About Minji Kim

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I am Minji Kim, an assistant professor at the Department of Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior at the Arnold School of Public Health, University of South Carolina.

I research targeted and tailored communication and its effects on persuasion of marketing and counter-marketing messages.

My recent projects examined:

  • the effects of character-audience similarity in anti-smoking PSAs and e-cigarette advertisements using demographic and psychographic targeting strategies,
  • marketing strategies of new tobacco products (including e-cigarettes and heat-not-burns) and its effects on adolescents and young adults,
  • reliable, valid, and efficient message evaluation protocol,
  • the effects of culturally appropriate health education and communication targeting Asian Americans.

I use quantitative (mostly experiments) and qualitative methods to observe how the content and format features in persuasive messages elicit different audience responses.

My research has been published in journals including Human Communication Research, Health Communication, and Tobacco Control, and presented at academic conferences such as International Communication Association and American Public Health Association. A short popular science talk on peer crowd-based targeting in tobacco marketing and counter-marketing communication can be found here (February 2018, UCSF’s “It’s About a Billion Lives” annual symposium)

I completed a postdoctoral training at the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, University of California, San Francisco. I received a PhD in Communication from the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, and an MA in Communication from Seoul National University. Prior to my academic life, I worked as an associate consultant at the Boston Consulting Group’s Seoul office.

Also visit: ResearchGate profile; UofSC profile page