UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- A leading media psychologist will present the fall 2015 Robert M. Pockrass Memorial Lecture at 5 p.m. Monday, Sept. 28 in the Freeman Auditorium of the HUB-Robeson Center at Penn State’s University Park campus.
The free public lecture by Melanie C. Green, associate professor at the University of Buffalo, titled “The Science of Stories and the Stories of Science,” is sponsored by the Penn State College of Communications.
Green’s theory of “transportation into a narrative world” focuses on immersion into a story as a mechanism of narrative influence. She has examined narrative persuasion in a variety of contexts, from health communication to social issues.
Her research has appeared in top journals in social psychology and communication, including Media Psychology, Journal of Communication, Communication Theory and the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. She has also edited two books on narratives and persuasion: “Narrative Impact: Social and Cognitive Foundations” and “Persuasion: Psychological Insights and Perspectives, Second Edition.”
According to Google Scholar, her work has been cited more than 6,000 times.
The Pockrass Lecture was named after the late Professor Robert M. Pockrass, a member of Penn State’s journalism faculty from 1948 to 1977. Pockrass, who specialized in public opinion and popular culture, served as the graduate officer and taught radio news writing.