The LSU Ogden Honors College and the Reilly Center for Media & Public Affairs host Melissa Michelson, author of “Listen, We Need to Talk”
01/25/2017
The LSU Manship School of Mass Communication’s Reilly Center for Media & Public Affairs and the Ogden Honors College will host a talk with Menlo College political science professor Dr. Melissa Michelson on Thursday, February 16 at 3 p.m. in the salon at LSU’s Ogden Honors College.
Michelson will discuss her latest book, “Listen, We Need to Talk: How to Change Attitudes about LGBT Rights.”
In “Listen, We Need to Talk,” Michelson and her co-author Brian Harrison of Northwestern University, test a new theory they call Dissonant Identity Priming, looking at how to change people’s attitudes on controversial topics. Findings suggest people are more likely to change their attitudes when others with whom they identify, especially leaders and role models, are also supporters, and if that information is unexpected.
Michelson, who holds a PhD from Yale, studies voter registration and mobilization in minority communities and persuasive communication on LGBT rights. She is co-author of Mobilizing Inclusion: Redefining Citizenship through Get-Out-the-Vote Campaigns (Yale, 2012), which won the 2013 American Political Science Association’s Ralph Bunche award and the 2013 Race, Ethnicity and Politics section best book award, Living the Dream: New Immigration Policies and the Lives of Undocumented Latino Youth (Paradigm, 2014), A Matter of Discretion: The Politics of Catholic Priests in the United States and Ireland (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), as well as dozens of articles in peer-reviewed academic journals.
The Roger Hadfield Ogden Honors College is a vibrant, diverse and prestigious community located at the heart of LSU. The Ogden Honors College provides students with a curriculum of rigorous seminar classes, as well as opportunities for undergraduate research, culminating in the Honors Thesis. Its focus on community service, study abroad, internships and independent research helps today’s high-achieving students become tomorrow’s leaders.
The Reilly Center for Media & Public Affairs, an integral part of the Manship School of Mass Communication, uses the intellectual muscle of the school’s faculty to help solve practical problems and advance good government initiatives. The Reilly Center’s mission is to generate thoughtful programs, dialogue and research about mass communication and its many faceted relationships with social, economic and political issues. Evident in everything the center does is its commitment to strengthen and advance the Manship School’s national leadership in media and politics.