SMAC Lab Research Group
Professor Ramirez directs the Social Media Analysis and Creation (SMAC) Lab, a collaborative research group dedicated to advancing scholarship on social media and mass communication. The lab brings together Manship School graduate and undergraduate students interested in examining how digital media platforms shape mediated communication processes, influence public discourse, and reconfigure relationships among audiences, institutions, and cultural production in a networked society.
The SMAC Lab Research Group meets weekly and supports the development of multiple research projects each year. Students gain hands-on experience with every stage of the academic research process, including developing research questions, preparing IRB proposals, collecting and analyzing qualitative and quantitative data, and writing full-length manuscripts for conferences and journal submissions. Lab members also learn how to prepare competitive applications for internal and external research grants and funding opportunities.
SMAC Lab Research Infrastructure and Services
The SMAC Lab also serves as a research infrastructure hub for the Manship School, providing social media research support to faculty and graduate students. As part of this support, the SMAC Lab maintains contracts with user experience management/social media analytics platforms. The SMAC Lab currently holds a contract with Sprinklr, enabling access to large-scale, cross-platform social media data.
Through its research infrastructure, the lab expands the school’s capacity to collect, manage, and analyze diverse forms of social media data. These resources support rigorous, data-driven research and ensure that Manship scholars have the tools necessary to conduct cutting-edge research at the intersection of social media and mass communication.
SMAC Lab Education & Teaching
The SMAC Lab also functions as a dynamic educational space that supports teaching, training, and scholarly collaboration. Manship courses focused on social media, artificial intelligence, and emerging media regularly utilize the lab for hands-on learning and data-driven classroom activities.
In addition, the SMAC Lab Research Group hosts workshops on social media methods, data collection and analysis, and academic writing in the lab space. This reinforces the SMAC Lab’s role as both an intellectual hub and a collaborative training environment for emerging scholars in mass communication.