Zhengyi (Sophie) Liang

a portrait
Kerr 169

 I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Communication at UC Davis. I am currently on the job market. 

My research examines artificial intelligence and emerging media technologies, as well as uncivil communication in digital media, using computational methods, surveys, and experiments. My work has appeared in Digital Journalism and the International Journal of Communication, with additional manuscripts under revision at Social Media + Society and Mass Communication and Society.

Honors and Awards
  • Top Paper Award – Political Communication Division at NCA (2026)
  • Top Paper Award – Political Communication Division at ICA (2026)
  • Top Student Paper – Computational Methods Division at ICA (2022)
  • Dean's Summer Fellowship $6,000 (2023, 2006)
Publications
  • 1. Liang, Z., & Cho, J. (2026). Complicating Wisdom of Crowds: News Sources Reveal Political Bias in Wikipedia Biographies. Digital Journalism, 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2026.2700581
  • 2. Liang, Z., Sandoval, J., Cho, J., Jiang, X., & Chen, Z., (2026) (In Press) From Words to Harm: Hate Speech and Societal Violence in U.S. Presidential Campaigns. International Journal of Communication.
  • 3. Liang, Z., & Cho, J. (2026). Political Polarization on the Move: Analyzing Geographical Mobility between Counties in the US. PLoS One, 21(1), e0339333. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0339333
  • 4. Chen, Z., Liang, Z., Wang, Z., Jiang, X., & Wang, C. J. (2026). Framing the World: Strategic Narratives of Foreign States in China’s Mainstream Media (1950–2019). PLoS One, 21(6), e0351772. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0351772
  • 5. Jiang, X., Liang, Z., He, B., & Chen, Z. (2026) (conditional acceptance) Asymmetrical Networked Framing Contestation between Anti-Asian Hate Publics and Counter Publics during COVID-19. In Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM 2026). Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. [Acceptance rate: ~20%]