Yu Xu

(He/Him/His)

Assistant Professor

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

Yu Xu's research interests include communication and organizational change, social networks, media industries, sociocultural evolution, and computational social science. His current research focuses on ecological and evolutionary foundations of behavioral and network change in online communities.

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. (2021). Ecological influences on the formation of the hiring network in the communication job market, 2015 to 2019. Communication Research.
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. (2021). Evolution of audience duplication networks among social networking sites: Exploring the influences of preferential attachment, audience size, and niche width. New Media & Society.
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.
Lane, D., Thorson, K., & Xu, Y. (2021). Uninterested and unequal?: Examining SES-based gaps in youth political behavior on social media. Information, Communication & Society.
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.