Biography

Hello 😊! I am Xuzhen “Jen” Yang, a second-year Ph.D. student in Communication at Michigan State University. My research sits at platformization, political communication, and AI-driven social simulation. Methodologically, I am particularly interested in the potential of LLM-based simulation to advance information integrity and democratic participation.

At the micro level, I investigate the mechanisms that (1) shape how individuals are exposed to, consume, and engage with political information; and (2) produce the illusion of knowledge and confidence during deliberative processes. At the meso level, I examine how strategic actors gain “capital” and thrive across information ecosystems. At the macro level, I explore how technological infrastructures shape the forms of action and knowing in social life.

My scholarship addresses the following questions:

• What discrepancies exist across multiple digital platforms?
• How do malicious actors strategically gain visibility across digital platforms?
• How do identity-based motivations and habitual digital traces shape political information exposure and consumption?
• How do cognitive capacity and coherence influence political judgment?

My recent work focuses on developing LLM-based social agents to model human behavior in interactive environments. Specifically, I explore how do cognitive capacity and coherence influence information verification in the simulated environment.

Directory

For more about my research, please visit the Research page. For the latest updates, see the News page. My full CV can will soon be found CV.

update 6/1/2026