Reza Alibakhshi

Bio: I am a 5th year Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Information Systems and Operations Management (ISOM) at HEC Paris. Starting September 2022, I will join IE Business School, Madrid, as an Assistant Professor in Information Systems and Technology Department.

My research interest lies in the area of social media and behavioral aspects of user engagement in these platforms. Specifically, I am interested in understanding the role of content characteristics and features of SM platforms in driving user engagement with various forms of content such as text, image and video. My research also focuses on the cultural aspects of user behavior in social media. Additionally, my research tends to examine the antecedents and consequences of user engagement in social media platforms for the healthcare sector such as the spread of anti-vaccination misinformation.

In my research, I extensively use Python, R, and modern video/image/text analytic tools, network analysis, and econometrics to address various research questions on:

1. Image and text sentiment discrepancies in multimodal social media content such as Instagram posts.

2. Dynamics of emotions in social media communities such as SM influencers.

3. Social media video advertisement and enhancing user engagement with videos on brands' social media profiles.

4. Innovative content creation features such as the "story feature" in social media platforms and their influence on user content generation and consumption.

Research Focus: Behavioral Information Systems, User Engagement and User-Generated Content, Social Media Analytics, Emotion and Sentiment Analysis, Healthcare

Methodology: Econometrics, Image/Video/Text Analysis, Machine Learning, Network Analysis, Experimental Study

My dissertation research investigates user engagement in social media platforms focusing on the role of emotions in text, image, and videos in driving various engagement behaviors.