• Climate change and environmental communication
• Visual and multimodal communication
• Computational social science
• Artificial intelligence and science communication

Articles in peer-reviewed journals

2. Volk, S. C., Schäfer, M. S., Lombardi, D., Mahl, D., & Yan, X. (2024). How generative artificial intelligence portrays science: Interviewing ChatGPT from the perspective of different audience segments. Public Understanding of Science, 09636625241268910. https://doi.org/10.1177/09636625241268910

1. Zeng, J., & Yan, X. (2024). Understanding climate-related visual storytelling on TikTok: A cross-national multimodal analysis. Journal of Digital Social Research, 6(2), Article 2. https://doi.org/10.33621/jdsr.v6i2.212

Articles in conference proceedings

1. Corral, P. G., Green, A., Meyer, H., Stoll, A., Yan, X., & Reuver, M. (2024). A Few Hypocrites: Few-Shot Learning and Subtype Definitions for Detecting Hypocrisy Accusations in Online Climate Change Debates. In C. Klamm, G. Lapesa, S. P. Ponzetto, I. Rehbein, & I. Sen (Eds.), Proceedings of the 4th Workshop on Computational Linguistics for the Political and Social Sciences: Long and short papers (pp. 45–60). Association for Computational Linguistics. https://aclanthology.org/2024.cpss-1.4

Book Chapter

1. Schäfer, M. S., & Yan, X. (2023). News and Social Media Imagery of Climate Change. In Z. Baker, T. Law, M. Vardy, & S. Zehr (Eds.), Climate, Science and Society. A Primer (pp. 66–73). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003409748-11

11.Yan, X., Schäfer, M. S. (2025). Multimodal Climate Change Communication on WeChat: Analyzing Visual/Textual Clusters on China’s Largest Social Media Platform. Presented at the 75th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA), 12-16 June 2025, Denver, USA.

10. Yan. X., & Zeng. J. (2024). Communicating climate change on TikTok: Adopting visual storytelling to promote public engagement across nations. Paper presented at the 10th European Communication Conference (ECREA), 24-27 September 2024, Ljubljana, Slovenia.

9. Corral, P.G., Green, A., Meyer, H., Yan, X., Stoll, A., Reuver, M. (2024). A Few Hypocrites: Few-Shot Learning and Subtype Definitions for Detecting Hypocrisy Accusations in Online Climate Change Debates. Paper presented at the 4th Workshop on Computational Linguistics for the Political and Social Sciences (CPSS), 13 September 2024, Vienna, Austria.

8. Yan, X., Schäfer, M. S. (2024). Multimodal Climate Change Communication on WeChat: Exploring Textual and Visual Themes as well as Level of Domestication in Chinese Social Media. Presented at the Climate Visuals Workshop (CCVision), 25 June 2024, Exeter, UK.

7. Yan, X., Schäfer, M. S., Hase, V., & Mahl, D. (2024). From "climate change" to "climate crises"? Changing nomenclature in climate-related journalism in the Global South and Global North between 1996-2022. Paper presented at the 74th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA), 20-24 June 2024, Gold Coast, Australia.

6. Volk, S. C., Schäfer, M. S., Lombardi, D., Mahl, D., Yan, X. (2024). How Generative AI Imagines and Communicates Science. Interviewing ChatGPT from the Perspective of Different Audience Segments. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Science Communication Division of the German Communication Association (DGPuK), 6-7 June 2024, Zurich, Switzerland.

5. Corral, P.G., Green, A., Meyer, H., Reuver, M., Yan, X., Stoll, A. (2024). Few Shot Learning for Detecting Implicit Hypocrisy Accusations in Sustainability and Climate Debates. Presented at the 6th Annual COMPTEXT Conference, 2-4 May 2024, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

4. Yan. X., & Kroon. A. (2023). Shaping the social media news agenda: Explaining organizations’ agenda building success using topic-level newsworthiness. Paper presented at the 73rd Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA), 25-29 May 2023, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

3. Yan. X. (2023). BERT for understanding social media news: an empirical study on organizational agenda building and topic-level newsworthiness. Paper presented at the 73rd Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA), 25-29 May 2023, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

2. Zeng. J., & Yan. X. (2023). Understanding video memes: A case study of #cliamte content on TikTok. Paper presented at the 73rd Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA), 25-29 May 2023, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

1. Yan, X., Schäfer, M. S., Hase, V., & Mahl, D. (2023). From “climate change” to “climate crisis”? The labeling of climate change in global news coverage from 1996 to 2021. Paper presented at the Living with Climate Change Conference, 8-9 May 2023, Bergen, Norway.

• BA research seminar, University of Zurich: “Decoding Visuals in Climate Change Communication: A Content Analysis Approach” (one semester)

• BA research seminar, University of Zurich: “Visual Communication of Climate Change” (two semesters)

• BA research seminar, University of Zurich: “Persuasion in Science Communication” (one semester)

• BA thesis supervision, University of Zurich (24 students)

• Member of the Computational Analyses of Climate Visuals Network (CCVsion)
• Member of the Computational Methods Working Group (University of Zurich & ETH)
• Member of the Visual Methods Collective (VMC)
• Member of International Communication Association (ICA) and European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA)
• Review for Social Media and Society, Public Understanding of Science, International Journal of Public Opinion Research, Journal of Science Communication, Environmental Politics, ICA