Graduate Research Scholarships Winners

WMSF Graduate Research Scholarship Winners

This scholarship is sponsored by the Washington Media Scholars Foundation (WMSF).


2025

  • Invisible Persuasion in LLM-Based Recommendation: How Flattery Style and Product Involvement Shape Intention to follow Recommendation and Click-to-Action via Consumer Judgment Confidence

           Seo-Jeong Heo, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

 

  • What makes generative AI ads persuasive? Regulatory Fit Theory Application

           Boram Cho, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

 

  • Fight or Flight: Privacy Protection in Algorithm-Driven Online Behavioral Advertising

           Haoyu Wang, University of California, Santa Barbara

  

2024

  • Designing AI Chatbots for Online Public Service Advertising (PSA): The Effects of Shared Identity and Experiential Mind Levels
    Ja Kyung Seo, University of Georgia

  • Building Trust in Chatbots: The Roles of Anthropomorphism, Technology Readiness, and Brand Perception
    Bahareh Amini, University of Alabama 

2023

  • How Does Psychological Distance in Advertising Facilitate Selective Moral Disengagement
    Saima Kazmi, University of Colorado Boulder

  • The Power of De-Influencing: How Social Media Influencers’ Negative Experiences Affect Consumer Behaviors
    Faegheh (Faa) Taheran, Old Dominion University

2022

  • Advertising Privacy for the Privacy Unconcerned
    Y. Greg Song, University of Texas at Austin

  • Social Media Users’ Responses to Virtual Social Media Influencers and Strategic and Ethical Implications for Advertising
    Maral Abdollahi, University of Minnesota

 

2021 (Inaugural Awards)

  • Does consumer-brand relationship matter? An investigation of personalization-privacy paradox on social media
    Garim Lee, University of Minnesota

  • Towards Sustainable Consumer-brand Relationship Building within Hashtag-Based Online Brand Communities: A Longitudinal Computational and Survey-based Examination of How Social Identity and Optimal Distinctiveness Impact Consumer Engagement
    Haseon Park, University of Alabama


  • Human Vs. Machine as Message Source in Advertising: Examining the Persuasiveness of Brand Influencer Type and The Mediating Role of Source Credibility for Advertising Effectiveness in Social Media Advertising
    Weilu Zhang, University Of Missouri-Columbia