Hello World
The first post on this site — a space for research updates, field notes, and miscellaneous thoughts.
ReadAsh Feng
Consultant & AI Engineer · Former Journalist in China
Nagoya, Japan
Designing media environments for mutual understanding.
Perceptual Polarization Media Design HCI Computational Communication
About
I design and study media environments that help people understand each other better across difference. My research focuses on perceptual polarization — the systematic exaggeration of how extreme and hostile the other side really is — and how platform architecture can be redesigned to correct rather than amplify these distortions.
My background spans communication research, journalism, and software engineering — a combination I built to do work that requires both theoretical grounding and the technical capacity to construct the systems it proposes.
Experience
Accenture Japan Nagoya · Jul 2025–Present
Consultant & AI Solutions Engineer (Forward Deployed Engineer)
Major energy group · Development lead
Designed and built an AI workflow that auto-generates Java error-checking code end-to-end — from requirements through TDD — combining LLM and MCP. Led client negotiation, requirements alignment, and weekly reviews; standardized outputs as reusable, person-independent templates.
Metropolitan government international PR department · Development member
Building an AI agent pipeline that automates multilingual public communications record generation — directly adjacent to my research on AI-mediated information production.
Java · Python · MCP · LLM · Prompt Engineering · TDD
Neutral Co., Ltd. Nagoya · Jul 2023–Jun 2025
System Engineer
Full-stack development for a major automotive manufacturer's vehicle design systems. Designed and implemented features across UI, API, and database layers; participated in full agile lifecycle from requirements to release.
Java · Spring Boot · Angular.js · Oracle · Jenkins
The Cover (封面新闻) Beijing · Jul–Nov 2022
Journalist
Covered science, technology, and breaking news. Produced a documentary series on national infrastructure projects (Chinese Journalism Award). Conducted an investigation into COVID survivor employment discrimination that prompted a State Council policy response.
The Paper (澎湃新闻) Shanghai · 2021–2022
Intern Journalist
Photojournalism, exhibition coverage, and multimedia production including VR dispatches. Produced an independent documentary on Chinese students stranded in Japan during the early pandemic.
Kansai University Japan · 2020–2022
M.A. Sociology (Mass Communication)
Shanghai Polytechnic University Shanghai · 2014–2018
B.A. Japanese & English
Research
I study perceptual polarization — the systematic exaggeration of how extreme and hostile the other side really is. Evidence suggests that digital algorithms distort not political attitudes directly, but the informational inputs people use to infer out-group beliefs and in-group norms; this makes the inference layer the more tractable intervention target. My current research develops the Perceived Depolarization Design Framework (PDDF), which translates cognitive causal mechanisms into platform-agnostic intervention functions and tests them via randomized controlled experiments in a custom-built high-fidelity social feed simulator.
Patriotic Propaganda in Crisis M.A. Thesis · 2022
A content analysis of People's Daily's WeChat account (n = 2,318 posts, January–April 2020), examining how Chinese state media deploys patriotic propaganda during a public health crisis. Identified four structural mechanisms: layered deployment of narrative categories, threshold-triggered responsiveness to political events, resilient adaptation under narrative challenges, and embodied transmission through representative identities.
Content analysis · Chinese media · Political communication · Mass Communication
Lichtung (林地空间) lichtung-three.vercel.app ↗
A high-fidelity social feed simulator with two depolarization interventions implemented — the experimental platform for my PhD research proposal. Built to test whether algorithmic design can reduce perceptual polarization.
Research prototype · Feed ranking · AI agent · Behavioral telemetry
r-selected Retired prototype · preceded Lichtung
A multi-perspective news aggregator enabling side-by-side comparison of coverage across outlets on the same event. The original prototype that led me to question filter bubble theory.
Java · Angular.js · Vue.js · MySQL · AWS EC2 · Docker
From the Blog
All posts →Journalism
All work →
Investigation · The Cover (封面新闻) · 2022
新冠康复者遭职场歧视
An investigation into workplace discrimination against COVID survivors, which prompted an official response from the State Council and contributed to subsequent policy measures.
Prompted State Council policy response
Photography · The Paper (澎湃新闻) · 2022
浦东上南九村雨夜中的核酸检测一瞥
Documentary · The Paper (澎湃新闻) · 2021