Joshua Baldwin

Joshua Baldwin’s research focuses on media psychology. He examines why audiences enjoy and appreciate traditional and new media and technologies, the motivations that drive media use, and how media messages can shape well-being and prosocial behaviors. Much of Dr. Baldwin’s interest centers on entertainment, including narratives and games. He has employed experimental, cognitive, and physiological methods to understand when audiences pay attention to entertainment, how they determine what they like, and the circumstances that allow them to retrospectively reflect on their entertainment experiences. His research also applies computational and AI methods, such as visual analysis, to explore the structures and features found in entertainment content.

Dr. Baldwin completed his Ph.D. in the Department of Communication at Michigan State University. Previously, he was a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Georgia and affiliated with the Center for Advanced Computer-Human Ecosystems. There, he examined how emerging media technologies such as virtual and augmented reality can be used for promoting physical and psychological health. His research has been supported through funding such as the Questioning Reality Social XR Grant from the Data Science Institute, and his studies have been published in top peer-reviewed journals, including Journal of Communication, Communication Research, Human Communication Research, and Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication.