Author: Michelle Amazeen

Letter From The Director: September 2023

By: Michelle Amazeen Welcome to the Fall 2023 Semester! With the start of the academic year, I’d like to welcome you to the fall 2023 semester and share some information about the CRC. First established at Boston University in 1959, the CRC serves to support its fellows as thought leaders who advance communication-related theory and […]

Letter from the Director: August 2023

By: Michelle Amazeen Barbie: Covert Influence and Representation The billion-dollar blockbuster movie this summer was Barbie. As I prepared to go see it with my mother in July, I reminded myself that I was going to see what amounts to a 2-hour advertisement for a child’s toy, a practice also known as branded entertainment. As […]

Letter from the Director: July 2023

By: Michelle Amazeen Speaking Out: Then They Came for the Academics… During my spring 2023 research sabbatical, I have continued my studies of disinformation. While having the time, resources, and support to focus exclusively on research is an increasingly rare privilege in academia, as I prepared to return as COM’s Director of the Communication Research […]

Letter from the Director: December 2022

By: Michelle Amazeen As the Fall 2022 semester wraps up, there is an impressive number of new faces and activities at the CRC to reflect on. We welcomed four new faculty research fellows: Dr. Nivea Cannali Bona, Lecturer, Media Science; Dr. Katy Coduto, Assistant Professor, Media Science; Dr. Pablo Miño, Assistant Professor, Public Relations, and […]

Letter from the Director: October 2022

AI: Cause to Rejoice or Frankenstein-like Foreboding? Artificial intelligence (or AI) has moved from science fiction to mainstream computer science. No longer is it simply the lore of Frankenstein-like creations but rather something that people use in their everyday lives. For instance, web searches using Google rely upon AI. So do the recommendation systems in […]

Letter from the Director: September 2022

Back-to-School! Welcome to the Fall 2022 semester at COM’s Communication Research Center! As our fellows embark on another academic year, generating new knowledge through research and theory building, the CRC continues to facilitate these efforts to address society’s communication-related challenges. Given Boston University’s commitment to involving students in research, the CRC will once again administer […]

Letter from the Director: July 2022

Letter from the Director: July 2022 Demystifying Biometrics As part of our mission, the Communication Research Center offers state-of-the art technology to facilitate our fellows’ ability to advance theory and methods in addressing society’s challenges. Some of this technology involves psychophysiological measurement and analysis tools. To help explain and demystify this technology, I’ve turned to […]

Letter from the Director: June 2022

With the summer season upon us, I am reminded that college professors are often the envy of our non-academic friends who think we “get the summer off.” In reality, many of our CRC fellows work just as hard – if not harder – during the summer. To be sure, the summer months may have fewer […]

Letter from the Director: April 2022

The Dark Side of Comedy When the Boston University Communication Research Center was first organized in the late 1950s, some of its earliest research involved the study of comics. Fears were so great in the U.S. about the potential harms of comic books on youth that Congress created a subcommittee to study their effects on […]

Letter from the Director: March 2022

Disinformation Warfare in Perpetuating World Tensions The unfolding, grisly war in Ukraine has made clear that in 2022 – nearly a century after communication theorist Harold Lasswell’s dissertation on propaganda – battles take place not only with physical confrontations, but also continue via information warfare designed to win the hearts and minds of observers. Communication […]