identifying vaccine hesitant communities on Twitter and their Geolocations: A network approach. Proceedings of the 54th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. e:3964.

Teaching

Jeanette B. Ruiz teaches various courses, including Interpersonal Communication Competence, Introduction to Mass Communication, Introduction to Communication, Strategic Communication in Public Relations, Race and Media, and Empirical Research Methods. She was appointed as the First Gen Initiative Faculty Assistant for the 2020-2021 academic year and serves as a First Gen Student Mentor, UndocuAlly, and Guardian Scholar Mentor. She has presented on the importance of instructor presence, best practices for remote teaching, strategies for designing equitable online learning environments, and online universal design features.

Awards

• Distinguished Teaching Award
• National Communication Association International and Intercultural Communication Division (IICD) Honors, Graduate Student Seminar Recipient, 2014