Melissa Aronczyk
Director of the Ph.D. Program and Professor of Journalism and Media Studies
Faculty
Biography
Melissa Aronczyk’s research, writing, and teaching aim to reorient debate over the role of organized persuasion in the conditions of public life. She investigates the tension between civic modes of discourse and technical ones, through critical evaluations of organized systems of influence, political rhetoric and logic, and media platforms. Aronczyk is the co-author, with Maria Espinoza, of A Strategic Nature: Public Relations and the Politics of Environmentalism (Oxford University Press), which received the 2023 Roderick P. Hart Outstanding Book Award in Political Communication and the 2022 Outstanding Book Award in Public Relations, Innovation, Development and Educational Achievement, both from the National Communication Association. Other books include Branding the Nation: The Global Business of National Identity (Oxford, 2013) and Blowing Up the Brand: Critical Perspectives on Promotional Culture (2010), edited with Devon Powers.
Aronczyk’s research has been featured in The Nation, the Financial Times, the BBC, Rolling Stone, CNBC, The Intercept, Grist, AdWeek, and Yes Magazine. She has also written stories about sustainability for The Washington Post and Foreign Policy magazine. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Climate Social Science Network, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She chaired the Popular Media and Culture division of the International Communication Association and serves on advisory boards for research programs in the U.S., Denmark, England, Finland, and Ireland.
At Rutgers, Aronczyk is a Faculty Associate with the Eagleton Institute of Politics, Affiliated Graduate Faculty with the Department of Sociology, and a research affiliate with the Climate and Energy Institute. With Jeff Lane, she founded and hosts the Digital Ethnography Working Group at Rutgers. She is also a Faculty Fellow with the Center for Cultural Sociology at Yale University and a Research Affiliate with the Center on Digital Culture & Society at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. She holds the honorary rank of adjunct Research Professor in Communication and Media Studies at Carleton University in Canada.
For questions or issues concerning the Ph.D. program, please email PhDDirector@comminfo.rutgers.edu
Education
Ph.D., Media, Culture and Communication, New York University