The Media Skill research lab hosts student-led collaborations. The lab employs a wide-range of cutting-edge, empirical approaches to understand how aspects of our digitally-mediated environment enable, constrain, and alter strategic decision-making surrounding our media use. If you are a UCSB student and are eager to get started now read below.
Meet the graduate students
HANNAH OVERBYE-THOMPSON
hoverbye@ucsb.edu
Hannah (she/her) is a fourth year PhD candidate whose interests lie in understanding the effects of algorithm bias, especially as it pertains to systemic inequalities among different groups. She also broadly works on projects related to race and politics in the mass media.
LINDSAY MILLER
lindsaymiller@ucsb.edu
Lindsay (she/her) is a fifth year PhD candidate whose interests lie in understanding processes of new media that contribute to a person’s tendency to engage in pro-social behaviors. She is especially interested in designing interventions that encourage people to adopt sustainable practices.
SARAH DE VEGVAR
devegvar@ucsb.edu
Sarah (she/they) is a first year MA/PhD student whose interests lie in understanding the aspects of emerging technology that contribute to information spread, particularly in the context of health information. She focuses on concepts such as infinite scroll, closed groups, and algorithmic recommendation and censorship systems.
Announcements
- February 27, 2025: Lindsay Miller and Kristy Hamiton will present their research titled, “The Green Side of Self-Endorsement: Using Algorithms to Promote Pro-Environmental Behavior” at the International Conference on Environmental Psychology in Vilnius, Lithuania.
- January 21, 2025: Hannah Overbye-Thompson, Jacob Fisher, and Kristy Hamilton received a top paper award from the Communication and Biology Interest Group at the International Communication Association conference for their paper titled, “Expectation of Algorithm Bias Increases Caution: Implications for Human-in-the-Loop Decisions.”
- December 1, 2024: Sarah de Vegvar joined the Media Skill Lab as a first-year PhD student. Welcome Sarah!
- September 21, 2024: Hannah Overbye-Thompson received the “Outstanding Master’s Thesis Award in Quantitative Methods” from the Master’s Education Division at the National Communication Association conference for her thesis titled, “The Cycle of Bias: Skin Tone Biases in Algorithms and the Implications for Technology Diffusion.”
Selected Lab Projects
Expectation of Algorithm Bias Increases Caution: Implications for Human-in-the-Loop Decisions
OVERBYE-THOMPSON, H., FISHER, J.T., & HAMILTON, K.A.
This research seeks to understand how expectations of algorithm bias influences decisions to identify an algorithm’s output as biased. We build on our previous work that poses formal modeling rooted in decision theory as a way to understand how individuals select and optimize behaviors in response to their environment. We use drift diffusion modeling in a series of experiments to understand how users respond to perceptions of algorithm bias and how accurately they can identify bias.
- Overbye-Thompson, H., Hamilton, K.A., & Fisher, J.T. (2025) Expectation of Algorithm Bias Increases Caution: Implications for Human-in-the-Loop Decisions. International Communication Association (ICA), Denver, Colorado. (Top Paper in Communication Science and Biology)
- Overbye-Thompson, H., Fisher, J.T., & Hamilton, K.A. (2024). Assessing Human Detection of Algorithmic Bias in Human-in-the-Loop Decision-Making. National Communication Association (NCA), New Orleans, Louisiana.
- Fisher, J.T. & Hamilton, K.A. (2021). Integrating media selection and media effects using decision theory. National Communication Association (NCA). (Top paper in Communication and Social Cognition)
- Fisher, J.T. & Hamilton, K.A. (2021). Integrating media selection and media effects using decision theory. Journal of Media Psychology, 33(4), 215–225.
Self-Endorsement and Sustainable Consumption: Using Algorithms to Promote Pro-Environmental Behavior
MILLER, L.B. & HAMILTON, K.A.
This research examines the application of self-endorsement to promote pro-environmental behavior. Our previous work demonstrates that emerging technology has the capacity to influence a person’s brand attitude and purchase intentions by using affordances of technology to depict oneself as endorsing a product. We use experimental approaches to determine whether self-endorsement can be leveraged to increase the selection of pro-environmental choices.
- Miller, L.B., Baldwin, K., Wang, F., & Hamilton, K.A. (2025) Self-Endorsement and Sustainable Consumption: Using Algorithms to Promote Pro-Environmental Behavior. International Communication Association (ICA), Denver, Colorado.
- Hamilton, K.A., Lee, S., Chung, U., Liu, W., & Duff, B.L. (2021). Putting the “me” in endorsement: Understanding and conceptualizing dimensions of self-endorsement using intelligent personal assistants. New Media & Society, 23(6), 1506-1526.
Navigating Censorship and Visibility: Understanding Information Sharing Practices of Transgender Users in Algorithm-Driven Environments
DE VEGVAR, S., OVERBYE-THOMPSON, H., & HAMILTON, K.A.
This research seeks to understand how transgender users on social media navigate content curation algorithms that inappropriately recommend and censor their content. We build on previous work in the lab that demonstrates users who have darker skin use image recognition algorithms more due to a tendency for those individuals to have heightened algorithm awareness, which leads them to reinvent their use of image recognition algorithms. We employ a mixed methods approach to determine 1) whether algorithm awareness drives the tendency for those who are visibly trans to use content curation algorithms more than others and 2) what kind of workarounds transgender users employ to navigate content curation algorithms while building community online.
- Overbye-Thompson, H., Hamilton, K.A., & Mastro, D. (2024). Reinvention mediates impacts of skin tone bias in algorithms: Implications for technology diffusion. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication.
Understanding the Impact of Perceived Access to External Information on Metacognitive Accuracy
HAMILTON, K.A., LIU, X., & OVERBYE-THOMPSON, H.
- Hamilton, K.A., Liu, X., & Overbye-Thompson, H. (2024). Understanding the Impact of Perceived Access to External Information on Metacognitive Accuracy. National Communication Association (NCA), New Orleans, Louisiana.
How Perceived and Actual Bias in Social Network Site (SNS) Algorithms Affect Users' Content Curation Behaviors
OVERBYE-THOMPSON, H., PANDEY, K., & HAMILTON, K.A.
Does Digital Offloading Relieve Oneself of the Informational Burden that Creates Stress?
HAMILTON, K.A., GARCIA, E., & BENJAMIN, A.S.
