Gina Marcello, Ph.D.
Associate Teaching Professor
Rutgers University
Department of Journalism and Media Studies
Gina Marcello, Ph.D., is an Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers University (New Brunswick) in the School of Communication and Information. A three-time Rutgers alumna and media educator for more than thirty years, she coordinates and teaches Disinformation Detox in Communication, Media, and Information Studies (04:189: 210), an interdisciplinary course in media and information literacy.
Mentored by cognitive psychologist Robert Kubey, Ph.D., whose research on television addiction and screen dependency shaped her dissertation Media Mindfulness: Developing the Ability & Motivation to Process Advertisements, she focuses on how screens, platforms, and now generative AI shape attention, emotion, and what students come to know.
Her teaching and research sit at the intersection of media studies, cogntive psychology, human communication, media ecology, learning sciences, and socio-technical systems theory. The same patterns she studied in her dissertation on propaganda and advertising are now operating at scale through screens, platforms, and generative AI: the power of media environments to capture attention and shape emotion. The ubiquity of screens and more recently artifical intelligence places human communication in the crosshairs of algorithmic and platform logics demanding a deeper understanding of how the invisible elements of the media environment can intentionally hijack and manipulate human emotions.
Her teaching asks students to choose deep learning over efficiency, presence over constant distraction, and mindful strategies for living with media.
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