Brandon Zheng is a research associate with the China Studies Program, focusing on understanding the influence of public service advertisements and political propaganda in urban public spaces. His specific areas of research include Chinese government propaganda at the local and the national level, as well as commercial advertisements and public service advertisements on subway systems in major Asian cities. His responsibilities include interpreting, translating and transcribing the textual and visual content from these advertisements, creating a permanent digital archive that can be used by scholars and students for the study of political communication, and creating original contextualization and social scientific analysis of the influence of these advertisements on Asian and global publics.

Prior to joining the Baker Institute, Zheng worked in China as an English teacher. While there, he also assisted Steven Lewis, C.V. Starr Transnational China Fellow and Director of the China Studies Program, in collecting images of public service and commercial advertisements from cities in multiple Asian countries.

Zheng holds a bachelor’s degree in religious studies from Rice University.

Contact him at brandon.a.zheng@rice.edu or (713) 348-5832.