Rim H. Chaif
Research

Research program

As a computational social scientist and strategic communication scholar, I study how media, digital platforms, and emerging technologies shape attitudes, behaviors, identities, and decision-making, with particular attention to health, representation, and social issues. I combine media effects, persuasion, strategic communication, and computational social science, using large-scale data alongside experiments and mixed-method approaches.

AI & Emerging Media

AI-generated communication and human-AI interaction

AI-generated communication, large language models, human-AI interaction, information integrity, and virtual influencers, and what these shifts mean for persuasion, authenticity, and trust.

Strategic Communication & Media Effects

Persuasion, branding, and audience effects

Public relations, advertising, persuasion, branding, campaigns, and audience effects, including consumer responses to performative advertising and representation in strategic communication.

Digital Health Communication

Online health communities and information seeking

Reproductive health, online health communities, health misinformation, information seeking, and social support, including how for-profit actors disguise persuasion as peer support.

Identity, Representation & Digital Culture

Gender, representation, and digital culture

Gender, representation, digital activism, LGBTQIA+ communities, cross-cultural communication, and online identity, with attention to marginalized communities and the Global South.

Methodological Contribution

The Iterative Bidirectional Validation (IBV) framework

A human-in-the-loop approach to validating large language model classifications in sensitive communication contexts, developed to bring rigor and transparency to computational text analysis in health and social domains.

Methods

Publications

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

  1. Chaif, R. H. (2026). “More Like a Drug Cartel Than a Baby Plan”: A Multimodal Analysis of Reproductive Narratives in Online Infertility Communities. Health.
  2. Chaif, R. H., & Diwanji, V. S. (2026). It is Not Just a Joke: An Experimental Study on the Role of Feminist Humor Memes in Motivating Collective Action for Gender Equality in Algeria. Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication.
  3. Diwanji, V. S., Nguyen, N., Coelho, M. B., Burkett, M., Chaif, R. H., & Okocha, M. U. (2026). Pride, Not Prejudice: A Cross-Cultural Big Data Analysis of Consumer Reactions to Rainbow-washing in Advertising. International Journal of Advertising, 45(3), 653–680.
  4. Chaif, R. H., & Etheridge, C. (2025). Reforming the Reformers: Shaping Pro-Democratic Attitudes and Beliefs through Discussions of Online Violence Against Women. Social Media + Society.
  5. Diwanji, V., Geana, M., Pei, J., Nguyen, N., Izhar, N., & Chaif, R. H. (2025). Consumers’ Emotional Responses to AI-Generated versus Human-Generated Content. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction.
  6. Chaif, R. H., & Finneman, T. (2024). “My Place Isn’t in the Kitchen”: Examining Feminist Facebook Framing of an Algerian Social Movement. Social Media + Society, 10(3). AEJMC First Place Student/Faculty Paper Award
  7. Seo, H., Burkett, M., Okocha, M., Ha, H., Chaif, R. H., Izhar, N., Barros, M., Jona, B., & Iqbal, A. (2024). Social Media Activism and Women’s Health: Endometriosis as a Feminist Issue. Digital Health.
  8. Seo, H., Burkett, K. M., Morales, O., Izhar, N., Chaif, R. H., Coelho, M. B., Ha, H., Jona, B., Iqbal, A., & Doyle, T. (2024). Between Likes and Lies: How Teenage Girls Navigate Online Health Information. Frontiers in Communication.
  9. Da Silva, F., Baines, A., Seo, H., Burkett, M., Chaif, R. H., Izhar, N., & Gracia, V. (2023). Comparative Analysis of Online Social Support in Health: Brazilian and U.S. Facebook Groups on Diabetes. International Communication Research Journal, 59(1), 46–66.

Peer-Reviewed Conference Proceedings

  1. Wang, Y., Chaif, R. H., Jia, Y. D., Liu, H., Li, X., Izhar, N., Olatunji, S., Ding, H., Wen, H., Ha, H. H., & Hu, X. (2026). Intersection of TikTok/Douyin and Dementia: A Scoping Review of Research to Date (2016–May 2025). Proceedings of the 59th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS), 3871–3880.

Selected Manuscripts Under Review

  1. Chaif, R. H. Strategic Health Communication Camouflage: How For-Profit Fertility Clinics Disguise Persuasion as Peer Support on Instagram.
  2. Chaif, R. H. The Iterative Bidirectional Validation (IBV) Framework for LLM-Based Classification in Sensitive Health Domains.
  3. Diwanji, V., Burkett, K. M., Chaif, R. H., Iqbal, A., Coelho, M., & Wiley, T. Breaking the Mold: The Impact of Gamification and Disability Representation in Virtual Influencer Advertising. (R&R)
  4. Diwanji, V. S., Conlin, J., Barros, M. N., Burkett, M., & Chaif, R. H. Influencing through Diversity: The Impact of Gender and Racial Representation on Consumer Evaluations of Virtual Influencers.
  5. Diwanji, V., Seo, H., Conlin, J., Baines, A., Pei, J., Bauer, F., Chaif, R. H., et al. Application of Virtual Reality for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Training in Advertising and Public Relations. (R&R)

A full list of manuscripts under review and works in progress appears in the CV.