Research

Good judgment begins with a clean distinction.

The umbrella is Communication and Judgment: how people and institutions move from communication and evidence to meaning, claims, and decisions.

What can we claim?

Knowledge judgment

How evidence becomes a defensible claim. I study research methods, causal identification, reproducibility, scholarly gatekeeping, and the values built into research practice.

Current questions include archival reproducibility in eye-tracking research, the use of increasingly complex statistics, and how communication journals authorize claims.

What does it mean?

Mediated and cultural judgment

How audiences and institutions interpret culture, social media, moral authority, and communication with artificial intelligence.

A recurring concern is cultural inference: country is not culture, a platform is not an audience, and a visible reaction is not the same as agreement.

What matters enough to use?

Applied information judgment

How people decide whether health and risk information is relevant, useful, personal, and worth acting on.

This work examines message personalization, medication information, accessibility, and the difference between information that is technically available and information a person can use.

The recurring move

Wait. Why are we treating these two things as the same?

country ≠ culturestatistical arrow ≠ causal arrowdocument survival ≠ reproducibilityreaction ≠ agreementjournal rejection rate ≠ manuscript failureAI responsiveness ≠ relational reciprocity

Selected publications

Published work

Each item includes a short account of the question or contribution, not only a citation.

2025

Universal Design (UD) Practices and Accessibility Discourse Statements: Best Practices in Web-Based Research

Mason, A., Spencer, E. A., Liu, P., Livingston, K. M., Ashmore, A., Shepard, L., & Spencer, T. A.

A practical framework for making web-based communication research more accessible and for reporting those choices clearly.

In Evolving Journalism Research Methods. Routledge.

2024

“A Friendly Conversation.” Developing an eHealth Intervention to Increase COVID-19 Testing and Vaccination Literacy Among Women with Criminal and Legal System Involvement

Geana, M. V., Liu, P., Pei, J., Anderson, S., & Ramaswamy, M.

The study reports the development of an eHealth intervention with women affected by the criminal legal system.

Journal of Health Communication, 29(2), 131–142.

2024

Beyond the Dawn of Virtualized Learning Environments: A Comparative Study of Video and Augmented Reality Information Delivery on Student Engagement and Knowledge Retention

Geana, M. V., Cernusca, D., & Liu, P.

A comparison of video and augmented-reality information delivery, focused on engagement and knowledge retention.

Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 40(2), 394–409.

2023

Toward Consilience on Indirect Reciprocity: Strategic Communication Theory and Findings from Social Psychology, Sociology, and Anthropology

Marsh, C., Liu, P., & Abwao, M.

A cross-disciplinary synthesis asking what strategic communication can learn from distinct accounts of indirect reciprocity.

International Journal of Strategic Communication, 17(3), 199–212.

2021

“The Disabled Community Is Still Waiting for Equality”: What Do Users Have to Say About Sexual Reproductive Health of Persons With Disabilities in Online News Comments

Abwao, M., Ittefaq, M., Baines, A., & Liu, P.

A qualitative analysis of how readers discuss disability, sexuality, autonomy, and access in online news comments.

Frontiers in Communication, 6, 667627.

2019

Disaster Communication: An Analysis of the Digital Communication Strategies Used by the Medical Tourism Industry During the 2017 Caribbean Hurricane Season

Mason, A., Flores, L., Liu, P., Tims, K., Spencer, E., & Gire, T. G.

An analysis of how medical tourism organizations used digital channels during a regional disaster.

Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Insights, 2(3), 241–259.