Scholars
Michelle A Amazeen
Boston University
Based in
United States
North America
Dr. Michelle A. Amazeen is the Associate Dean of Research and an Associate Professor of Mass Communication at Boston University’s College of Communication. She also directs the Communication Research Center. Dr. Amazeen’s research focuses on persuasion and misinformation, exploring the nature and persuasive effects of misinformation and efforts to correct it. She uses a variety of qualitative and quantitative methods to produce results with practical applications for journalists, educators, policymakers, and consumers, helping them recognize and resist persuasion and misinformation in the media.
Dr. Amazeen is one of 22 prominent scholars worldwide who contributed to The Debunking Handbook 2020. Since 2021, she has been ranked among the top 2% of highly-cited scholars globally by Stanford University. Her research has been published in leading academic journals and cited over 60 times in policy documents worldwide. She has served as an expert contributor to the Australian Academy of Science, the European Research Council, and the US Institute for Museum and Library Services. Additionally, she has presented her research to the US Federal Trade Commission, the US Environmental Protection Agency, the US Food and Drug Administration, and the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office.
Currently, Dr. Amazeen is a co-investigator on the Boston University Climate Disinformation Initiative, focusing on climate issues in native advertising. Her upcoming book, Content Confusion: News Media, Native Advertising, and Policy in an Era of Disinformation (MIT Press) is set to be published in late 2025.
Country(ies) of Specialty
United StatesFocus areas of expertise
Greenwashing Communications researchPublications
Articles
Amazeen, M. A. (in press). Content Confusion: News Media, Native Advertising, and Policy in an Era of Disinformation. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Amazeen, M. A. (2024). The Misinformation Recognition and Response Model: An emerging theoretical framework for investigating antecedents to and consequences of misinformation recognition. Human Communication Research, 50(2), 218-229. https://doi.org/10.1093/hcr/hqad040
Amazeen, M. A. (2023). Native advertising in a mobile era: Effects of ability and motivation on recognition in digital news contexts. Digital Journalism, 11 (6), 1130-1153. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2020.1860783
Amazeen, M. A. & Krishna, A. (2024). Refuting misinformation: Examining theoretical underpinnings of refutational interventions. Current Opinion in Psychology, 56. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2023.101774
Amazeen, M. A., Sovacool, B. K., Krishna, A., Debnath, R., & Wells, C. (2025). “The Future of Energy?” Building resilience to ExxonMobil’s disinformation through disclosures and inoculation. npj Climate Action 4, 19. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44168-025-00209-6
Amazeen, M.A., & Vargo, C.J. (2021). Sharing native advertising on Twitter: Content analyses examining disclosure practices and their inoculating influence. Journalism Studies, 22(7), 916-933. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2021.1906298
Amazeen, M. A., Vasquez, R. A., Krishna, A., Ji, Y. G., Su, C. C., & Cummings, J.J. (2024). Missing voices: Examining how misinformation-susceptible individuals from underrepresented communities engage, perceive, and combat science misinformation. Science Communication,
46(1), 3-35. https://doi.org/10.1177/10755470231217536
Ecker, U. K. H., Lewandowsky, S., Cook, J.,
Schmid, P., Fazio, L. K., Brashier, N., Kendeou, P., Vraga, E. K., & Amazeen, M. A. (2022). The psychological drivers of misinformation belief and its resistance to correction. Nature Reviews Psychology, 1, 13-29. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-021-00006-y
Vargo, C.J., & Amazeen, M.A. (2021). Agenda Cutting versus agenda-building: Does sponsored content influence corporate news coverage in U.S. media? International Journal of Communication, 15: 5186-5207. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/17824