News

The MESA Group explores the evolution of deterrent thinking in the USSR and Russia through an examination of Russian military documents. See the full report for more details. Cover image by the US National Archives. 

The MESA Group publishes a report that examines perspectives on evolving nuclear challenges and deterrence approaches. This project analyzes discourse across media, experts, and social platforms in major nuclear-armed nations. Using computational analysis and qualitative coding, it compiles insights from news articles, arms control blogs, and Twitter commentary over the past decade. See the full report for more details. Cover image by George Hodan.

MESA graduate student Campbell Clark completes his summer internship with the Balkan Security Network in Serbia. During his internship, Campbell analyzed media data and wrote articles for the Nova RS News Station. Read more about his experiences here.

MESA student Campbell Clark attends the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) Research Conference in Washington, D.C. The theme of NIJ’s Research Conference is “evidence to action,” and the goal is to bring researchers and practitioners together to learn about the latest research evidence and how it can be implemented to promote safety, equity, and justice.

A new article titled "Hybrid regimes and narrative legitimacy during economic crises: Resiliency narratives of Egypt’s economic crisis" was published in the Global Media and Communication journal. This study advances a theory of resiliency narratives to hybrid regimes by proposing a continuum mapping a democratic, hybrid and modern authoritarian narrative structure based on its directionality and informational content during economic crises. Using Egypt’s 2016 economic crisis as a case study, we examine Egyptian and Russian native language media reporting. The results show that Egyptian media provide coherent narratives of economic resiliency devoid of ideological messaging, with attribution of blame placed on domestic causes more than international, providing support to the hybrid regimes’ differentiated narrative structures. For the full text of the article, click here.

Image: Mahmoud Elkhwas/NurPhoto/picture alliance

The MESA Group published an article titled "The Effects of the Culturally Tailored Narratives on COVID-19 Vaccine Confidence Among Hispanics: A Randomized Online Experiment." Guided by the health belief model (HBM), cultural sensitivity approach, and the theory of situated cognition, this study compares the effects of culturally tailored narratives and generic narratives on the COVID-19 vaccine confidence among Hispanics. It also examines an array of cognitive responses (perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits, perceived barriers, and perceived side effects) associated with the COVID-19 vaccine confidence, and the interaction of these cognitive responses with the two narrative types of messaging.

The SMA Conference explores the ways the US and partners together can build enduring advantages through persistent, integrated campaigning across various domains. In execution, this is a huge intellectual and bureaucratic lift but a necessary imperative if we are to create favorable and sustainable outcomes while addressing the challenges of the Decisive Decade and beyond.

The MESA Group attended the National Communication Association (NCA) Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana, and presented two VCF-funded research papers:

- Ingroup Favoritism Surrounding the COVID-19 Vaccine among Hispanics: An Experimental Study

- The Effects of the Culturally Tailored Narratives on COVID-19 Vaccine Confidence Among Hispanics: A Randomized Online Experiment

The MESA group is working on developing a coherence-based virtual reality (VR) media literacy training program. This video explains the project in detail. Produced by Songboer and Benetta Liu.