January 28, 2026 | Kelly Youngblood
Margaret Ng, associate professor of journalism and a faculty member in the Institute of Communications Research, has been selected as a Center for Advanced Study Associate for the 2026–2027 academic year, pending Board of Trustees approval.
As a CAS Associate, Ng will take time off from teaching in Fall 2026 to advance her research on “platform migration,” focusing on how regulatory bans, algorithmic shifts, and geopolitical tensions drive user migration between social media platforms. She argues that these shifts are fueling digital nationalism and reshaping digital sovereignty in an increasingly fragmented society.
Ng said recent events highlight the urgency of this topic, including the restructuring of TikTok in the U.S. and regulatory restrictions in Taiwan, the decline of Twitter/X use among journalists and academics, and the rise of Truth Social as the de facto official channel for the U.S. Presidency. These events reveal how global tensions and local politics are transforming the platforms people choose and the public spheres they build.
“We live in an era of rapid digital migration. We are seeing a wave of “digital migration” where users are trading in the dominant platforms for new communities that match who they are and what they care about.” Ng said.
“This project examines the forces behind this shift—from algorithmic decay and privacy concerns to political polarization and digital fatigue—and how these movements are reshaping the social, political, and cultural dimensions of online life.”
Ng said her study will particularly investigate digital migration across the United States, Hong Kong, and Taiwan by integrating large-scale computational analysis, surveys of thousands of users, and in-depth interviews with college students, journalists, tech workers, and elderly users. Drawing from those insights, the project will develop a framework that explains how political systems, institutional pressures, and everyday user practices intersect to shape modern migration patterns.
Ng said the findings promise to advance both theory and policy by documenting how these digital migrations create new forms of labor precarity, fragment public discourse, and erode the shared information environment essential for democracy. As users segregate into platforms that reflect their personal identities, the project explores how this new “digital mobility” challenges Big Tech dominance, redefines national sovereignty online, and ultimately reshapes the future of media, regulation, and public life.
Ng was appointed a CAS Associate for the Fall 2026 semester upon the recommendation of CAS professors and with concurrence of campus and university administrations.
CAS Associates are tenured Illinois faculty members whose project proposals are selected in an annual competition. They are granted one semester of teaching release time to pursue an individual scholarly or creative project.
The Center for Advanced Study works with every department on campus to identify and support the most productive, high-achieving, and innovative faculty at Illinois, providing them with connections and funding to pursue their work. Members of this accomplished community are invited to participate in CAS activities throughout the year and given opportunities to present their work to the CAS community. See CAS’s upcoming events.
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