Matthew Matsaganis

Ph.D., University of Southern California
Assistant Professor

Teaching and Research Areas: Organizational Communication, Health Communication, Communication and Technology, Political Communication
Office: SS 329
Phone: (518) 442-4860
Fax: (518) 442-3884
E-mail: mmatsaganis@albany.edu

Curriculum Vitae (pdf)

Research Interests

My research addresses the overarching question of how place – conceptualized as the neighborhood or community – shapes and is shaped by the lives and communication of individual residents and organizations. I have tackled this question through the development of two inter-related lines of inquiry. In the first, I have sought to identify and elaborate how patterns of communication among residential community stakeholders, including residents, community organizations, and local media, shape urban dwellers’ health. In the second, I have investigated the roles that ethnic media—media, that is, produced for and generally by immigrants, ethnic and linguistic minority groups, and indigenous populations—perform in increasingly diverse urban communities, from a consumption and production point of view, as well as from a policy perspective. From a methodological standpoint, my research program requires and is committed to a multi-level and multi- (or mixed-) methods approach.

Research topics of interest include:

• Health Communication and Health Disparities
• Civic Engagement and Community Capacity Building
• Neighborhood Effects
• Organizational Communication 
• Ethnic, Diasporic, Immigrant, and Minority Media
• Communication Technologies and Communication Policy
• Urban Communication

My research informs my teaching at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. In the fall semester, I will be teaching the core course in organizational communication for M.A. and Ph.D. students as well as an upper level undergraduate course on ethnic media in the United States and beyond. In the spring semester I will be teaching a graduate seminar on communication and community health, as well as an upper level undergraduate course on communication and global organizations.

Updated May 2013