About

Lee Ahern is an Associate Professor and a faculty affiliate of the Media Effects Research Lab at Pennsylvania State University. His teaching includes courses on introduction to advertising, research methods, and media planning. His current research focuses on the description, analysis, and ethics of strategic messages, primarily within the context of environmental and health communications. Ahern has explored psychological effects and cognitive processing implications of different environmental message factors. In an international context, he studies the roles of culture and media system development on environmental attitudes and behaviors. His work has been published in journals such as Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly and Health Communication. In 2007, he received the Betsy Plank Graduate Student Research Award, and he has presented multiple papers at the AEJMC annual conference. He is also the current Research Chair for the Communicating Science, Health, Environment and Risk Division of AEJMC.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Law
• Family medicine
• Political economy
• Medicine
• Medical education

Selected publications

• A Decade of Adaptation: Integrating Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) into a Successful Digital Advertising Curriculum

  Journal of Advertising Education · 2026-03-05

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Over the past decade, the Bellisario College at Penn State has built up a minor in digital media advertising and analytics that has become the most popular minor at the university, with 540 enrolled students and counting. This case study, from the developer and director of the minor, provides a point of reference for other advertising, marketing, or communications programs looking to enhance their digital course offerings. The sequence of courses is summarized, with a particular focus on the experiential capstone class—Digital Campaigns. Experiential learning is critical for the successful teaching of applied skills, and the evolution of the Digital Campaigns course provides a roadmap for navigating digital advertising teaching tools, platforms, and other resources. Program success metrics are summarized; limitations and future implications discussed.

  PublisherDOI

• W. Lance Bennett, Communicating the Future: Solutions for Environment, Economy, and Democracy

  International journal of communication · 2021

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  Publisher

• HPV prevention is not just for girls: an examination of college-age-students’ adoption of HPV vaccines

  Health Marketing Quarterly · 2020 · 2 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Family medicine
  • Medicine
  • Medical education

  This study identifies source(s) of information young adults found to be persuasive in choosing/declining HPV vaccines. The results indicate that males are not getting HPV vaccination information from either their physician, parent, or DTC advertising. Females reported that physicians and their mothers were the most influential sources of information. Additionally, females found that risk message frames focusing on empowerment, reduced dread, control and benefit in the DTC HPV vaccine advertisements were persuasive; males did not. With the rapid rise of HPV related cancers found in males, there is a need to inform males and their parents about for HPV vaccines.

  PublisherDOI

• Understanding and managing mass media effects on public perceptions of science issues such as invasive species management

  2019-06-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Cost of the Veil: Visual Communication Impacts of<i>Hijab</i>on News Judgments

  Mass Communication & Society · 2019-11-02 · 3 citations

  article

  Using disposition theory as a framework, this 2 (headscarf vs. no headscarf) by 2 (US citizen vs. refugee) experiment sought to elucidate the impact of visual and verbal cues in mediated messages on conclusions drawn from a television news package about a woman accused of consorting with a known terrorist group in the US, in terms of parochial empathy for and perceived innocence of the woman. Parochial empathy measures the difference between ingroup and outgroup empathy; higher levels indicate ingroup empathy is greater than outgroup empathy, meaning the individual’s empathy is very narrow in scope or “parochial.” Political identity was a measured independent variable. The data supported a model in which political identity was a significant moderator of the headscarf’s effect on parochial empathy, and that parochial empathy mediated the relationship between the manipulated and measured predictor variables on perceived innocence. Details of the relationships among variables are reported and the implications for theory and journalism practice are discussed.

  PublisherDOI

• Technology Name and Celebrity Endorsement Effects of Autonomous Vehicle Promotional Messages: Mechanisms and Moderators

  Science Communication · 2018-12-21 · 16 citations

  article

  Autonomous vehicles represent an emerging technology with the potential to radically transform everyday life. Yet there is little understanding of how promotional tactics—easy-to-grasp technology labels or pairing the technology with well-known celebrities—influence public perceptions of risk, benefits, and intentions. Therefore, we experimentally tested ( N = 721) the effects of technology name and celebrity presence on emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses to promotional messages. Moreover, we examined how individual differences and attention to news about autonomous vehicles can moderate responses. Results of this exploratory study revealed the importance of affective and cognitive mediators and audience-related moderators in shaping responses.

  PublisherDOI

• First-Person Effects of Emotional and Informational Messages in Strategic Environmental Communications Campaigns

  Environmental Communication · 2017-09-20 · 36 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  This study examined the first- and third-person effects of emotional and informational messages, particularly relating to the critical issue areas of energy, the environment, and global warming. Due to intense political polarization on such issues, it also explored the role of political party identification. The results of an experiment indicated that informational messages about the environment produced third-person effects, while environmental advertisements meant to evoke emotion caused first-person effects. Moreover, emotional environmental advertisements appealed more to Republicans and those who did not support a political party. As such, indirect, emotional messages appear to represent an opportunity for strategic environmental communicators to design campaigns that resonate with potentially unreceptive audiences.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Environmental Orientations and News Coverage: Examining the Impact of Individual Differences and Narrative News

  DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · 2017-10-12 · 5 citations

  articleOpen access

  This study examined the impact of narrative environmental news on issue and message attitudes, and the extent to which such attitudes might be moderated by individuals’ environmental orientations. We conducted an experiment in which we asked participants to read either a narrative or informational newspaper article on the environmental consequences of shale gas drilling. Individuals’ environmental orientations were measured a week before the experiment. Results indicated significant interaction effects between news formats and individuals’ environmental orientations on transportation, positive cognitive responses, sympathy, and issue attitudes. Those who were more concerned about the environment were more affected by narrative news than those less concerned. These findings suggest that news narratives have stronger effects when they resonate with individuals’ predispositions.

  PublisherOA PDF

• More Is Less

  Electronic News · 2016-02-08 · 8 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Past research supports the notion that Fox News Channel (FNC) is more dismissive of global warming than other news outlets. In addition, FNC covers the issue much more often. A qualitative–quantitative content analysis indicates that—for the leading U.S. broadcast and cable news networks overall—coverage of global warming relies on traditional news values such as political-elite cues and event magnitude. FNC, however, exhibited a news agenda favoring more coverage of global warming and climate change (relative to the other leading news outlets). Additional analysis indicates that FNC often co-opts the issue as an exemplar of “political correctness” and of the excess of political progressivism. Other networks, conversely, are more likely than FNC to cover the actual causes and impacts of global warming. Findings are situated in the context of gatekeeping theory; implications of observed network differences are discussed.

  PublisherDOI

• How Public Relations and Advertising Have Shaped Public Debate Over Climate Change

  Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Climate Science · 2016-09-28

  reference-entry1st authorCorresponding

  <italic>This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Climate Science. Please check back later for the full article.</italic> The persuasive industries of advertising and public relations are inextricably intertwined with the cultures of the industrial revolution and neoliberal market economics—the very forces that are primarily responsible for bringing us to a warming world. Is it possible they can evolve from being part of the problem to forming part of the solution? Historically, advertising and public relations professionals operate in the service of paying clients. There are a number of governmental and non-governmental entities promoting carbon reduction and other climate change mitigation and adaptation policy positions and individual behaviors. Although significant, the “share of voice” for these communication campaigns remains negligible in the context of hyper-mediated modern social life. It is unrealistic, therefore, to expect that the advertising and public relations industries could have a significant impact on climate change attitudes, beliefs, knowledge, and behaviors by directing their collective creative energies and resources to traditional public information campaigns. Reflecting on the nature and operation of these persuasive industries, however, it may be possible for the advertising and public relations industries to have significant—and perhaps critical—indirect impacts. Many science and policy communicators think in terms of informational message strategies. However, as the history of advertising and public relations has shown, persuasion happens in more emotional and indirect ways. In rhetorical terms, the most persuasive messages often communicate through enthymemes—non-explicit or unstated assumptions and conclusions that audiences accept as “given” and without scrutiny or counter-arguing. This reality provides an opening for strategic communicators to contribute to pro-science public attitudes in the service of all clients. With close and transparent consideration of the ethical implications, the indirect client of strategic communications can be client earth.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Colleen Connolly-Ahern

  Pennsylvania State University

  9 shared

• Julia Daisy Fraustino

  West Virginia University

  4 shared

• Frank E. Dardis

  Pennsylvania State University

  4 shared

• Fuyuan Shen

  Pennsylvania State University

  4 shared

• Mike Schmierbach

  4 shared

• Saraswathi Bellur

  4 shared

• Denise Sevick Bortree

  Pennsylvania State University

  4 shared

• Keunyeong Kim

  Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

  3 shared

Labs

• Media Effects Research LabPI

Awards & honors

• Teaching and Learning with Technology Impact Award