Stanford
Social Media Lab

About

The Stanford Social Media Lab works on understanding psychological and interpersonal processes in social media. The team specializes in using computational linguistics and behavioral experiments to understand how the words we use can reveal psychological and social dynamics, such as deception and trust, emotional dynamics, and relationships.

Our Values

At the Stanford Social Media Lab, we are committed to supporting and improving the wellbeing of humanity. Inspired by Black Lives Matter and other movements for social justice, we are taking this opportunity to publicly affirm our values and commitments to equity and justice.

We believe in prioritizing, valuing, and celebrating diversity, in particular scholars of color and others who have been historically marginalized and underrepresented in Communication. We believe social technologies as a whole and our research, teaching, and outreach as a Lab should strive to assist in this effort.

Our Commitment

  • We will lead quarterly informed discussions about diversity and inclusion in our lab.
  • We will consider these values in all aspects of our research, from topic and research and question development to data collection, methodology, mechanism and theory, analysis, and interpretations of findings. We will include people from underrepresented groups on panels, centering work from POC in our retreats, and collaborating with and learning from marginalized communities.
  • We will use our online platforms to develop and share best teaching and research practices on diversity and inclusion, and to promote research on these topics within the discipline of Communication.
  • We will bring diverse perspectives to our syllabi by including readings that represent authors and communities from marginalized and underrepresented backgrounds.
  • In graduate admissions, we will increase outreach efforts to students from historically marginalized or underrepresented groups. We will support the Department’s efforts to recruit underrepresented students from historically black colleges and universities.