About

Dr. Miriam Metzger is a professor in the Department of Communication at UC Santa Barbara. Her research seeks to understand the individual and societal effects of using information and communication technology by studying the forces that shape people’s trust of and perceptions about online information. More specifically, her work employs quantitative social science methods to study the ways in which digital communication technologies challenge users’ ability to evaluate the credibility of information online and negotiate privacy decisions. She earned her doctorate from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California and has been teaching at UCSB since 1998. Dr. Metzger is also affiliated with the Center for Information, Technology and Society and the Center for Responsible Machine Learning at UCSB. Her research has been published in top journals within her discipline, including Human Communication Research, Journal of Communication, Communication Research, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, New Media & Society, and Media Psychology, as well as in interdisciplinary journals such as Science, Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, and Computers in Human Behavior. She has served on the editorial board of several disciplinary journals, including as Associate Editor for the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. Dr. Metzger has delivered numerous keynote speeches around the world on topics such as fake news, misinformation, and online privacy management.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Psychology
• Political Science
• Natural Language Processing
• Sociology
• Computer Security
• Artificial Intelligence
• Art history
• Law
• Internet privacy
• World Wide Web
• Linguistics
• Art
• Social psychology
• History

Selected publications

• The Pulse of Privacy: The Role of Efficacy Framing and Discrete Emotion in Combating Privacy Powerlessness and Motivating Online Privacy Protection

  Communication Research · 2026-02-16

  article

  Can discrete emotions be leveraged to combat privacy powerlessness and motivate privacy protection? Extending theorizing and research that exclusively focus on cognitive processes underlying online privacy decision-making, this study builds on gain/loss framing research and the emotions-as-frames model to understand the effectiveness of emotional appeals (i.e., hope and fear) in generating attitudinal and behavioral change in online privacy. Two online experiments that differed in message topics (Study 1: changing social media privacy settings; Study 2: rejecting website cookies) were conducted with demographically-stratified samples of U.S. adults. Results showed that gain-frame-induced hope consistently led to reduced privacy powerlessness, which was associated with increased privacy protection intention across both topics, whereas loss-frame-induced fear only led to increased protection intention in the social media context. This study advances theorizing on the role that discrete emotion plays in online privacy management from a communication perspective and highlights the novel effect of hope in motivating attitudinal and behavioral change. Findings also help to answer recent calls for remedies to privacy powerlessness and inform message-based intervention designs for consumer empowerment.

  PublisherDOI

• The Necessary Evolution of Mass Communication Research in a Fragmenting Media Landscape

  Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly · 2026-02-17

  articleOpen access

  With the ongoing evolution of media channels, debates over the concept of mass communication have been reignited. When we live in a society of filter bubbles and AI-generated content, the very notion of a large uniform audience has been undermined. Indeed, the process of mass communication looks different today than in the early days of the field, which naturally affects how to define and measure media effects. In this forum, leading communication scholars provide arguments as to whether we should keep using the term “mass communication,” adapt its definition, or develop entirely new concepts that better reflect our fragmenting media environment.

  PublisherDOI

• Seeing Ad Transparency More Clearly: Public Perception, Use of Ad Transparency Tools, and Responses to Dataveillance

  Journal of Advertising · 2025-03-15 · 6 citations

  articleOpen accessCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Facts About Fact-Checkers: Comparing Credibility Perceptions, Usage, and Sharing of Different Fact-Checking Sources

  Journal of Media Psychology Theories Methods and Applications · 2025-08-20 · 2 citations

  articleSenior author

  Abstract: Fact-checking provides an important tool in the fight against misinformation, yet fact-checks may only be effective to the extent that they are perceived as credible. This research provides a first look at such perceptions across a wide array of legacy and novel fact-check sources available today. An online survey of 993 participants and an experiment involving 1,002 participants were conducted to examine differences in credibility perceptions, usage, and sharing of fact-checks from professional fact-check organizations, mainstream news outlets, social media platforms, automated fact-check services, and crowdsourcing. Results show that legacy sources are considered most credible, fact-check receiver characteristics (political ideology, analytical thinking, and information literacy) influence perceptions of fact-checker credibility, and perceived credibility of fact-checkers is key to fact-check usage. Results also reveal that fact-checker source type and perceived credibility of fact-checkers are essential to fact-check sharing intention. Our findings advance the nascent concept of fact-checker credibility and contribute to theory, specifically the MAIN model and the stage framework model. They also offer novel data about new sources of fact-checking, including how AI and crowdsource-based fact-checkers are perceived by the public.

  PublisherDOI

• Not the average user: A latent profile analysis of privacy protection appraisals in targeted advertising

  New Media & Society · 2025-12-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Drawing from protection motivation theory (PMT), this study explored subgroups of Internet users based on their patterns of privacy threat and coping appraisals (i.e. perceived severity, perceived vulnerability, perceived benefits, self-efficacy, response efficacy, and response cost) in the context of targeted advertising. A latent profile analysis using a nationally-representative sample of US adults revealed three meaningful subgroups: Privacy-Optimistic, Privacy-Cautious, and Privacy-Balanced. These profiles differed in privacy protection intention, with Privacy-Cautious individuals reporting the highest intention, followed by Privacy-Balanced and Privacy-Optimistic individuals. In addition, higher perceived surveillance was associated with higher odds of being in the Privacy-Cautious and Privacy-Balanced (vs Privacy-Optimistic) profiles. Higher privacy powerlessness was also associated with higher odds of being in the Privacy-Cautious (vs Privacy-Optimistic) profile. Findings theoretically extend PMT and previous privacy research by highlighting the heterogeneity in users’ online privacy appraisals, and practically inform more tailored intervention and message designs.

  PublisherDOI

• Me Against Myself: How Right-Partisan Media Use Predicts Support for Redistribution Across Class and Partisan Identities

  Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly · 2025-07-11

  article

  Despite rising economic inequality in the United States, lower-class Americans have yet to demand economic redistribution in overwhelming numbers. Analysis of the 2020 American National Election Study finds that right-partisan media use is associated with lower support for redistributive policies, and this relationship is strongest among individuals who identify as lower-class or Independent. We also found the relationship between right-partisan media use and taxing the rich was strongest among lower-class Republicans and upper-class Democrats. We discuss the potential for right-partisan media to breed system-justifying beliefs and shape opposition to economic redistribution among those who might benefit most from such policies.

  PublisherDOI

• The Online Privacy Divide: Testing Resource and Identity Explanations for Racial/Ethnic Differences in Privacy Concerns and Privacy Management Behaviors on Social Media

  Communication Research · 2024-08-13 · 11 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Do existing social inequalities translate into social media privacy management? This study examined racial/ethnic differences in privacy concerns and privacy management behaviors on social media to evaluate empirical evidence for an online privacy divide in the U.S. In addition, we tested two prominent theoretical perspectives–resource-based and identity-based explanations–for such divides. Results from an online survey ( N = 1,401) revealed that compared to White social media users, Latinx and Asian users reported higher horizontal and vertical privacy concerns, Latinx users employed horizontal privacy management strategies more frequently, Black users reported higher horizontal and vertical privacy self-efficacy, and Latinx users reported higher vertical privacy self-efficacy. While unequal distribution of resources (i.e., socioeconomic status) explained some differences among Asian (vs. White) participants, identity-based factor (i.e., perceived discrimination) served to motivate cautious privacy management among Black participants. Theoretical contributions to the privacy and marginalization literature are discussed. Practical implications are provided.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Who Needs Privacy? Exploring the Relations Between Need for Privacy and Personality

  Collabra Psychology · 2024-01-01 · 8 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Privacy is defined as a voluntary withdrawal from society. While everyone needs some degree of privacy, we currently know little about who needs how much. In this study, we explored the relations between the need for privacy and personality. Personality was operationalized using the HEXACO personality inventory. Need for privacy was measured in relation to social, psychological, and physical privacy from other individuals (horizontal privacy); need for privacy from government agencies and companies (vertical privacy); as well as need for informational privacy, anonymity, and general privacy (both horizontal and vertical privacy). A sample of 1,550 respondents representative of the U.S. in terms of age, gender, and ethnicity was collected. The results showed several substantial relationships: More extraverted and more agreeable people needed substantially less privacy. People less fair and less altruistic needed more psychological privacy, social privacy, and anonymity, lending some support to the ‘nothing to hide-argument’. Emotionality and conscientiousness showed varied relations with need for privacy. More conservative respondents needed more privacy from the government.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Checking the Fact-Checkers: The Role of Source Type, Perceived Credibility, and Individual Differences in Fact-Checking Effectiveness

  Communication Research · 2023-10-27 · 62 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  This study investigates fact-checking effectiveness in reducing belief in misinformation across various types of fact-check sources (i.e., professional fact-checkers, mainstream news outlets, social media platforms, artificial intelligence, and crowdsourcing). We examine fact-checker credibility perceptions as a mechanism to explain variance in fact-checking effectiveness across sources, while taking individual differences into account (i.e., analytic thinking and alignment with the fact-check verdict). An experiment with 859 participants revealed few differences in effectiveness across fact-checking sources but found that sources perceived as more credible are more effective. Indeed, the data show that perceived credibility of fact-check sources mediates the relationship between exposure to fact-checking messages and their effectiveness for some source types. Moreover, fact-checker credibility moderates the effect of alignment on effectiveness, while analytic thinking is unrelated to fact-checker credibility perceptions, alignment, and effectiveness. Other theoretical contributions include extending the scope of the credibility-persuasion association and the MAIN model to the fact-checking context, and empirically verifying a critical component of the two-step motivated reasoning model of misinformation correction.

  PublisherDOI

• Group Privacy

  2023-04-27 · 3 citations

  book-chapterSenior author

  Advances in information and data processing technologies in recent years present new challenges to privacy. The notion of “group privacy” has become increasingly important in the age of big data because most analytics target people not as individuals but rather as groups. Yet personal privacy has been the primary focus of privacy concern, legislation, and scholarship. This chapter differentiates group privacy from personal privacy, describes new threats to group privacy, and argues that privacy scholarship must pay greater attention to understanding how to manage group privacy in ways that protect both individual group members as well as groups themselves. The chapter also discusses how well current privacy theory applies to group privacy and summarizes existing studies as a means to highlight where future theory and research are needed.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Andrew J. Flanagin

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  47 shared

• Lydia Mhango

  Copperbelt University

  28 shared

• Kristina Kapanova

  Trinity College Dublin

  28 shared

• Martha Peaslee Levine

  28 shared

• Samantha Lapka

  Purdue University West Lafayette

  28 shared

• Pouya Zargar

  28 shared

• Franki Y. H. Kung

  28 shared

• Kevin Koidl

  Trinity College Dublin

  28 shared

Labs

• Kids and CredibilityPI