Rate My Professor Maria Repnikova

Maria Repnikova is an Associate Professor of Global Communication in the Department of Communication at Georgia State University’s College of Arts and Sciences. She also directs the Center for Global Information Studies and holds the inaugural William C. Pate Chair in Strategic Communication, appointed in 2023 for a five-year term to support research in public relations and strategic communication. A Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford, Repnikova earned her DPhil and MPhil in Politics there, along with a Bachelor of Foreign Service from Georgetown University. Fluent in Mandarin, Russian, and Spanish, she teaches courses such as International Communication, Chinese Media, Politics and Society, and Communication in Global Contexts. Her research focuses on global communication, political persuasion, media activism, propaganda, soft power, digital diplomacy, and critical journalism in illiberal regimes, particularly China and Russia, utilizing ethnographic approaches and extensive fieldwork.

Repnikova authored Media Politics in China: Improvising Power under Authoritarianism (Cambridge University Press, 2017), which analyzes participatory communication channels between critical journalists and the party-state based on over 120 interviews, and Chinese Soft Power (2022). Key publications include Demystifying “Little Pink”: The Creation and Evolution of a Gendered Label for Nationalistic Activists in China (2018); Authoritarian Participatory Persuasion 2.0: Netizens as Thought Work Collaborators in China (2018); Digital Media Experiments in China: “Revolutionizing” Persuasion under Xi Jinping (2019); Propaganda during Crisis Events: A Case Study of Beijing Floods of 2012 (Journal of Contemporary China, forthcoming); and The Party’s Shadow in China’s Journalism Education (China Quarterly, forthcoming). She has contributed to The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Guardian, and Al Jazeera English. Repnikova received Georgia State University’s Outstanding Junior Faculty Award in 2018 and serves as a non-residential Wilson China Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center. She has briefed officials at the U.S. State Department, National Defense University, U.S. International Trade Commission, and House Select Committee on the January 6 attack. Her Pate Chair project examines Chinese and Russian strategic communication strategies, media coverage, and non-state actor influences, culminating in a forthcoming book.