Zheng Fu, PhD
PRODIG+ Fellow in Critical AI
Contact Zheng Fu
Zheng Fu is a PRODIG+ Fellow in Critical AI, jointly appointed by the Department of Journalism and University Libraries. Her research sits at the intersection of knowledge, technology, and culture, examining the politics of culture with particular attention to how technology mediates and reconfigures cultural dynamics.
Dr. Fu’s current work unfolds along two main lines. The first investigates how artificial intelligence reshapes communication and sociopolitical life—both at the micro level of human–AI and human–human interactions. Within this domain, she studies how individuals’ social positionalities influence their engagement with AI systems, including preferences toward AI and moments of resistance to AI–human hybrid decision-making. She also examines how the diffusion of AI expertise reinforces or challenges existing inequalities, focusing on the uneven distribution of AI expertise across university libraries, the varying emphasis on AI across institutional policies, and the unequal adoption of AI technologies among different populations.
The second branch of her research explores journalism as a key site in shaping public perceptions of the social world. Here, Dr. Fu focuses on how fact-checkers identify misinformation and how this process is conditioned by the mediating technologies they employ. More broadly, Dr. Fu examines the sociopolitical forces underlying shifts in culture and communication. Her prior research has analyzed how expert labor contributes to the legitimacy of institutional practices — such as legal compliance and vaccine uptake —work that culminated in her article “Work of Legitimacy,” published in the Annual Review of Law and Social Science. She has also investigated public perceptions and media narratives across issues ranging from the COVID-19 pandemic to immigration, drawing connections to factors such as civil society configurations and geopolitical competition. This line of inquiry has produced publications in American Political Science Review (APSR) and Sociological Forum.