Matea Mustafaj

Assistant Professor

Research Interests

Matea Mustafaj is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research focuses on how narrative and entertainment media shape social cognition, beliefs, and psychological well-being. Grounded in media psychology and communication theory, her work investigates how stories function as simulations of experience, inviting audiences to adopt new perspectives, imagine different social realities, and reevaluate what they believe about the world.

Her work examines both the prosocial potential of media, such as fostering empathy, reducing prejudice, and supporting well-being, as well as the ways it can reinforce bias, disengagement, or harmful norms. She is especially interested in the mechanisms through which character engagement and narrative structure contribte to belief change and shifts in worldview.

While much of her research centers on narrative entertainment, she also explores how other forms of media contirubte to meaning-making, emotional processing, and how people understand and relate to others in society.

Education

Ph.D. Communication and Media. Rackham Graduate School, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

B.S. Neuroscience, Psychology, Philosphy. College of Literature, Science, & the Arts, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

Additional Campus Affiliations

Assistant Professor, Communication

Highlighted Publications

Mustafaj, M., & Dal Cin, S. (2024). Discounting Counter-Stereotypical Representations in Entertainment Based on Existing Beliefs. Media Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/15213269.2024.2397024

Mustafaj, M., & Dal Cin, S. (2024). Preexisting stereotypes and selection of counter-stereotypical genius representations in entertainment media. Journal of Media Psychology, 36(1), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1027/1864-1105/a000377

Roden, J., Mustafaj, M., & Saleem, M. (2021). Who else likes it? Perceived gender of social endorsers predicts gender equality support. Computers in Human Behavior, 118, Article 106696. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2021.106696

Mustafaj, M., Soroka, S., & Van Den Bulck, J. (2024). Sleep, Media Use, and Sociopolitical Attitudes. Journal of Media Psychology, 36(6), 355-368. https://doi.org/10.1027/1864-1105/a000406

Mustafaj, M., & Bulck, J. V. D. (2021). Revisiting Cultivation as a Gravitational Process: A Cross-National Comparison of the Cultivation of Fear and Mistrust. International Journal of Communication, 15, 715-740.

Mustafaj, M., Madrigal, G., Roden, J., & Ploger, G. W. (2022). Physiological threat sensitivity predicts anti-immigrant attitudes. Politics and the Life Sciences, 41(1), 15-27. https://doi.org/10.1017/pls.2021.11

Dal Cin, S., Mustafaj, M., & Nielsen, K. (2023). Patterns of media use and leisure time among older adults. New Media and Society, 25(9), 2359-2380. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448211062393

Cote, A. C., Dal Cin, S., Exelmans, L., & Mustafaj, M. (2024). Philanthropic, prosocial players: How game-related charity events motivate unlikely donors. New Media and Society, 26(8), 4867-4884. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448221130738

Mustafaj, M. (2021). Review: A. Eden, N. Bowman, and M. Grizzard's Media entertainment. Communications, 46(2), 317-319. https://doi.org/10.1515/commun-2019-0201

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Recent Publications