Arunima Krishna

Arunima Krishna, Associate Director with the Boston University Institute for Global Sustainability (IGS), is an associate professor of mass communication, advertising, and public relations at Boston University College of Communication. She joined Boston University College of Communication in 2016 after completing her PhD at Purdue University.

Dr. Krishna’s research focuses on understanding public perceptions of controversial social issues. Drawing from communication, public relations, business, and social psychology literatures, her scholarship explores how publics respond to and communicate about controversy-causing social problems, as well as factors shaping their perceptions of such issues. The situational theory of problem solving (STOPS) forms a foundational theoretical framework in her scholarship, and her work has helped advance communication theory by integrating the STOPS with consumer and social psychology literature, social identity theory, and narrative persuasion scholarship. Her research so far has focused on two broad categories of controversial social issues: (1) issues stemming from questions related to science and the veracity of scientific fact, including climate change denial and vaccine hesitancy, and (2) issues stemming from questions of morality and justice, such as workplace discrimination and corporate misconduct.

Most recently, Dr. Krishna developed the typology of misinformation-susceptible publics, a theoretically grounded classification of publics based on their susceptibility to mis- and disinformation efforts. Based on their issue-specific motivation, attitudes, and knowledge, Dr. Krishna proposed that individuals could be classified into one of four groups:

• Misinformation-immune publics, or those most likely to reject and refute misinformation
• Misinformation-vulnerable publics, or those at moderate risk of accepting misinformation
• Misinformation-receptive publics, or those at high risk of accepting misinformation
• Misinformation-amplifying publics, or those who not only are highly likely to accept misinformation, they also are likely actively share and promote misinformation about the specific topic in question.

Pronouns: she/her