By: Brandon Caudill, Tyler Quach, Everardo Serrato & Jericho Tiojanco
Mark Wu, California State University, Fullerton
Mark Wu is a presitgous professor at California State University, Fullerton. He has been conducting his own research and teaching at many prestigous universities all over the world for over 20 years now. He also worked for many Fortune 500 companies across the globe. Professor Wu research focuses more on the Advertising side, winning many awards along the way. With all of his accollades and credibility we felt like he was the perfect person for our group to interview.
We had the privilege to interview Professor Mark Wu on October 25, 2023. We discussed about a variety of topics in terms of research. We started off with a basic question on ways to conduct research and asked him about his opinions on certain topics regarding research. All of us being Advertising Majors as well we were interested in his research that involved social media and how it can be used to advertise products to the consumers of today.
What we wanted to focus on was Professor Wu’s research in regards to Social Media. Bringing up some of his older works like “Traits, Predictors, and Consequences of Facebook Self-Presentation”. We wanted to know how that research would apply in todays social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram & many others. We were also curious on his thought on AI technology and how it can be used in research today as well. These questions helped us learn more about how to do research and also learn about how research may be conducted in the near future.
Best Way to Avoid Bias & Errors
Does your research in “Traits, Predictors and Consequences of Facebook Self-Presentation” apply to social media today?
The thing that Professor Wu brings up when discussing this specific research is that even thought this research paper is over 10 years old, the findings from this research still apply to many of the social media platforms today. What the research paper mainly focuses on how Facebook affects the way people interact and present themselves on the platform.
The reason the Professor Wu believes this is the case is due to human nature and the way that people interact with social media hasn’t changed. He brings up a phenomenon that is used in media called Echo Chamber. An echo chamber in social media is when a person only encounters ideas that reflect their own. This reinforces their ideas that they had already believed. This keeps people on social media because they like to see things that they agree with. Professor Wu mentions the platforms that partake in this phenomenon such as TikTok and Youtube.
Another, topic that Professor Wu mentions that reflect this belief is that we as people are more influenced by what others do more than we know. This is part of the reason why a majority of people post on social media. They basically want to get gratification and assurance from the content that they are posting on certain platforms.
The final point that he talks about is how we as researchers for advertising are always looking to study human nature and how people think. By doing this it allows for researchers to get a sense or idea of what society may think as well.
Sun, Tao; Wu, Mark (2012). Traits, Predictors and Consequences of Facebook Self-Presentation” Sage Publishing.
Ethics of AI technology use in Research
With AI technology such as Chat GPT becoming more significant and many workplace within the Advertising space starting to use it capabilities, we thought it was appropriate to get Professor Wu’s thoughts on this topic. AI technology has become the latest trend in terms of almost everything. This is due to it seemingly unlimited capabilities and its vast amount of information that is pulled from the internet. Many companies hiring nowadays want people who know how to work with such tools, which is why it is important for us to learn more about the topic now.
One of first points that Professor Wu discusses with us for this question is that with AI technology it allows researchers to get a more personal idea of what consumers may want. This is what companies are looking for, so they can directly target consumers with Advertisements that will most likely fit them. The use of AI technology has potential to be used for great things in research.
The view of ethics that Professor Wu had on the use of AI technology in research is, he thought it depends on how the technology is used. He believes that if the tool is in the correct hands than there is nothing wrong with it. But, when organizations start to use AI as a tool to promote propaganda or political agenda then it starts to be used for wrong purpose. Also, if AI is used to exploit people. This is because the ability to gather information about a person or society in general has become much easier than before with AI.
The Society for Communications Research 