Discourse
This track of research explores patterns and trends in how various phenomena are talked about (or not), and the social impacts of these narratives. This body of work generally brackets considerations about whether or not actors truly believe what they’re saying, or about whether said narratives are ‘right’ (empirically or morally).
Journal Publications
- Rozado, David, Musa al-Gharbi & Jamin Halberstadt (2021). “Prevalence of Prejudice-Denoting Words in News Media Discourse: A Chronological Analysis.” Social Science Computer Review. DOI: 10.1177/08944393211031452
- Rozado, David & Musa al-Gharbi (2021). “Using Word Embeddings to Probe Sentiment Associations of Politically-Loaded Terms in News and Opinion Articles from News Outlets.” Journal of Computational Social Science. DOI: 10.1007/s42001-021-00130-y
- Smith, Benjamin, Andrea-Figueroa-Caballero & Musa al-Gharbi (2020). “Do You Know Your Enemy? The Role of Known Actors as Framing Devices in News Media.” International Journal of Communication 14: 4717-4738.
- Smith, Benjamin, Michael Stohl & Musa al-Gharbi (2019). “Discourses on Countering Violent Extremism: The Strategic Interplay Between Fear and Security After 9/11.” Critical Studies on Terrorism 12(1): 151-68.
Scholarly Work in Development
- I am working with David Rozado to expand upon the JCSS paper mentioned above. The aspiration is to sketch out a new method for understanding and measuring bias in mass media along the lines of politics, race, gender, sexuality and religion.
- I am also working with psychologists Andrew Hartz and Richard Redding on a project to evaluate ‘splitting’ in media coverage of racial issues in 2020.
Public Sociology Examples
- “Cable News Profits From Its Obsession with Trump. Viewers Are the Only Victims.” Columbia Journalism Review, 8 September 2020.
- “The New York Times’ Obsession with Trump, Quantified.” Columbia Journalism Review, 13 November 2019.
