Faculty and Staff Profile

Leland Fecher

Educational Background

M.A. Communication Liberal Arts and Sciences; Organizational Communication and Professional Development
Ball State University 2012

B.S. Organizational Communication
Ball State University 2009

Courses Taught

COMM 1500 - Introduction to Public Communication
COMM 2500 - Public Speaking
COMM 2010 - Introduction to Communication Studies
COMM 3990 - Creative Inquiry
INNO 4990 - Media Forensics Hub Creative Inquiry

Profile

Leland has been a lecturer at Clemson University since 2012. From 2019 to 2022 he was the Director of Basic courses for the Communication Department. This allowed him to explore his passion for the basic Communication course and general education at the university. He is still active within Clemson's general education community. He is interested in the intersection between games and culture. He has written several papers about communication and its effect in games, including a published article in Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture. Leland continues his work and connection with games as the faculty advisor of the Clemson eSports club since its inception in 2013. Leland is also interested in disinformation in media and interventions that prevent it. He works with the Media Forensics Hub, teaching their undergraduate creative inquiry in which students learn how to identify online disinformation and techniques to combat it. With the Hub, he has helped publish several reports on disinformation

Research Interests

Games, culture, online communities, disinformation

Research Publications

Only Skin Deep: AI Lifestyle Accounts Influencing Political Discourse

Writers of the Storm: Who's Behind the Ongoing Production of Pro-Russian False Narratives

Operation Overload - Matryoshka's Next Layer

Crypto Bestiary: A monstrous manual to the many fraudulent accounts involved in cryptocurrency scams and fraud.

Oh, the Places You'll Guo! The Tactics and Impact of a Chinese Multilingual Narrative Flooding Campaign through Political Cartoons

Gender Issues, Fighting Games, and Progress: Finding a Place for a Genderless Character in Tekken 6

Links