R. (Rebecca) Wald
- Nieuwe Achtergracht 166
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Postbus 15791
1001 NG Amsterdam
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Profile
I am a PhD Candidate at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR). In my dissertation, I am investigating how Dutch families with young children use virtual assistants, like Google Assistant, Siri, or Alexa. I am particularly interested in understanding the processes behind the adoption of a new technology within the unique context of a family.
My theoretical focus lays on differential susceptibilities in media selection and use, technology acceptance, opinion formation, and privacy perceptions.
In my research, I make use of different methods, ranging from rather traditional ones (i.e., cross-sectional survey) to innovative methods of computational nature (i.e., unsupervised machine learning, longitudinal data donation).
As part of my PhD, I also teach at the College and Graduate School of Communication here at the University of Amsterdam. My main focus lays on the theory course within the Communication in the Digital Society Minor.
Furthermore, I was a PhD representative of ASCoR, I was a member of the Young Scholars Network Steering committee at NeFCA, as well as an organizer of CeCoR and an editor at the ComCom blog.
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Research
Research methods
- Cross-sec
- Automated text analysis
- Data donation
Current research projects
- Involved in the Digital Society Initiative
- Project Rosie
- Reddit's Take on Big Tech: A Stakeholder Perspective on Corporate Legitimacy
This research project is a collaboration across the four program groups at ASCoR (corporate communication, political communication, persuasive communication, youth and media entertainment). We aim to find out how the public constructs the corporate (de)legitimacy of Big Tech on the online platform Reddit. We deal with a large dataset (about 5 million Reddit posts and comments) and apply an unsupervized machine learning technique to understand the content of this corpus.
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Teaching
BA
- Tutorials in Theories & Challenges within the Communication in the Digital Society Minor
- Tutorials in Entertainment Communication
- Tutorials in Introduction to Communication Science
MA
- Master Thesis Supervisor
- Teaching Assistant in Digital Media Lifestyles
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Publications
2024
Wald, R., Piotrowski, J. T., van Oosten, J. M. F., & Araujo, T. (2024). Who are the (Non-)Adopters of Smart Speakers? A Cross-Sectional Survey Study of Dutch families. Tijdschrift voor Communicatiewetenschap, 52, 4-28. https://doi.org/10.5117/TCW2023.X.001.WALD [details]- Wald, R., van Oosten, J. M. F., Piotrowski, J. T., & Araujo, T. (2024). Smart speaker data donations in families: The Project Rosie perspective. In Proceedings of ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference (IDC): 17-20 June 2024 : Delft NL : "Inclusive happeness" (pp. 680-685). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3628516.3659374 [details]
2023
- Wald, R., Araujo, T. B., van Oosten, J. M. F., & Piotrowski, J. (2023). What do the News Say About Siri, Alexa, and Co.? A Topic Model Network Analysis of News Messages About Virtual Assistants between 2011 and 2022.. Manuscript submitted for publication.
- Wald, R., Piotrowski, J. T., Araujo, T., & van Oosten, J. M. F. (2023). Virtual assistants in the family home: Understanding parents’ motivations to use virtual assistants with their Child(dren). Computers in Human Behavior, 139, Article 107526. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2022.107526 [details]
2021
- Følstad, A., Araujo, T., Law, E. L.-C., Brandtzaeg, P. B., Papadopoulos, S., Reis, L., Baez, M., Laban, G., McAllister, P., Ischen, C., Wald, R., Catania, F., von Wolff, R. M., Hobert, S., & Luger, E. (2021). Future directions for chatbot research: an interdisciplinary research agenda. Computing, 103(12), 2915-2942. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00607-021-01016-7 [details]
- Wald, R., Heijselaar, E., & Bosse, T. (2021). Make your own: The potential of chatbot customization for the development of user trust. In UMAP '21: adjunct publication of the 29th ACM Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization : June 21-25, 2020, Utrecht, Netherlands (pp. 382-387). The Association for Computing Machinery. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1145/3450614.3463600 [details]
2024
- Wald, R., Araujo, T. B., van Oosten, J. M. F., & Piotrowski, J. (2024). The hot topic of virtual assistants: A Topic Model Network Analysis of Dutch News Media Messages About Virtual Assistants Between 2011 and 2022.. Paper presented at European Communication Science Event, Nijmegen, Netherlands.
2023
- Wald, R., Piotrowski, J., Araujo, T. B., & van Oosten, J. M. F. (2023). “Hey Google, We Need Help!”: The Need for Regulatory Frameworks to Safeguard the Implementation of Smart Speakers in Families.. Paper presented at ICA Pre-conference: Building the Conditions for Responsible Human-Centric AI Systems.
2022
- Wald, R., Piotrowski, J., Araujo, T. B., & van Oosten, J. M. F. (2022). Virtual Assistants in the Family Home. Understanding Parents’ Motivations to Use Virtual Assistants With Their Child(ren). Paper presented at 72nd International Communication Association (ICA) Annual
Conference, Paris, France. - Wald, R., Piotrowski, J., van Oosten, J. M. F., & Araujo, T. B. (2022). Who are the (Non)Adopters of Smart Speakers? A Cross-Sectional Survey Study of Dutch Families. Abstract from European Communication Research and Education Association Conference, Denmark.
- Wald, R., Piotrowski, J., van Oosten, J. M. F., & Araujo, T. B. (2022). “Hey Google, Come In!” The Domestication of Google Assistant in Dutch Family Homes. Poster session presented at European Communication Research and Education Association CYM Pre-Conference ‘The Datafied Child’.
2020
- Wald, R., Heijselaar, E., & Bosse, T. (2020). Custom-Made Chatbots. About the Potential of active User-Chatbot-Customization for the User Experience Design. Paper presented at CONVERSATIONS 2020, 4th international workshop on chatbot research. https://conversations2020.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/conversations_2020_paper23_wald.pdf
2024
- Wald, R. (11-3-2024). Communication in the Digital Society Survey in the Netherlands. Universiteit van Amsterdam. https://doi.org/10.21942/uva.25379245.v1
2022
- Wald, R., Piotrowski, J. T., Araujo, T. & van Oosten, A. (7-11-2022). Data. Universiteit van Amsterdam. https://doi.org/10.21942/uva.21511428.v1
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Ancillary activities
No ancillary activities
Wald, R., Piotrowski, J. T., van Oosten, J. M. F., & Araujo, T. (2024). Who are the (Non-)Adopters of Smart Speakers? A Cross-Sectional Survey Study of Dutch families. Tijdschrift voor Communicatiewetenschap, 52, 4-28.