Contributors to Volume V
Notes on Contributors
Craig A. Anderson (PhD, Stanford University) is a Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences in the Department of Psychology at Iowa State University. He currently serves as the President of the International Society for Research on Aggression. For the last 15 years his research has focused on the psychology of human aggression, especially media violence effects. His work has had a major impact on public policy at local, state, national, and international levels.
Daniel R. Anderson (PhD, Brown University) is a Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. His research and scholarship has focused on the cognitive and educational impact of children's television viewing.
Charles K. Atkin (PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison) is Chair of the Communication department at Michigan State University. He has published 160 journal articles and chapters and six books dealing with media effects on health, political, and social behavior. The Decade of Behavior consortium recognized his work with the 2006 Award for Applied Social Science Research, and he received the 2008 Outstanding Health Communication Scholar Award from the ICA and NCA Health Communication Divisions, as well as the Distinguished Applied Communication Research Award from NCA in 2010.
Erica Weintraub Austin (PhD, Stanford University) is a Professor and Director of the Murrow College's Center for Media and Health Promotion, at Washington State University. She is nationally recognized for her research on children's and young adults' uses of the media in decision-making about health and civic affairs. She has served as an advisor to the Washington state and federal governments and to organizations nationwide on media literacy issues and health communication campaigns. Her research has been cited by the American Academy of Pediatrics in multiple policy statements about the health effects of the media on children and adolescents. She received the 2001 Krieghbaum Under-40 Award from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and the Samuel H. Smith Leadership Award from Washington State University in 2008.
Smita C. Banerjee (PhD, Rutgers University) is an Assistant Attending Behavioral Scientist in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York. Her research focuses on persuasive health message design, media literacy, and adolescent risk-taking behaviors.
Christopher P. Barlett (PhD, Iowa State University) is an Assistant Professor in Psychology at Gettysburg College. His primary research interest is studying the antecedents and consequences of aggressive behavior. Recently, he has been studying factors that contribute to the enhancement or reduction of aggressive behavior, including media violence exposure, cyberbullying, stress, and reappraisal.
Michael D. Basil (PhD, Stanford University) is a Professor of Marketing at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada. His background in social marketing came from work with Porter Novelli and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Mike publishes in the fields of health communication, marketing, psychology, and public health.
William L. Benoit (PhD, Wayne State University) is a Professor of Communication Studies at Ohio University.
Kim Bissell (PhD, Syracuse University) is the Southern Progress Corp. Professor of Journalism at the University of Alabama. Her research interests lie in examining the social effects of mass media as it relates to children and adolescents' body image and weight bias. She is further interested in the development and implementation of media literacy programs designed to teach children how media can be used to help them become more health literate.
Leticia Bode is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication, Culture, and Technology at Georgetown University. She received her bachelors from Trinity University and her master's and doctorate from the University of Wisconsin. She studies a wide variety of issues within the realm of mass communication and political behavior, with a focus on the effects of new media technology adoption and use on political attitudes and behaviors. Her current project considers the dynamics and effects of exposure to political information via social media use.
Moniek Buijzen (PhD, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands) is an Associate Professor of Youth and Media at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research ASCoR, University of Amsterdam. Her research focuses on the intended and unintended effects of advertising on young people, parent–child communication about consumer decisions, and parental mediation of children's responses to the media. She has published articles on these topics in leading journals, including British Journal of Developmental Psychology, Communication Research, and Media Psychology.
Yi-Chun (Yvonnes) Chen (PhD, Washington State University) is an Assistant Professor of Communication at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Her research primarily centers on offering empirical implications for optimal targets and time-points for effective behavioral interventions in the area of health promotion. She has received internal and external grants to develop and evaluate media literacy and entertainment education as behavior change strategies to enhance individuals' health.
Elizabeth L. Cohen (PhD, Georgia State University) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at West Virginia University. She studies psychological aspects of media uses and effects. Her research focuses on cognitive, emotional, and motivational factors in how individuals process and respond to entertainment media designed to influence health and political decision-making.
Jonathan Cohen (PhD, University of Southern California) is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Communication, University of Haifa. His research interests include the study of perceptions about media and their consequences, as well as issues of identification with media characters and narrative involvement.
George Comstock (PhD, Stanford University) spent more than 30 years as the S. I. Newhouse Professor at the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. He was science advisor to the Surgeon General's Scientific Advisory Committee on Television and Social Behavior that issued the 1972 federal report, Television and Growing Up: The Impact of Televised Violence. His most recent books include Television: What's On, Who's Watching, and What It Means (1999), The Psychology of Media and Politics (2005), and Media and the American Child (2007), each with Erica Scharrer as co-author.
Theresa de los Santos (MA, Pepperdine University) is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research interests include media effects and emotion with a focus on news content.
Travis L. Dixon (PhD, University of California, Santa Barbara) is an Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is primarily interested in the portrayal of people of color in the mass media and the effects of these images on audiences.
Stephanie Edgerly (PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison) is an Assistant Professor in the Medill School of Journalism and Integrated Marketing Management at Northwestern University. Her research explores how changes in the media landscape provide citizens with new opportunities for political engagement. She is particularly interested in the interplay between psychology and environment on political understanding and decision-making..
Kirstie M. Farrar (PhD, University of California, Santa Barbara) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences at the University of Connecticut where her research focuses on the effects of the mass media on young people, particularly in the areas of sexual socialization and violence and videogames.
Michel M. Haigh (PhD, University of Oklahoma) is an Associate Professor in the College of Communications at The Pennsylvania State University. Her research interests are mass media influence and strategic communication. Her chapter is dedicated to Dr. Michael Pfau, her PhD advisor/mentor.
Katherine G. Hanson received a BA from New York University and an EdM from Harvard University. She is currently a doctoral student at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in the Developmental Psychology program where she is investigating the influence of media on infants and toddlers.
Paul Haridakis (PhD, Kent State University) is a Professor in the School of Communication Studies at Kent State University. His research interests include media uses and effects; new communication technologies; media law, policy, and regulation; freedom of expression; and media history.
Tilo Hartmann (PhD, University of Hanover, Germany) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Science, VU University, Amsterdam. He is editorial board member of the Journal of Communication and Media Psychology and secretary of the ICA Game Studies Interest Group.
Jayne R. Henson (PhD, University of Missouri) is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Missouri for the Mizzou Advantage program. Her appointment is in the Media of the Future Initiative.
Cynthia A. Hoffner (PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison) is a Professor in the Department of Communication at Georgia State University. Her research focuses broadly on psychological aspects of media uses and effects, with particular interest in the role of emotion in media selection and response, and in the intersection of media and interpersonal communication. Her work has appeared in numerous communication and psychology journals. She is currently a co-editor of Media Psychology, and serves on several editorial boards, including Communication Monographs, Human Communication Research, Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, and the Journal of Communication.
R. Lance Holbert (PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison) is an Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the School of Communication at The Ohio State University. His political communication research areas include the study of complementary relationships among multiple political media outlets and the influence of political entertainment media. He sits on some of the field's top editorial boards, including Communication Monographs, Communication Research, and the Journal of Communication.
Muzammil M. Hussain (MA, University of Washington) is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington, and researcher at the Center for Communication and Civic Engagement. His research focuses on information infrastructure and social organization, and digital media and political participation.
Amy B. Jordan (PhD, University of Pennsylvania) is Senior Research Investigator and Director of the Media and the Developing Child sector of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. She is co-author (with Victor Strasburger and Barbara Wilson) of Children, Adolescents and the Media (2009) and co-editor (with Dale Kunkel, Jennifer Manganello, and Martin Fishbein) of Media Messages and Public Health: A Decisions Approach to Content Analysis (2009). Dr. Jordan is a recipient of the Best Applied/Public Policy Research Award from the International Communications Association.
Christopher S. Josey (MA, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) is a doctoral candidate at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He is interested in how race is framed in online news and underlying mechanisms that drive the consumption of Internet-based news.
Marina Krcmar (PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison) is an Associate Professor at Wake Forest University. Her research focuses on children, adolescents, and the media as well as selective exposure to violent media. Her current research examines the effect of violent video games on adolescents and the effect of videos targeting infants (e.g., Baby Einstein) on preverbal children. Her research has appeared in Communication Research, Human Communication Research, Journal of Communication Media Psychology and other journals. Her book, Living Without the Screen, was published in 2008. She is on the editorial board of Media Psychology and the Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media.
Robert Kubey (PhD, University of Chicago) is Director of the Center for Media Studies and Professor of Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Professor Kubey has co-authored Television and the Quality of Life (1990) with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and, more recently, Creating Television (2003). He has authored more than 50 articles and chapters.
Annie Lang (PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison) is a Professor of Telecommunications and Cognitive Science at Indiana University in Bloomington and a fellow of the International Communication Association. Her research focuses on understanding dynamic motivated message processing and using theory to advance our understanding of strategic message processing. Her work has been funded by NIMH, NIDA, NAB, and the Newslab and appeared in many outlets including Communication Methods and Measures, Communication Research, Health Communication, Human Communication Research, Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, Journal of Communication, Journal of Health Communication and Media Psychology.
Heather J. Lavigne is a doctoral student in the Developmental Psychology program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She received a BA from UMASS Amherst and an EdM from Harvard University. Her current research investigates the influence of media on children's cognitive development.
Jae Kook Lee (PhD, University of Texas at Austin) is an Assistant Professor in the School of Journalism at Indiana University. His research focuses on issues concerning public opinion and media effects, particularly how the new media environment influences the shape of public opinion and the political communication process.
Ron Leone (PhD, Syracuse University) is an Associate Professor and Chair in the Communication Department at Stonehill College, Easton, MA. His primary research area is media regulation, examining the Motion Picture Association of America's (MPAA) ratings system and the phenomenon known as “ratings creep.” He has published scholarly work in Communication Research Reports, Human Communication Research, Journal of Communication. and Popular Communication. He has an article in the Journal of Children and Media, in an issue devoted to international perspectives on media regulation and children.
Marie-Louise Mares (PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research focuses on life-span developmental changes in media use and effects. Her work with young audiences examines children's interpretations of media messages, particularly those that are intended to have educational or prosocial outcomes.
Dana Mastro (PhD, Michigan State University) is an Associate Professor and the Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Communication at the University of Arizona. Her research investigates the role of the media in processes of stereotype formation and application. More specifically, her work documents depictions of Latinos on English- and Spanish-language television and assesses the extent to which exposure to these images influences stereotyping and racial/ethnic cognitions as well as a variety of intergroup and identity-based outcomes.
Maxwell McCombs (PhD, Stanford University) holds the Jesse H. Jones Centennial Chair in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. His research continues to explicate agenda-setting theory, both in the expanded public affairs settings of the new media landscape and in new domains beyond the mass media.
Patricia Moy (PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison) is the Christy Cressey Professor of Communication at the University of Washington. Her research revolves around communication and citizenship; she examines how mediated communication shapes public opinion, political knowledge and attitudes, and various forms of political behavior.
John P. Murray (PhD, Catholic University of America) is a Research Fellow in Psychology at Washington College and a Visiting Scholar in the Center on Media and Child Health at Children's Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School. He has studied the issue of media violence and children for about 40 years, beginning with his work as a Research Coordinator for the Surgeon General's Scientific Advisory Committee on Television and Social Behavior in 1969. His continuing research is focused on brainmapping and violence viewing in children.
Robin L. Nabi (PhD, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania) is a Professor of Communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research interests focus on the influence of discrete emotions on message processing and decision-making in response to media messages that concern health or social issues. Her work has appeared in numerous communication journals, and she has served on several editorial boards, as the Chair of the Mass Communication Division of the International Communication Association, and as a co-editor of Media Psychology and the SAGE Handbook of Media Processes and Effects (2009).
Xiaoli Nan (PhD, University of Minnesota) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Maryland. Her research is focused on health and risk communication, persuasion processes, and media effects. Her work has been published in numerous communication and interdisciplinary journals and funded by the US Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration.
Angela Paradise (PhD, University of Massachusetts Amherst) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Stonehill College, Easton, MA. Angela's teaching and research interests include the social impact of media, the content and effects of media violence, and the effectiveness of school-based media literacy interventions. Her research has been published in the Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media and the Journal on Excellence in College Teaching.
Jochen Peter (PhD, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands) is an Associate Professor at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research at the University of Amsterdam. His research deals with the relationship between digital media and adolescents' psychosocial development, as well as their sexual socialization. He has published more than 70 journal articles and book chapters on these topics.
Ronald E. Rice (PhD, Stanford University) is the Arthur N. Rupe Chair in the Social Effects of Mass Communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara; Co-Director of the Carsey-Wolf Center for Film, Television, and New Media; and former ICA President (2006–2007). He has published 100 refereed journal articles, 60 book chapters, and 11 books, the most recent of which, with Stephen D. Cooper, is Organizations and Unusual Routines: A Systems Analysis of Dysfunctional Feedback Processes (2010). He is currently editing chapters for the upcoming fourth edition of Public Communication Campaigns (co-edited with Charles Atkin), which is the most cited book in the health communication field.
Ben Sayre is a doctoral student in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison. A member of the Social Media and Democracy research group, his current research involves political uses of new media and computer-aided content analysis.
Erica Scharrer (PhD, Syracuse University) is Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Co-author of three prior books (with George Comstock), including Media and the American Child (2007) and Television: What's On, Who's Watching, and What it Means (1999), she studies media content, opinions of media, media effects, and media literacy, particularly regarding gender and violence. Her studies have appeared in Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, Journal of Children and Media, Communication Research, and Media Psychology, among other outlets.
Bertram T. Scheufele (PhD, University of Munich, Germany) is a Professor of Communication and Media Policy in the Institute of Communication at the University of Hohenheim. His research deals with political communication, media and violence, the effects of mass communication, as well as research methodology.
Dietram A. Scheufele (PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison) is the John E. Ross Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Life Sciences Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Co-PI of the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University. His research deals with public opinion on emerging technologies and the political effects of mass communication.
Dhavan V. Shah (PhD, University of Minnesota) is Maier-Bascom Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication and Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he is also Director of the Mass Communication Research Center and a Core Leader in the Center for Excellence in Cancer Communication Research. Shah's research concerns the social psychology of communication influence, especially effects on personal evaluations, political judgments, health outcomes, and civic engagement.
Nancy Signorielli (PhD, University of Pennsylvania) is Professor of Communication and Director of the MA program in Communication at the University of Delaware (Newark, DE). Her research interests include images of sex roles, violence, aging, and minorities on television and how these images are related to conceptions of social reality from a cultivation analysis perspective.
Jiyeon So (MA, Purdue University) is a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research interests include media effects on health risk perceptions and health behaviors, persuasive communication and emotion, and the relationship between audience involvement and changes in attitudes and behaviors.
Yariv Tsfati (PhD, University of Pennsylvania) is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Communication, University of Haifa. His research focuses on various facets of public opinion, in particular on trust in media, the third-person effect, and campaign effects.
Riva Tukachinsky (PhD, University of Arizona) is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Communication at Chapman University. Her research interests include psychological aspects of media exposure and effects.
Patti M. Valkenburg (PhD, University of Leiden, the Netherlands) is a Professor in the Amsterdam School of Communication Research at the University of Amsterdam and Director of CCAM, the Center for Research on Children, Adolescents, and the Media. Her research focuses on the cognitive, affective, and social effects of old and new media on children and adolescents. She has published over 140 research articles, books, and book chapters on this topic.
Jan Van den Bulck (PhD, University of Leuven, Belgium) is Professor and Associate Dean of Research, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Leuven. He is interested in the impact of media use on health behaviors and in the effects of entertainment on people's knowledge, perceptions and attitudes. He is particularly interested in the long-term effects of medical and violent fiction.
Emily K. Vraga is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at George Mason University. Her research focuses on how individual predispositions and motivations influence the processing of media content, particularly in the evolving digital environment. More specifically, she studies how political identity constrains individuals' response to partisan messages and news content.
Michael Xenos (PhD, University of Washington) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he also serves as Director of the Center for Communication Research. He has research interests in political communication, civic engagement, public opinion, and new media.
Dannagal Goldthwaite Young (PhD, University of Pennsylvania) is Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Delaware. She studies the content, audience, and effects of political humor. Her research on the psychology and influence of humor has appeared in numerous journals, including International Journal of Press/Politics, Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, Mass Media and Society, Media Psychology, and Political Communication. She is also an improvisational comedian, performing regularly with the improv comedy troupe ComedySportz Philadelphia since 1999.