Guolan Yang

Guolan Yang serves as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Advertising at the College of Media, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her academic work bridges advertising, political communication, and health communication, with a strong emphasis on experimental research to understand persuasive mechanisms in social media, political campaigns, and public health initiatives.

Dr. Yang's research program explores psychological processes in advertising effectiveness through narrative persuasion frameworks. Key focus areas include political advertising dynamics (examining issue-based versus character-based narratives), defensive processing in influencer marketing contexts, and green message impacts on consumer behavior. Her methodological approach emphasizes controlled experiments to uncover cognitive mechanisms like counterarguing and visual-textual interactions in health communication narratives.

Analysis of Dr. Yang's recent publications (2022-2024) reveals a cohesive research trajectory applying narrative theory to political and health domains while expanding into digital marketing. Her work consistently investigates message structure variables (narrative vs. non-narrative formats) interacting with contextual factors like social media platforms and environmental messaging. The 2024 green advertising meta-analysis demonstrated significant effects on brand attitude and purchase intention, while 2023 political ad studies revealed nuanced impacts of narrative framing on voter evaluations and ad processing.