ISABELLE FREILING portrait
  • Faculty Affiliate, Global Change and Sustainability Center
  • Assistant Professor, Communication

Professional Service

  • Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Teaching chair, Communication Theory & Methodology Division. 10/2023 - present
  • International Communication Association. Secretary, Mass Communication Division. 05/2023 - present
  • Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Membership chair and Barrow Scholarship chair, Communication Theory & Methodology Division. 10/2022 - 09/2023
  • International Communication Association. Student and early career representative, Mass Communication Division. 05/2022 - 05/2023

Internal Service

  • Member, Diversity Task Force, College of Humanities. 08/2023 - present. College service.
  • Representative of the College of Humanities, Global Change and Sustainability Center. 08/2023 - 07/2024. University service.

Community Partnership

  • Citizen science projet "YouCount". 02/2021 - 01/2024

Honors & Awards

  • First Place Faculty Paper Award (with Sara K. Yeo et al.) for “Knowledge gaps: Media attention and factual, surveillance, and perceived science knowledge among White, Black, and Hispanic audiences,” Mass Communication & Society Division, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication . 08/2023
  • International Travel and Research Grant, College of Humanities, University of Utah, $1,000. 03/2023
  • Top Paper Award (with Isabel I. Villanueva and Dietram A. Scheufele) for “(Meta)Theorizing public spheres in an era of preference-based media effects,” Mass Communication Division, International Communication Association . 02/2023
  • Web of Science Top 1% Highly Cited Paper in Social Sciences, Believing and sharing misinformation, fact-checks, and accurate information on social media: The role of anxiety during COVID-19 (New Media & Society, with co-authors). 12/2022
  • Stipend for the presentation of the top student-led paper (with Marlis Stubenvoll and Jörg Matthes) “Resistant and misinformed: Understanding the psychological drivers of COVID-19 misperceptions,” Multidisciplinary International Symposium on Disinformation in Open Online Media . Multidisciplinary International Symposium on Disinformation in Open Online Media , 11/2021
  • First Place Research Award (with Anja Stevic) for the project “To Disclose or Not to Disclose? The Role of Anxiety, Privacy Concerns, and Connectedness in Online Self-Disclosure,” Department of Communication, University of Vienna, Austria. Department of Communication, University of Vienna, Austria, 10/2021
  • ISC + ComSHER Cohort Award, Inclusive Science Communication (ISC) and Communicating Science, Health, Environment and Risk Division (ComSHER) of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). Inclusive Science Communication (ISC) and Communicating Science, Health, Environment and Risk Division (ComSHER) of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), 07/2021
  • Web of Science Top 0.1% Hot Paper in Social Sciences, Fact-checking as risk communication: The multi-layered risk of misinformation in times of COVID-19 (Journal of Risk Research, with Nicole M. Krause et al.). 04/2021
  • Web of Science Top 1% Highly Cited Paper in Social Sciences, Fact-checking as risk communication: The multi-layered risk of misinformation in times of COVID-19 (Journal of Risk Research, with Nicole M. Krause et al.). 01/2021
  • Fulbright Scholarship, Visiting Researcher at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Department of Life Sciences Communication, USA. Fulbright Germany, 07/2019
  • Dissertation Fellowship supported by German Science Foundation, Research Training Group “Trust and Communication in a Digitized World,” University of Münster, Germany. University of Münster, Germany, 12/2017
  • Erasmus+ Scholarship, semester abroad at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Technische Universitaet Dresden, Germany, 08/2015

In the Media

  • Freiling, I. & Krause, N. M. (2023, April 22). Social scientists: Anxiety invites misinformation. Dallas Morning News. https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2023/04/22/social-scientists-anxiety-invites-misinformation/. 04/22/2023.
  • "Heightened anxiety makes people more prone to share claims on social media," by V. Hendrih on PsyPost. 03/22/2023. https://www.psypost.org/2023/03/heightened-anxiety...