Dr. Waseq Rahman is an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science, Design, and Journalism Department. He is primarily interested in understanding the role entertainment media and surrounding cultures play for individuals. Dr. Rahman’s work addresses how entertainment impacts individuals’ perceptions of sociopolitical issues and assesses how it influences the ways people situate themselves with regard to broader communities and organizations. Both these threads ultimately converge in finding the points of vulnerability detrimental to audiences’ sense of self and community, identifying insights for practitioners on how to empower audiences to engage in advocacy and community building. With a multi-method approach and an umbrella focus on entertainment media effects, the primary thread of Dr. Rahman’s research concerns the application of entertainment media and content in environmental communication. He examines the advocacy potential of games and simulations with environmental themes, understanding their value as critical rhetoric and how interactions with analog (e.g., boardgames) and virtual (e.g., VR) systems aid in developing mental models of climate science issues. In the second area of research, in collaboration with the Esports and Games Research Lab, a multi-university consortium, Dr. Rahman examines how entertainment cultural affiliations influence individuals’ social integration, especially within an organizational context. His most recent work explores the process of forming associations between organizations and individuals (e.g., brand association) based on shared values and goals reflective of overlapping social and cultural identities.