Dr. Wu received her PhD from the joint program of Sociology and Communication at SUNY Albany, and her research focuses on popular culture and politics, new media and civic engagement. Her dissertation — “Entertainment and the Public Sphere: The Convergence of Popular Culture and Politics in China’s Public Sphere and Cyberspace” — won the University Distinguished Doctoral Dissertation Award in any field in the College of Arts and Science at UAlbany. She uses a variety of perspectives and research approaches from media studies, cultural sociology, and political communication to study the convergence of popular culture and politics, how entertainment experiences contribute to civic engagement, how people behave in new media environments, such as massively multi-player online games, and how citizens use the social media to connect with others and organize their civic voices. Interested in both the U.S. media and the mass media in China, where Dr. Wu was from, she is also delving into cross-cultural comparisons.
Dr. Wu has shared her diverse research interests through many conference presentations, peer-reviewed journal publications and book chapters, but also through her classroom teaching. She teaches a series of courses in Media Studies, including media literacy, media technologies and public policy, and mass media in contemporary society.