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Letter from the Director: November 2023

By ajk90November 22nd, 2023in Homepage, Letters From the Director

In Thanksgiving: Rosalynn Carter as Political Communicator (1927-2023)

By: Michelle Amazeen

With multiple wars raging and the world enduring infodemics, pandemics, and climate-related disasters, it may seem difficult to be grateful for much of anything at present. However, at this time of Thanksgiving in the United States, I wanted to pay homage to a former First Lady whose actions touched on all of these calamities. Rosalynn Carter died this past Sunday on November 19, 2023 at the age of 96 at her home in Plains, Georgia. To do so, I turned to COM’s Senior Associate Dean, Dr. Tammy R. Vigil, whose expertise includes women as political communicators and who has authored two books about First Ladies including Moms in Chief: The Rhetoric of Republican Motherhood and the Spouses of Presidential Nominees, 1992-2016 (University Press of Kansas, 2019) and Melania & Michelle: First Ladies in a New Era (Red Lightning Books, 2019). The following is a tribute from Dr. Vigil:

Rosalynn Carter often appeared the picture of demure, middle-class femininity in a well-ironed blouse neatly tucked into a simple A-line skirt. Yet, behind the outward image of reserved simplicity stood a fearless first lady who broke barriers and pushed boundaries. Rosalynn Carter, well-known as a champion of mental health, served as the key White House administrator on behalf of the Mental Health Systems Act and testified in front of Congress as part of her advocacy efforts. She also vigorously supported the Equal Rights Amendment, led workshops on alleviating unemployment, and supported cultural exchange programs. Carter was frequently an official emissary of the president, embarking on diplomatic efforts in Brazil, Costa Rica, Rome, and Thailand, negotiating on behalf of the president and the nation in a manner few first ladies dared to do. Her courageous efforts to use the “velvet pulpit” of the first ladyship in a meaningful fashion resulted in Time magazine dubbing her “the second most powerful person in the United States” in 1979. Her high level of activity led to legislative efforts to curb her influence, yet she persisted. Rosalynn Carter helped formalize the Office of the First Lady, creating resources and space for future presidential spouses to more effectively advocate for causes that impact a wide range of constituents.

During the more than four decades since she left the East Wing, Rosalynn Carter travelled the world as an inspirational and assertive figure whose goals were, as she put it, “waging peace, fighting disease, and building hope.” She continued to crusade for causes she believed in and remained politically active throughout her life. Through the Carter Center, Rosalynn worked toward peace in the Middle East, led public conversations about sexual inequality, promoted childhood immunizations, and drew attention to the importance of caregiving. In 2018, she led a chorus of former first ladies who spoke out against the separation of migrant children from their families at the southern US border, drawing attention to the humanitarian crisis and calling for change. Two years later, she narrated a video segment for the 2020 Democratic National Convention in which she argued for national unity and optimism. Rosalynn Carter was a model of activism, compassion, determination, and empowerment.

I am grateful for the work of Mrs. Carter on behalf of our country and humanity. I am also grateful for the work of my colleagues whose communication research illuminates these important actors.

I wish you and your families a Happy Thanksgiving with time to reflect and reconnect.

Letter From The Director: October 2023

By ajk90October 10th, 2023in Homepage, Letters From the Director

By: Michelle Amazeen

In the mid-1980s, Rolling Stone Magazine underwent an image transformation. Widely perceived of as a magazine carrying content that only appealed to a niche population of counterculture hippies, the award-winning “Perception. Reality.” advertising campaign, created by advertising agency Fallon McElligott, disputed that notion. Through a series of over 60 print executions, the ads conveyed that readers were actually mainstream and affluent.

Similarly, the Communication Research Center (CRC) is sometimes perceived of as having activities that primarily involve programming with speakers from other universities and/or research presentations by BU COM faculty. It’s true that since 2011, the Dr. Melvin L. DeFleur Lecture Series has annually invited two distinguished scholars from outside the university to share their scholarship, expertise, and experience with the BU community. Even before then, since October 2009, the Communication Research Colloquium Series has hosted monthly research presentations every semester that highlight current and original research of CRC fellows. However, to say that CRC activities are primarily limited to speaker series is not reflective of reality.

Since 2011, the CRC has facilitated scores of research studies, many involving surveys. Our fellows review survey research protocols to ensure the rights and welfare of humans participating as subjects in research. Dozens of these studies have sampled from the student population of COM made possible by our SONA participant recruitment and study management software that we acquired in 2016. Other studies are based upon non-student populations, such as this one – covered by CNBC – about U.S. adult perceptions of climate change.

Still other studies involve in-lab controlled experiments approved by the university’s Institutional Review Board. One study, for example, examined the ability of participants to recognize whether media content was a news article versus “native advertising,” a form of sponsored content that imitates journalism. Some participants who arrived at the CRC were provided an iPhone on which to view the content while others were provided with a laptop. As predicted by the Persuasion Knowledge Model, even the participants most motivated to engage with news were less likely to recognize that content was advertising when viewed via the iPhone.

Beyond surveys and experiments, the CRC has hosted focus groups in our state-of-the art focus group facility. The adjacent viewing room with a one-way mirror allows for unobtrusive observation, and the digital recording tower can create audio/video recordings of sessions.

Our on-site data analysis and coding lab with dual-monitor computer stations facilitates the analysis and coding of media content. In one study, for instance, researchers conducted a content analysis of commonly binge-watched online original TV programs for portrayals of violence. Consistent with Cultivation Theory, the programs were often violent, with non-white women more likely to be targets of sexual violence and non-white men more likely to be the perpetrators.

You can learn more about this study from the news coverage it generated in 2019 on Boston 25 News.

Many other studi es conducted by CRC fellows rely upon social media data obtained from the varying social media listening tools we offer or leverage COM’s Media & Technology surveys that poll nationally representative samples of U.S. residents.For example, one such study reported by the Boston Globe examined adults’ perceptions of dating apps and another, reported b y eWeek, examined artificial intelligence.

Indeed, the reality is that, more than just a forum for scholars to present their research, the CRC has been helping its fellows produce research that has been covered in national news media, from the New York Times to the Los Angeles Times to CNN. That’s research that matters.

The Dean’s Advisory Board’s Visit to Boston University: A Day of Insight and Inspiration

By ajk90October 10th, 2023in Homepage

By: Amanda King

On September 21st, Boston University’s College of Communication welcomed the Dean’s Advisory Board to 640 Commonwealth Avenue. The Advisory Board is a critical component to the success of COM, allowing accomplished individuals from within the industry to offer their knowledge and expertise. These visits help to bridge the gap between industry and academia, creating an ever-evolving learning environment designed for the benefit of students and faculty alike.

Beginning with some back-to-school highlights and program reviews, the day began on a high point, celebrating the successes of the previous year. Program reviews of various departments gave industry leaders and BU faculty a platform to develop next steps. Before breaking for lunch and mingling with the Dean’s Council – leadership within the college – the COM IT team unveiled the newly revamped Studio West, a space for students to evolve their storytelling.

Following lunch, the Board reconvened for a discussion surrounding the future of Journalism at Boston University. Ensuring the continued future of journalistic integrity and relevancy starts with the students’ curriculum. Updates with Development and BU Trustees, respectively, followed.

A tour of the Communication Research Center by the Associate Dean of Research, Dr. Michelle Amazeen, commenced after a short walk to 704 Commonwealth Avenue. The CRC is a collaborative research environment, where both faculty and students can test their theories using cutting-edge technology. Dr. Jim Cummings, Assistant Professor of Emerging Media Studies, graciously led a demonstration using the CRC’s biometric technologies, which gather and enable analysis of imperceptible changes in participants’ physiology. Using galvanic skin response sensors and eye-tracking, he demonstrated how researchers are able to glean insight from the most minute eye movements and heartbeats.

The turn of the evening brought no less excitement with it as the Dean’s Advisory Board spent time conversing with tomorrow’s top-communicators in an intellectual exchange facilitated by Dean Mariette DiChristina. In anticipation of the Black Media Symposium the following day, the Board met with many media professionals, symposium speakers, and titans in their fields, and shared perspectives on breaking barriers facing Black voices.

The visit was a resounding success and we look forward to welcoming the Board back in 2024.

Alexis Shore Shares Her Thoughts Ahead of Her First Colloquium Speaker Series Talk on “Platforms as Rulemakers for Interpersonal Communication: The Case of The Screenshot Feature”

By Snigdha BhowmikSeptember 26th, 2023in Homepage

By: Snigdha Bhowmik

In this era of digital communication, we have become accustomed to sharing our lives with the world, one screenshot at a time. Whether it's a hilarious meme, an inspirational quote, or a juicy tidbit from a private conversation, the act of capturing what's on our screens has become second nature. But let's pause for a moment and consider something that most of us have overlooked: screenshots can be a privacy issue, and it's high time we pay attention.

Alexis Shore, Ph.D. Candidate of Emerging Media Studies at Boston University’s College of Communication will be presenting her research on the topic “Platforms as Rulemakers for Interpersonal Communication: The Case of The Screenshot Feature” as part of the Communication Research Center Colloquium Series. Shore aims to make people think about taking screenshots in a new and safe way through her talk.

Screenshots can be incredibly handy. They allow us to save information, document conversations, and share content quickly. However, their normalization in today’s society comes with a significant privacy trade-off, one that we often downplay or ignore.

When asked about why she believes this topic is relevant in today’s age, Shore said “We use digital communication every day to talk to people so this privacy issue overlaying our conversations threatens our ability to speak to each other. We don’t use texting to just talk about surface-level mundane things, we use it to gossip and share secrets.” The very existence of the screenshot feature makes us fear disclosing intimate details about our lives via text message and also hinders our ability to talk candidly in person, she explains. You never know when your privacy and expectations are violated because now they leave behind a digital paper trail that can never be erased.

This talk will apply an extended version of communication privacy management theory (CPM) to study screenshot collection and sharing of private digital messages. Recommendations for future study and design of the screenshot feature, as well as its broader implications for interpersonal surveillance, will be discussed. To learn more about privacy management decisions and perceptions, join us on 28th September at COM 209 from 3:30 PM to 4:30 PM. You’ll definitely leave the room thinking twice about capturing your next screenshot.

Letter From The Director: September 2023

By Michelle AmazeenSeptember 13th, 2023in Homepage, Letters From the Director

By: Michelle Amazeen

Welcome to the Fall 2023 Semester!

With the start of the academic year, I’d like to welcome you to the fall 2023 semester and share some information about the CRC.

First established at Boston University in 1959, the CRC serves to support its fellows as thought leaders who advance communication-related theory and methods in addressing society’s challenges. We are located in the lower level (basement) of Alden Hall at 704 Commonwealth Avenue. You can read about our facilities and technologies and bookmark our website at https://sites.bu.edu/crc/.

We are excited to welcome our new full-time Lab and Research Manager, Amanda King, effective September 18^th. Amanda is a COM graduate, earning a Master's in Emerging Media Studies in 2021. We are joined by three graduate students who will be working in the Center this fall:

Zain Bali (MCR), SONA Administrator
Snigdha Bhowmik (FTV), Communications Assistant
Xinyue “Tracy” Cui (FTV), Events Assistant

This fall, we have several events lined up:

Colloquium Series:

Thursday, September 28^th at 3:30 pm, Alexis Shore, EMS PhD Candidate: Platforms as Rulemakers for Interpersonal Communication: The Case of the Screenshot Feature
Thursday, October 26^th at 3:30 pm, Dr. Deborah Jaramillo (FTV)
Thursday, November 30^th at 3:30 pm, Dr. Joan Donovan (JO/EMS)

Dr. Melvin L. DeFleur Distinguished Lecture:

Wednesday, November 15^th at 3:30 pm, Dr. Kjerstin Thorson, Brandt Endowed Professor of Political Communication, Michigan State University

CRC Policies:

Fellows interested in reserving rooms for research purposes or reserving our technologies may do so using QReserve. To make reservations you will need to create your own QReserve account, associated with the CRC. Instructions for how to do so are included in the CRC Resource Guide. New and returning fellows are encouraged to review the CRC Resource Guide to (re)familiarize yourselves with our resources. Please also familiarize yourself with the policies and protocols of conducting research at the CRC, available here. Note: the Request for Research Study Details form (in step 2) is currently not available. To help us plan for use of the CRC this fall, in lieu of this form please email the following information to crccom@bu.edu.

The name(s), titles and email addresses of you and any co-researchers
A preliminary title for your research project
If applicable, the faculty advisor associated with your project
Approximate start date, end date, and deadline (if applicable) for your project
Details regarding IRB approval/status (if applicable)
Whether you will require an iMotions-enabled laptop for your project
Whether you will require long-term storage for your research data

For researchers planning to use the SONA Research Participation Pool, the CRC will continue to offer its COM Research Review Board (RRB) as an alternative to IRB for review of survey-based studies that adhere to the COM Master Protocol. To fairly allocate the workload, all faculty fellows who utilize SONA are expected to serve on the RRB.

For the fall 2023 semester, we will be unable to accept the use of SONA for class projects of individual students. Should you be willing to oversee the administration of such an effort as chair of the COM SONA Review Board, please email me.

Finally, please join me in welcoming several new CRC fellows who are now part of the COM community:

Dr. Joan Donovan, Assistant Professor of Journalism
Dr. AnneMarie McClain, Assistant Professor of Media Science
James Crissman, EMS PhD student
Lilian Naa Korkoi Tackie, EMS PhD student
Jiaxin Wang, EMS PhD student

I wish you all a successful start to the fall semester and look forward to seeing you in the CRC.

Letter from the Director: August 2023

By Michelle AmazeenAugust 21st, 2023in Homepage, Letters From the Director

By: Michelle Amazeen

Barbie: Covert Influence and Representation

The billion-dollar blockbuster movie this summer was Barbie. As I prepared to go see it with my mother in July, I reminded myself that I was going to see what amounts to a 2-hour advertisement for a child’s toy, a practice also known as branded entertainment. As a scholar who studies covert influence, I am particularly aware of the goals of this strategy: don’t make the content into an explicit sales pitch but also create positive associations for your brand. While not as insidious as branded content that imitates news, the commercialization of media content – especially content directed at children – has been expanding.

This technique isn’t new. In 1931, the radio drama “March of Time” documented the work of journalists by reenacting famous news events such as the Hindenburg disaster or the disappearance of pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart. In reality, it was actually branded content, produced by Madison Avenue ad agency Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn (BBDO) that was intended to cross promote Time magazine to radio audiences. In other words, it was an ad, just like the Barbie movie.

Watching the movie with this critical mind-set, I found myself enjoying it more than I expected. As a misinformation researcher, I was surprised by the intellectual winks to psychological theories such as Leon Festinger’s cognitive dissonance and William J. McGuire’s inoculation theory. As one Barbie says to another, “By giving voice to the cognitive dissonance required to be a woman under the patriarchy, you robbed it of its power.” That is, exposing patriarchy will build immunity against it. Alas, just talking about patriarchy doesn’t confer resistance to it. Indeed, most Americans believe there is more work to do in attaining gender equality.

Although I enjoyed the movie, my expertise is not in examining media representations. This expertise is, however, in the purview of the Communication Research Center’s newest Fellow, Dr. AnneMarie McClain. As an Assistant Professor of Media Science, Dr. McClain focuses on understanding how media – and conversations around media – can be used to promote positive outcomes for children and families, especially marginalized children and families. I asked Dr. McClain her thoughts on the Barbie movie, and this is what she shared:

The girl power! The outsmarting of the boys! The nostalgic rollerblades! As a millennial who loved Barbies, there were many elements of the new Barbie movie that struck right to my childhood core. However, as a mother raising small children and an academic who studies representation and identity socialization, it is important to highlight that the film missed some opportunities to be truly expansive in its representation and boundary-pushing.

The film had loud chords of feminism, some progressive commentary on various issues in our real human world, and unflinchingly included a trans Barbie, Barbies with bigger bodies, and dolls of various ethnic-racial identities as just part of the gang. Yet, the film largely stuck to the gender binary: real and fictional worlds of only females and males, rendering nonbinary individuals, gender fluid people, and people of other genders essentially invisible. The theory of invisibility (Fryberg & Townsend, 2008) suggests that without representation, it becomes harder to see yourself positively and to navigate your environments. The film missed moments to capture how the Barbie franchise has inspired people of all genders, not just girls. Importantly, Mattel has a line called Creatable World with dolls that can change their gender expression; featuring those dolls in the film, too, would have more accurately represented the world that we live in -- and that we need to celebrate.

Additionally, although the film featured BIPOC Barbie and human characters, the favorite doll of the Latine family was the white so-called "stereotypical Barbie.” This racial element was never addressed. Given concerns about how play may reflect BIPOC girls’ beliefs about their identity (e.g., Sturdivant & Alanis, 2021), this wide-reaching film missed opportunities to explicitly affirm that brown and Black dolls can be favorites, too. Barbieland also had a Barbie-version Mount Rushmore replica, a monument of European settlers carved into the sacred Black Hills of the Lakota Sioux, along with an unnecessary analogy that referenced smallpox harming Indigenous populations. Though these examples were not the center of the film, they could cause harm to Indigenous communities, who are already unfairly and minimally represented in U.S. media (e.g., Leavitt et al., 2015). The film also leaves room for more sensitive language around mental health – for example, it could have avoided using ableist language like “crazy” and “insane” and removed the commercial that makes light of mental health challenges where various conditions like OCD were “sold separately.” The Barbie movie tried to drive home an important message about how girls and women can be anything they want to be, but it could have also more explicitly celebrated another key part of inclusivity as well: that whoever any of us are is already enough, too.

While it might be unfair to demand a summer movie be all things to all people, Barbie’s social failures go beyond identity dynamics.

In an interesting postscript to the movie, the Barbie Liberation Organization (BLO) – an environmental activist group – employed a classic technique of protest, called culture jamming, to draw attention to the overwhelming use of plastics in society. Given how much oil it takes to produce a single Barbie, more than three cups, the environmental damage caused by the production of Barbies and all of her accessories is concerning to those who care about the environment. The BLO produced a series of press releases purportedly from Mattel that announced its commitment to entirely stop using plastics by 2030 as well as the launch of a new decomposible line of Barbie dolls made from organic materials such as mushrooms, algae, seaweed, clay, and bamboo. At least three national news organizations fell for the influence campaign and published articles about the pledge and new doll line including People, The Washington Times, and Dow News Wire.

In response to questions about the ethics of their culture jamming efforts, a BLO activist stated that, “What we’re fighting against is half a century of misinformation from the plastics industry and from fossil fuel companies and interests that are trying to convince people that recycling is a viable solution to the plastic waste problem.”

Thus, the Barbie movie has been a case study in how covert influence campaigns are being used to both entertain us as well as to hold powerful corporate interests to account.

CRC fellow and Ph.D. candidate in EMS, publishes her solo-authored paper, “Journalism Ethics for the Algorithmic Era” in Digital Journalism

By Lindsy GoldbergJuly 20th, 2023in Homepage

Congratulations to CRC fellow and Ph.D. candidate in EMS, Sejin Paik!

She recently published her solo-authored paper,"Journalism Ethics for the Algorithmic Era" in Digital Journalism. Drawing on interviews with local journalists, the article looks into the history of journalism ethics in the U.S. and the challenges of editorial work in the face of artificial intelligence and algorithmic systems. Paik encourages a cross-disciplinary lens to tackling contemporary topics in digital journalism. She applies Floridi's onlife theory which helps to explain a more complex, relational relationship among humans, machines and nature and extends this theoretical concept to the interplay between journalistic work and algorithmic systems at play. Findings of the study show a growing shift in editorial agency from a once human-led control to machine-dependent decision making. Discussions are made around how news workers and technologists can better align on the values, goals and motivation of journalistic work that is increasingly augmented by AI.

Letter from the Director: July 2023

By Michelle AmazeenJuly 1st, 2023in Homepage, Letters From the Director

By: Michelle Amazeen

Speaking Out: Then They Came for the Academics…

During my spring 2023 research sabbatical, I have continued my studies of disinformation. While having the time, resources, and support to focus exclusively on research is an increasingly rare privilege in academia, as I prepared to return as COM’s Director of the Communication Research Center, I have been reflecting on some of the challenges academic researchers face, especially those that study disinformation.

In 1943, the U.S. Department of War (today known as the Defense Department) released a short film called “Don’t Be a Sucker.” With anti-racist and anti-fascist themes, the film was intended to educate the public about prejudice and discrimination. At 14:56 into the clip (available here from the U.S. National Archives), the narrator – a Hungarian immigrant – remembers how the German Nazis came for academics and others who spoke for truth, exposing, among other things, the scientific fallacy of a “master” human race. These academics, writers, and scientists were exiled from Germany, jailed, or even put in concentration camps.

Eighty years on, the New York Times posted an article indicating that academics are once again under attack by their government. This time, it’s disinformation researchers who are being targeted by government legislators, not in some far away country, but right here in the United States. The goal is to undermine research into false claims about elections, vaccines, and other topics. The similarities to the historic descent into fascism are chilling.

Unfortunately, government suppression of academic inquiry is not new in the U.S. Among its wide-ranging investigations, in 1959, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) subpoenaed 40 public elementary and high school teachers in San Francisco accusing them of being Communists. Despite having little prosecutorial powers, the stigma of being called before the HUAC ended the careers of many including some of these educators.

Even with tenure – a mechanism that is supposed to protect academics from losing their position because of their speech, publications, or research findings – there are many examples of legislative and political interference with academic freedom.

PEN America – a non-profit defending freedom of expression – has noted a growing trend in legislative actions around the country attempting to influence what can be taught in public schools, colleges, universities, and libraries.

In Florida, for example, Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill requiring review of professors’ tenure every five years and is also proposing that trustees should be able to call for a tenure review at any time.

There is a long history of communication scholars, in particular, who have been targeted for their attempts to study media and communication systems. Some of them have been denied tenure at their institutions, others have been harassed, and some even received death threats.

One recent case includes Nicole Hannah-Jones being denied tenure in 2021 by the trustees (most of whom were elected or appointed by the state legislature) of the University of North Carolina over concerns about how her research depicted the historical record on slavery in the U.S. Another local example is that of Noam Chomsky, the MIT professor emeritus who researches linguistics but has also extensively criticized the U.S. media system – most notably in his book Manufacturing Consent – and is a political activist. Over the years, he has endured being harassed by the Nixon administration as well as “death threats, bomb threats, [and] hysterical accusations” by others.

At its best, communication research aids legislators in policy making. “Through all periods of research on the uses and effects of media,” note scholars Byron Reeves and James L. Baughman, “scholars actively studied questions that concerned the public, the communications industries, or government regulators and legislators, and the researchers expected that their efforts could in some form result in social change.”

Yet, when ideological differences exist in just what social change is warranted, conflict arises.

History tells us what happens when those who are clinging to power do not wish to sincerely debate the empirical evidence on what is best for the public:

They take control of the media, outlawing any news or programming not controlled by the government as when Adolf Hitler took power in 1933 or when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Books are banned or burned, as occurred during the Nazi regime, to “purify” literature. Disconcertingly, in the 2022-2023 academic school year, book bans in U.S. public schools are up by 28%.
They manufacture evidence and block others from examining it.

Rather than harassing the academics who try to examine our media systems for the nature and effects of disinformation, legislators should be facilitating that research and utilizing it to develop evidence-based policy.

With the turn of the calendar to the 2023-2024 academic year, I look forward continuing my research on disinformation, supporting others with their own research efforts, and engaging with those interested in developing evidence-based communication policies.

Emma Longo Receives Inaugural Nelson Undergraduate Research Award

By Lindsy GoldbergJune 20th, 2023in Homepage

In May 2023, research conducted by COM undergraduate student Emma Longo was awarded the inaugural Nelson Undergraduate Research Award from the University Research Opportunities Program (UROP). The Boston University Nelson Undergraduate Research Award was established in 2023 by a BU alumni donation from Mark (COM’88) and Ruth Gallagher Nelson to support students conducting research in communications.

Her research, which will be continuing this summer, is supervised by Dr. Michelle Amazeen.

Abstract: Using a rhetorical analysis, this study examines how fossil fuel companies portray climate issues in two native advertisements from the New York Times and the Washington Post. Native advertisements, which appear like posts that belong to platforms, are one of the ways fossil fuel companies attempt to share information on climate science. By investigating the covert advertising strategies used by fossil fuel corporations, researchers can better understand origins of climate misinformation and climate denial.

Longo's research has also been accepted for presentation at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC)'s annual conference in August. Congratulations, Emma!

Survey: With dating apps, we doubt them but don’t drop them

By Lindsy GoldbergFebruary 15th, 2023in Homepage, Media & Technology Press Releases

By Burt Glass

Americans doubt dating apps are the best way to find a successful relationship and they certainly don’t trust them – but they’re apparently unwilling to give up on apps like Match, Tinder and Hinge in the search for their true soulmate.

Those are some of the takeaways from the latest Media & Technology Survey designed by Boston University’s College of Communication and conducted by Ipsos earlier this month.

For every one respondent who agreed that “dating apps are the best way to find a successful relationship these days,” almost three disagreed (15% vs. 39%).

Further, respondents don’t fully trust what they read and see on dating apps. More than 60% of respondents agree that “most people lie on dating apps,” while only 4% disagree. Four times as many respondents agree than disagree that “dating apps are filled with too many machines posing as real people (known as chatbots) to be trusted” (39% vs. 11%).

The prospect of artificial intelligence technology improving dating apps didn’t seem to boost their confidence. Only one in six agreed that “dating apps that use AI, meaning computer-powered artificial intelligence, will lead to more successful relationships.”

Yet three times as many respondents agree than disagree that “people can find their soulmates on a dating app” (41% vs. 15%).

“Dating apps feel like they have so much potential for the people who use them. There is a sense that the ideal person is just one swipe away so you can’t give up, because what if?” says Kathryn Coduto, an assistant professor at Boston University College of Communication whose recent research has focused on dating apps technology.

Read the full story here, BU Brink coverage here and Boston Globe coverage here.