Chime In

Chime In is a research service that creates, tests, and promotes high-quality information on important public health issues, housed in the Center for Communication and Civic Renewal at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,

Chime In is funded by a research grant from the National Science Foundation. See grant details here.

• Chime In amplifies high-quality information to communities using the sponsored-content features of social media platforms. You can access our tool at app.chimein.services
• Chime In also empowers researchers, businesses, and practitioners who are interested in rigorously testing health promotional messages through randomized multi-arm A/B testing on social media. Chime In provides customizable technical support, scientific consultation, and implementation service to reduce barriers and improve equitable access to state-of-art causal inference techniques, machine learning models, and evolving sponsored-content systems across social media platforms.

Current research topics

We currently focus on three vaccine-related public health issues — HPV Vaccines, MMR Vaccines, and Flu/Tdap Vaccines — to counter vaccine hesitancy and promote high-quality information consistent with best available scientific consensus. Over time, we plan to study other public health issues.

We are a team of experts in communication, tech, civic health, and statistics.

Principal Investigator:

Dr. Michael Wagner, William T. Evjue Distinguished Chair for the Wisconsin Idea; Director, Center for Communication and Civic Renewal; Director, Graduate Studies, School of Journalism & Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Co-PIs and Senior Personnel:

Dr. Porismita Borah, Professor, Murrow College of Communication, Washington State University

Dr. Munmun De Choudhury, Assistant Professor, College of Computing, Georgia Tech

Dr. Srijan Kumar, Assistant Professor, College of Computing, Georgia Tech

Dr. Sijia Yang, Associate Professor, School of Journalism & Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Dr. Dhavan Shah, McLeod Professor of Communication Research; Maier-Bascom Chair; MCRC Director; CCCR Research Director, School of Journalism & Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Dr. Leticia Bode, Professor, Inaugural Research Director of the Knight-Georgetown Institute, Communication, Culture, and Technology, Georgetown University

Dr. Emily Vraga, Associate Professor, Hubbard School of Journalism, University of Minnesota

Dr. William Sethares, Professor, College of Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison

University, Industry, & Tech Partnerships

Georgia Tech — Kumar; DeChoudhury

University of Minnesota — Vraga

Georgetown University — Bode

Washington State University — Borah

AverPoint — Shouvik Banerjee, Founder

Here Be Dragons — Eric Dunn, Co-founder and Executive Director; Alex Giedt, Analytics Director and Performance Marketing Lead

Our experience

We have written over 60 studies on public health topics including online social support, vaccine hesitancy, and misinformation reduction.

Call to Action

If you are interested in our services, please email us at: cccr_info@wisc.edu.

Contact information

Point of contact: Michael Wagner

Email: michael.wagner@wisc.edu

Phone: 608-230-5725 (office)