Studying how online images feed polarization wins Boston University scholar prestigious Andrew Carnegie Fellowship
Ayse Lokmanoglu aims to help people think more critically about internet content, especially during politically charged moments
Boston University’s Ayse Lokmanoglu is studying a key crossroads in our cultural moment: political polarization and how it’s fed by online images, including those generated by artificial intelligence (AI). Her timely research has won her admission to a select group, as one of 24 Andrew Carnegie Fellows for 2026.
Lokmanoglu, a BU College of Communication assistant professor of emerging media studies, will spend two years investigating how images “spread online during politically charged moments like elections, and whether seeing those images actually makes people more polarized and distrustful,” she says. She’ll use several computational methods and experiments.
“On the computational side, I will track how images travel across mainstream social media platforms, using a tool I codesigned called VisTopics,” says Lokmanoglu, who’s also affiliated with the BU Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences. “On the experimental side, I will examine how people respond to AI-generated political images and whether media literacy prompts can help with identifying non-authentic images.”
Gloria Waters, BU’s provost and chief academic officer, says that “in an increasingly polarized society, Dr. Lokmanoglu’s research has clear implications for the way we consume media and engage with the world.
“This honor is a just recognition of the importance of her work in understanding today’s political climate, and highlights the critical role Boston University faculty play in advancing understanding of complex societal issues.”
The Carnegie Corporation of New York whittled down hundreds of nominations to select this year’s two dozen fellows, based on “originality and potential impact of the [research] proposal, as well as the capacity to communicate the findings to a broad audience,” according to the fellowship’s website. Industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie established his namesake corporation in 1911 to fund the development and dissemination of knowledge. The fellows program provides each honoree with $200,000 for their research.
Per Carnegie’s criteria, Lokmanoglu will publicize her research beyond academia. She also plans to host a workshop at BU for journalists, educators, and students. “Ultimately, I hope this gives people better tools to think critically about the images they encounter online, especially during politically tense periods,” she says, “and that it feeds into larger policy conversations around AI and information integrity.”
Lokmanoglu’s research has previously received grants from such sources as the National Institute of Justice (the research arm of the US Department of Justice) and the Global Network on Extremism and Technology. She has been on the BU faculty two years, joining from Clemson University.
“Receiving this award so early in my time here feels surreal,” she says. “I have studied and admired the work of many past and current recipients, so being included in that group is both humbling and deeply meaningful. I’m also very grateful to Carnegie Corporation of New York for their generosity and pioneering support of this field, and to BU for nominating me.
“I really hope this work can contribute—even in a small way—to helping mitigate polarization.”
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