Xiaomei Cai

Associate Chair

Associate Professor,Undergraduate Honors Director

Children and media; Media effects; online privacy

Dr. Xiaomei Cai is an Associate Professor of Communication at George Mason University. She joined George Mason in 2006. Dr. Cai received her B.A. in English Language and Literature from Jilin University (China), M.A. in English Linguistics from Peking University (China), M.A. in Mass Communication from Indiana University, and Ph. D. in Mass Communication from Indiana University.

Dr. Cai’s research focuses on children and media, in particular, children’s privacy issues on the Internet. She also examines health prevention among the adolescent population. Recently, she has been working on "sharenting" behaviors and privacy concerns.

Dr. Cai is the Director of Faculty Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging at CHSS. She has substantial leadership experience with diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives at Mason and in the community. Recently, she served on the University Policies and Practices Committee, one of the ARIE task force subcommittees, and as the secretary of the Faculty Equity and Inclusion Committee. She serves as the newly formed Mason Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Affinity Group program coordinator. She is also a member of the University Inclusive Excellence Council. In the community, she recently served as a judge for the Northern Virginia AAPI essay contest among local K-12 students.

Selected Publications

Cai, X., & Zhao, X. (2021). Framing youth vaping prevention messages: The role of uncertainty tolerance. Health Communication.

Cai, X., Zhao, X., Oh, K., & Peterson, E. B. (in press). Health campaigns and message design for immigrant populations. In D. Kim, & Kreps, G. (eds.). Global Health Communication for Immigrant and Refugees: Cases, Theories, and Strategies. Routledge.

Wright, K. B., Cai, X., Fisher, C. L., Rising, C., Burke-Garcia, A., & Afanaseva, D. (2020). A content analysis of social support messages about environmental breast cancer risk within blogs for mothers. Health Communication,

Fisher, C. L., Wright, K. B., Rising, C. J., Cai, X., Mullis, M. D., Burke-Garcia, A., & Afanaseva, D. (2020). Helping mothers and daughters talk about environmental breast cancer risk-reducing lifestyle behaviors. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17 (13), 4757.

Fisher, C. L., Wright, K. B., Rising, C., Mullins, D., Afanaseva, D., Burke-Garcia, A. & Cai, X. (2019). Culturally appropriate breast cancer and environmental risk messages targeting racially and ethnically diverse mothers. Journal of Cancer Education, 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-019-01626-y

Wright, K. B., Fisher, C. L., Rising, C. J., Afanaseva, D., Burke-Garcia, A., & Cai, X. (2019). Partnering with mommy bloggers to disseminate breast cancer risk information: A social media intervention. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 21(3), e12441. doi:10.2196/12441 Impact Factor: 4.67

Peterson, E. B., Zhao, X., Cai, X., & Oh, K. (2018). Developing a graphic text messaging intervention for smoking cessation targeting first-generation Chinese immigrant men: Insights from focus group interviews. Emerald Studies in Media and Communication.

Courses Taught

COMM 400- Communication Research Methods
COMM 367- Children and the media
COMM 490- Honors Communication Research Methods
COMM 775- Media Content Analysis
COMM 302- Foundations of Mass Communication
COMM 602- Mass Communication Theories
COMM 430- Persuasion