Rate My Professor Meredith Pruden

Dr. Meredith L. Pruden is an Assistant Professor of Communication in the School of Communication and Media at Kennesaw State University. She earned her PhD in Communication with a concentration in Media & Society and a Graduate Certificate in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Georgia State University, where she served as a Presidential Fellow with the Transcultural Conflict and Violence Initiative. Prior to joining Kennesaw State, Pruden held a Postdoctoral Research Associateship at the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill during the 2021-2022 academic year. She maintains affiliations as a Fellow with the Institute for Research on Male Supremacism, a member of the Media & Democracy Data Cooperative and the Coalition for Independent Tech Research, and an affiliate with the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life. Pruden also brings prior experience as a journalist to her academic career.

Pruden's research focuses on the intersection of feminist media studies and political communication, addressing harmful online content including hate speech, supremacism, and violent extremist communication; research-related trauma, burnout, and resilience in 'risky research'; far-right media and politics such as coercive populist surveillance; mis/disinformation and conspiracism; and related sociotechnical contexts through an intersectional lens. Her award-winning interdisciplinary scholarship has resulted in numerous publications, including 'Making academia suck less: Supporting early career researchers studying harmful content online through a feminist ethics of care' (2024), 'Burn after Reading: Research-Related Trauma, Burnout, and Resilience in Right-Wing Studies' (2024), '#politicalcommunicationsowhite: Race and Politics in Nine Communication Journals, 1991–2021' (2023), 'Identity Construction in a Misogynist Incels Forum' (2023), 'Karen Lee Ashcraft, Wronged and Dangerous: Viral Masculinity and the Populist Pandemic' (2023), 'Weaponizing Reproductive Rights: A Mixed-Method Analysis of White Nationalists' Discussion of Abortions Online' (2022), 'Vaccine discourse in white nationalist online communication: A mixed-methods computational approach' (2022), and 'Setting the Record Straight: Conservative Populism, Swampiness, and Journalistic Practice' (2020). With over 225 citations on ResearchGate, her work contributes to ethical platforms research and inequities in communication scholarship.