Communication

Josh Averbeck

Averbeck

Professor
300 Memorial Hall
Department Main Office Phone: (309) 298-1507
Email: JM-Averbeck@wiu.edu
Personal Webpage: Averbeck's Personal Website

Josh Averbeck is a full professor in the Department of Communication at Western Illinois University. He studies how best to design persuasive messages for various contexts (interpersonal, health, political, social media). Understanding people’s preferences and how best to navigate them is just as important as choosing the rights words for your message.

Josh is the director of the Social Media Lab. He regularly works with students to provide training and experience while working with clients on campus and in the community.

Josh's work has been published in Communication Monographs, Journal of Communication, and Human Communication Research. He has two primary areas of research that often intersect. The first is language expectations and persuasiveness. These projects seek to expand Language Expectancy Theory by examining the predictors and outcomes of particular language expectancy. Linguistic complexity, semantic complexity, sidedness, and affect are some of the language variables used in these projects.

The other area of research is ironic message production and processing. Ironic messages are common in our interactions and serve an important persuasive function. I look at what motivates us to produce ironic messages and what condition affect ironic message reception.

Education

Ph.D. in Communication, University of Oklahoma - 2011
M.A. in Communication, Western Illinois University - 2007
B.A. in General Science, North Central College – 2004

Teaching Areas

Persuasion Language
Health Communication
Interpersonal Communication
Research Methods

Research Interests

Persuasive Message Design
Language Use
Language Expectations
Message Processing