Michelle Amazeen

Dr. Michelle A. Amazeen is an associate professor in the Department of Mass Communication, Advertising and Public Relations at Boston University. She is an excellent source of information about how media practices such as covert advertising, political disinformation, and fact-checking affect public perceptions. Her research involves mediated persuasion and misinformation, investigating the factors that influence recognition of persuasion and resistance to it. She examines how situational message factors (source, text, visuals, disclosure labels) interact with individual characteristics (demographics, media use motivations, ideology, information literacy) to affect persuasion knowledge, cognitive coping responses, attitudes, and intentions.

Her career in the communication industry began by “selling air” and managing the student sales staff at WPGU Radio in Champaign, Illinois. Before returning to academia, she researched the effectiveness of advertising and marketing campaigns for companies including The Signature Group and Millward Brown. A post-midnight encounter with a brand equity perceptual map of toilet bowl cleaners led Dr. Amazeen to reassess her professional aspirations. She now enjoys challenging herself and her students to critically evaluate our media environment.