Pu Yan

Dr. Pu Yan is a researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute (OII), University of Oxford, where she previously served as a post-doctoral researcher. She holds a PhD in Communication, Information, and Social Science from the University of Oxford, completed in 2019, and has also earned a Master’s degree in the Social Science of the Internet from the same institution. Her undergraduate studies were conducted at Tsinghua University, where she majored in Communication Science and English Literature.

Research Focus

Dr. Yan's research interests encompass several key areas:

• Social Impact of Technologies: She examines how technologies affect everyday life and societal structures.
• Computational Social Science: Her work often employs computational methods to analyze social phenomena.
• Digital Divides: She investigates disparities in access to and use of digital technologies, particularly in China.

Currently, she is involved in a project titled "What Do 'the People' Want?", which studies the role of digital media in the rise of populism across six countries using computational social science methods.123

Selected Publications

Dr. Yan has contributed to various academic publications, including:

• "TikTok Politics: Tit for Tat on the India-China Cyberspace Frontier" (2021)
• “Grassroots Information Divides in China” (2021)
• “Information Overload and Everyday Internet Use in Rural and Urban China” (2021)

Her work has been recognized for its innovative approach to understanding the intersection of technology and society, particularly within the context of Chinese internet practices.123

In her current role at Peking University as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Information Management, Dr. Yan continues to explore these themes while contributing to academic discourse on digital sociology and information behavior.14