Yang, Aimei

Contact Information
Associate Professor
Department of Journalism
Phone: 213-740-5096

Education

• Ph.D.,University of Oklahoma
• M.A., Nankai University, China
• B.A., Nankai University, China

Background

Aimei Yang is an associate professor at USC Annenberg. Yang earned her PhD in communication at the University of Oklahoma; her research is positioned at the intersection of strategic public relations research and a social network approach to the study of interorganizational relationships, and focuses on the relationship dynamics among civil actors, corporations and government agencies. Specifically, Yang’s research topics include transnational civil networks, multisectoral alliance networks, public diplomacy, and dynamic social networks in social movements.

Yang has published more than 40 refereed journal articles in communication, public relations and management journals such as Communication Theory, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Mass Communication and Society, Computers in Human Behavior, Public Relations Review, and Journal of Business Ethics, among others. Yang has also regularly presented her work at national and international conferences and given research talks at universities around the world. She has received several top faculty research awards from the National Communication Association and the International Communication Association.

Yang is a member of the Page Up Society and serves on the editorial board of Public Relations Review and Journal of Public Relations Research.

Prof. Yang’s work has been recognized with “top faculty paper” awards at the 2012, 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2020 National Communication Association annual conferences in different divisions (public relations, business communication, communication and technology).

Selected publications:

• “An issue niche theory of NGOs’ interorganizational network ecology," author (Communication Theory, 2020).
• “Cross-Sectoral hyperlink network and issues management: A cross-national study," co-author (Business & Society, 2019).
• “Building a cross-sectoral interorganizational network to advance nonprofits: NGO incubators as relationship brokers in China," co-author (Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 2019).
• “Serial participants of social media climate discussion as a community of practice: A longitudinal network analysis,” author (Information, Communication, & Society, 2019).
• “Talking politics and engaging in activism: The influence of publics’ social networks on corporations in the public sphere,” co-author (Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 2019).
• “Unleashing the power of networks: Shareholder activism, sustainable development and corporate environmental policy,” co-author (Business Strategy and the Environment, 2018).
• “NGOs’ humanitarian advocacy in the 2015 refugee crisis: A study of agenda building in the digital age,” co-author (American Behavioral Scientist, 2018).
• “Looking over, looking out, and moving forward: A network ecology framework to position public relations in communication theory,” co-author (Communication Theory, 2015).