Schieffer Media Insights Lab

Our world is increasingly digital and important ideas, conversations, business, innovation, politics and more are happening online. The three-network broadcast system has long passed away.

The Schieffer Media Insights Lab was created to address how today’s communicators can understand who, what, where, when, why and how audiences – whether sports fans, voting public, company stakeholders, employees, competitors, or others – are thinking, feeling, and behaving.

Led by Director Timothy Betts, Ph.D., the lab provides resources and training that students and faculty need to better understand and prepare for today’s questions of how to effectively — and ethically — communicate. The lab serves its students and faculty through cutting edge research through AI-powered social media listening and facial expression analysis.

The lab is located in MOUS 165. Email schiefferlab@tcu.edu to inquire about project collaboration or faculty training materials.

Visit our Sharepoint site (TCU SSO required) to access training modules and more.

Lab Sharepoint (SSO)

Join the TCU Bob Schieffer College of Communication! We are seeking a faculty leader to help Lab Director Timothy Betts, Ph.D., lead our Schieffer Media Insights Lab and launch a post-baccalaureate certificate program in digital and social media analysis.

Our new colleague will be an associate or assistant professor in Communication Studies or Strategic Communication. Details at https://jobs.tcu.edu.

Apply now

Our lab has partnered with the world’s leading industry research providers for social media listening and facial expression software.

Brandwatch is our lab’s AI-powered social media listening platform with unmatched data visualization and superior user-interface that provides students powerful insights for projects such as analysis of a client’s campaign success. Students may also use competitor analysis dashboards to effectively compare organizations.

iMotions serves as our lab’s audience measurement tool, extending our understanding of online conversations to applied experimental tests of messaging effects on users. While self-report methods serve a purpose in research projects, iMotions allows for noninvasive and objective measures of audience sentiment and emotions both in and out of the lab.

Sprinklr is our lab’s leading AI-powered social media listening research platform with industry-leading reliability measurement of audience sentiment analysis. Faculty leverage the platform’s robust and customized data collection capabilities while students may also utilize its unified customer experience management (CXM) tools as they prepare for careers in social media management, marketing, public relations, data analytics, and beyond.

The Eye of the Listener

Carrie Moore, communication studies instructor, highlighted the importance of facial expression in conveying emotions during an onsite iMotions training session.

“Is that what we see? Did iMotions get it right?” Moore asked her students.

With funding from the dean’s research grants, Moore is using the Schieffer Media Insights Lab to help students grasp nonverbal cues and their broader impact. iMotions, a software that analyzes facial expressions, measures how online media affects audience sentiments.

Continue reading The Eye of the Listener: Students Explore AI-Powered Facial Expression Analysis.

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