Olga Kamenchuk

About

Olga Kamenchuk is an associate research professor in the Institute for Policy Research and an associate professor of instruction in the School of Communication at Northwestern University. Her scholarship centers on the intersections of political psychology, public opinion, and policy analysis across a range of international security and inter-cultural contexts, especially in the Eurasian region. She is a Co-Principal Investigator on the Comparative National Elections Project for Russian, Ukrainian, and Serbian electoral studies. Prior to her current roles, she was co-director of the Eurasian Security & Governance Program at the Ohio State University Mershon Center for International Security Studies and an associate professor (clinical) in the OSU School of Communication. Dr. Kamenchuk has over twenty years of extensive experience working with governmental agencies, intergovernmental organizations, and NGOs on communication, program evaluation, and public opinion projects across various policy contexts. Her work includes conducting hundreds of opinion research projects for organizations such as the World Bank, United Nations, Cambridge University, University of Pennsylvania, U.S. Global Media Agency, Asahi Shimbun, among others. Her research, published in journals like the International Journal of Public Opinion Research, Social Science Quarterly, and the Hague Journal of Diplomacy, focuses on political psychology, public opinion, and policy analysis, particularly in…

Research topics

• Political Science
• Psychology
• Computer Science
• Social psychology
• Sociology
• Public relations
• History
• Medicine
• Law
• Political economy

Selected publications

• Russian News Media, Digital Media, Informational Learned Helplessness, and Belief in COVID-19 Misinformation

  International Journal of Public Opinion Research · 2021 · 31 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has been paired with a global misinformation “infodemic.” Citizens in authoritarian countries, where most media is state controlled, often do not have access to credible information sources to help combat misinformation. In fact, the news media in these countries may be the primary drivers of misinformation while digital media may be sources of more accurate information. We test how news and digital media in an authoritarian context are associated with endorsing mi…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Signaling silence: Affective and cognitive responses to risks of online activism about corruption in an authoritarian context

  New Media & Society · 2022 · 9 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Networked authoritarian governments’ use of digital repression creates uncertainty and amplifies risk signals for ordinary citizens using social media for political expression. Employing theoretical frameworks from the risk and decision-making literature, we experimentally examine how citizens perceive and respond to the risks of low-effort forms of online activism in an authoritarian context. Our online field experiment demonstrates that emotional responses to the regime’s risk signals about on…

  PublisherDOI

• The Psychology of State-Sponsored Disinformation Campaigns and Implications for Public Diplomacy

  2019-07-02 · 4 citations

  book-chapterSenior author

  Summary Policy discourse about disinformation focuses heavily on the technological dimensions of state-sponsored disinformation campaigns. Unfortunately, this myopic focus on technology has led to insufficient attention being paid to the underlying human factors driving the success of state-sponsored disinformation campaigns. Academic research on disinformation strongly suggests that belief in false or misleading information is driven more by individual emotional and cognitive responses — amplif…

  PublisherDOI

• Power Distance Perceptions in Post-Soviet Russia: Understanding the Workplace Environment

  Digital Commons - USU (Utah State University) · 2021-10-08 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The modem business economy is characterized by increased collaboration among different organizations across nation al boundaries. Post-Soviet Russia is one of the regions that is witnessing rapid economic growth and development of international business relations. Because of the challenges in intercultural communication the current study focuses on the problem of power distance, specifically in the workplace (in post-Soviet Russia). A phenomenological perspective, based on qualitative methodolog…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Unpacking the psychology of adversarial state-sponsored disinformation campaigns and implications for public diplomacy counter-strategies

  Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2025-02-11 · 1 citations

  book-chapterSenior author

  Policy discourse about disinformation has focused on the technological dimensions and strategies of adversarial state-sponsored disinformation campaigns. Unfortunately, this myopic focus on technology has led to insufficient attention being paid to the underlying psychological factors driving the success of state-sponsored disinformation operations. The scientific evidence about disinformation strongly suggests that belief in false or misleading information is driven more by individual emotional…

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Erik C. Nisbet

  Northwestern University

  6 shared

• Aysenur Dal

  Bilkent University

  2 shared

• Thorsten Fass

  1 shared

• Robert Mattes

  Oxford University Press (United Kingdom)

  1 shared

• Alejandro Moreno

  The University of Texas at Austin

  1 shared

• Pedro C. Magalhães

  1 shared

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