Research

Peer-reviewed Journal Articles

Published Works

Mosallaei, A. , Wang, L., & Ognyanova, K. (In Press). From politics to entertainment: Exploring “News Finds Me” perceptions across news topics. Social Media + Society..

Mosallaei, A. , & Feldman, L. (2024). Do you see what I see? Perceptions & effects of image-text congruity in online climate change news. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly.

Literature suggests that when the image and text of news are congruent, it enhances news salience. However, when incongruent, people prioritize the viewpoint of the picture over the words. But what is congruency? This study experimentally investigates perceived image–text congruency in climate change online news, examining how newsreaders perceive and are influenced by congruency. It also explores the impacts of news format on perceptions of congruity, concerns about the climate crisis, and trust in the news outlet. Findings suggest congruency is partially subjective, highlighting that responsible visual discourse in the news may depend less on congruency than previously thought.

Mosallaei, A. (2024). Protest paradigm revisited: Is depicting protesters’ (counter)violence really wrong? Digital Journalism , 1-20.

This paper looks closely at the civil unrest in Iran sparked in 2022 by the murder of Mahsa Amini which visual documentation is flooded with imagery of violence and counter-violence. Through closely reading two videos of these protests and relying upon the theoretical framework of violence in the works of political philosophers, this study intends to examine and contextualize state and non-state violence and counter-violence. This paper primarily contributes to the literature on the protest paradigm and challenges the pre-established implications embedded in the framing of protests. This work aims to challenge the negative values associated with portraying protestors’ violence in the news and offer a new perspective on such portrayals and strategies for keeping protest coverage both appealing and sympathetic to non-locals. This study illustrates and supports the existing literature about how image affordances of citizen camera-witnesses present the opportunity to make the unseen visible and to highlight the counter-narratives censored and manipulated by the state.

Mosallaei, A. , & Porpora, D. (2024). Citizen videos vs. legacy media visual reports: How eyewitness imagery becomes a corrective. International Journal of Communication.

This article reports on one salient case where the departure from the protest paradigm was partially met, resulting in incongruent multimodal news content. The case involves the nationwide anti-government protests across Iran in November 2019 because of the drastic hike in petroleum prices. This study conducts a content analysis of citizen eyewitness imagery and the coverage of six Western mainstream news outlets. Our findings show that in words, the news pieces legitimized the protests. The majority of imagery, however, delegitimized protests by focusing on scenes of vandalism, fire, and rare depictions of violent police intervention. The observed incongruency could potentially hinder the learning, sympathy, and engagement of readers with the news stories. We argue that more meticulous observation is required by news outlets when selecting visuals to report to achieve a more informed news compound.

Works in Progress

Mosallaei, A. , Thomas-Walters, L., Goldberg, M. H., Rosenthal, S. A., & Leiserowitz, A. (R&R). Examining heatwave imagery: A comparative analysis of risk perception across valence categories.

Mosallaei, A., Feldman, L. (Data Collection). Measuring public environmental concern toward Generative AI: Introducing the GenAI‑Eco attitudes scale.

Peer-reviewed Conference Papers

Mosallaei, A., Thomas-Walters, L., Goldberg, M. H., Rosenthal, S. A., & Leiserowitz, A. (2025). Positive images of heat waves reduce the effects of messages. (Paper Panel). In National Communication Association (NCA ’25), Denver, Colorado.

Mosallaei, A. (2025). Navigating climate change news: Exploring platformization of climaterelated news on Instagram.(Paper Panel). In International Communication Association (ICA ’25), Denver, Colorado.

Mosallaei, A., Wang, L., & Ognyanova, K. (2025). From politics to entertainment: Exploring “News Finds Me” perceptions across news topics. (Paper Panel). In International Communication Association (ICA ’25), Denver, Colorado.

Mosallaei, A. (2023). Do you see what I see? Perceptions and effects of image-text congruity in online climate change news articles. (Paper Panel). In National Communication Association (NCA ’23), National Harbor, Maryland.

Badiei, B., & Mosallaei, A. (2023). Multiple erasures: The blind spots of American journalism and the ongoing revolutionary movement in Iran. (Paper Panel). In Canadian Communication Association (CCA ’23), Toronto, ON, Canada.

Mosallaei, A. (2022). Should I run this photo? A research agenda for examining news photo selection. (Paper Panel). In Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication (AEJMC ’22), Detroit, MI.

Mosallaei, A., Porpora, D. (2021). Legacy press coverage of the Iranian Bloody November in 2019: A departure from the protest paradigm? (Poster). In Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication (AEJMC ’21), Virtual.

Mosallaei, A., Porpora, D. (2021). Legacy press and citizen videos: Textual (but not visual) departure from the protest paradigm. In Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication Mid-Winter Conference (AEJMC Midwinter ’21), Virtual.

White Papers

Mosallaei, A. (2024, September 17). Baz-andishi dar nazariat-e khoshoonat-parhizi (translation: Rethinking nonviolence theories). RadioZamaneh.

Mosallaei, A. (2024, July 31). Social media’s untapped potential in the climate-change fight. Free Press.