Yu Xu

(He/Him/His)

Assistant Professor

Phone:847-491-2200Email:yu.xu@northwestern.eduOffice: MFC 3-133

Yu Xu's research interests include media industries and analytics, social and communication networks, organizational change, ecology and evolution, and computational social science. His work has been published in leading journals such as Communication Research, Human Communication Research, Communication Monographs, New Media & Society, the Journal of Business Research, Political Communication, and Information Communication & Society. He is the recipient of the "IMC Teacher of the Year 2022" Award.

Education

PhD in communication, University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism
MA in journalism and communication, Tsinghua University School of Journalism and Communication
BA in communication, Fudan University School of Journalism

Authored Works

Xu, Y. (2023). Mechanisms for employee mobility between organizations: A network analysis of faculty turnover in communication, 2013 to 2022. Communication Research.
Xu, Y., & Peng, T. (2023). Ecological constraints on audience size in the digital media system: Evidence from the longitudinal tracking data from 2019 to 2022. Human Communication Research.
Xu, Y. (2023). A dynamic network perspective on the evolution of the use of multiple mobile instant messaging apps. Communication Monographs, 90(1), 25–45.
Xu, Y. (2022). Ecological influences on the formation of the hiring network in the communication job market, 2015 to 2019. Communication Research, 49(5), 649–674.
Xu, L. Z., Sargent, M., Xu, Y., Sun, J., Li, Y., & Fulk, J. (2022). The emergence of core (hash)tags and its effects on performance. Telematics & Informatics, 72, 101854.
Xu, Y. (2022). Evolution of audience duplication networks among social networking sites: Exploring the influences of preferential attachment, audience size, and niche width. New Media & Society, 24(9), 2068–2087.
Xu, Y., Sun, Y., Hagen, L., Patel, M., & Falling, M. (2021). Evolution of the plandemic communication network among serial participants on Twitter. New Media & Society, 1–20.
Lane, D., Thorson, K., & Xu, Y. (2021). Uninterested and unequal?: Examining SES-based gaps in youth political behavior on social media. Information, Communication & Society, 1–19.
Xu, Y., Hazée, S., So, K. K. F., Li, D. K., & Malthouse, E. C. (2021). An evolutionary perspective on the dynamics of service platform ecosystems for the sharing economy. Journal of Business Research, 135, 127–136.
Xu, Y., Fulk, J., & Monge, P. (2021). Ecological influences on network tie dissolution in the evolution of affiliation networks in the International Communication Association, 2009–2015. Human Communication Research, 47(1), 75–103.
Xu, Y., Sun, Y., Cruz, I., & Fulk, J. (2021). Creating the path to success: The impact of crowdsourced exploratory and exploitative activities of expert graphic designers on creativity performance. Telematics and Informatics, 58, 101520.
Xu, Y. (2020). The formation mechanism of the player transfer network among football clubs. Soccer & Society.
Xu, Y. (2020). Book review: How behavior spreads: The science of complex contagions. Information, Communication & Society, 23(1), 148–150.
Xu, Y. (2018). The ecological dynamics of organizational change: Density dependence in the rate of Weibo adoption by populations of news organizations. International Journal of Communication, 12, 1612–1637.
Walter, N., Ball-Rokeach, S., Xu, Y., & Broad, G. M. (2018). Communication ecologies: Analyzing adoption of false beliefs in an information-rich environment. Science Communication, 48(5), 650–668.
Thorson, K., Xu, Y., Edgerly, S. (2018). Political inequalities start at home: Parents, children and the socialization of civic infrastructure online. Political Communication, 35(2), 178–195.
Xu, Y. (2017). Book review: Expertise, communication, and organizing. Journal of Communication, 67(1), E10–E12.
Xu, Y. (2017). Modeling the adoption of social media by newspaper organizations: An organizational ecology approach. Telematics and Informatics, 34(1), 151–163.
Xu, Y., & Jin, J. (2017). Hierarchy of influences on professional role perceptions among Chinese online journalists: A multilevel analysis. Digital Journalism, 5(2), 194–212.
Xu, Y., Liu, Y., & Qi, L. (2017). Examining collective memory building in Wikipedia: A multilevel network approach. Proceedings of the 50th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS), 2138–2145.
Wasserman, H., Ramaprasad, J., Sodre, M., Anikina, M., Vemula, R. K., & Xu, Y. (2017). Newsmaking: Navigating digital territory. In S. Pasti & J. Ramaprasad (Eds.), Contemporary BRICS journalism (pp. 49–71). New York: Routledge.
Pasti, S., Becker, B., Gudipaty, N., Xu, Y., & Ndlovu, M. (2017). Profession and practice: Re-imagining the future of journalism. In S. Pasti & J. Ramaprasad (Eds.), Contemporary BRICS journalism (pp. 130–156). New York: Routledge.
Thorson, K., Edgerly, S., Kliger-Vilenchik, N., Xu, Y., & Wang, L. (2016). Seeking visibility in a big tent: Digital communication and the People’s Climate March. International Journal of Communication, 10, 4784–4806.
Zhou, R., Xu, Y., & Li, X. (2015). Journalists in contemporary China: Evidence from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Wuhan. African Journalism Studies, 36(3), 87–113.