Michael Cody was born in Auburn, California and attended California State University, Sacramento. He earned his Ph.D. in Communication at Michigan State University in 1978, where he focused on research methods and face to face social influence processes. He studied why individuals selected certain “compliance gaining tactics” in interpersonal settings across diverse situations. This line of work resulted in a goal-oriented approach to communication, including self-presentational goals, relational goals and instrumental goals – See
Interpersonal Communication: A goals based approach (St. Martin’s Press).
Dr Cody is interested in “taxonomies” of messages in either “compliance gaining” (seeking one’s goals) or in “accounts” (offering explanations for one’s actions) when individuals pursue goals in “real life” contexts such as flirting, relational dissolution, sales encounters, traffic court, child custody mediations, and in health maintenance contexts.
Between 1999 and 2002 he was Principle Investigator of a Tobacco Control grant with the State of California and completed projects on the presence of tobacco online (Hong & Cody, 2002), online sales of tobacco (Bryant, Cody & Murphy, 2002) and blocking access to tobacco online (Reagan, Hong, Cohen, & Cody, 2002). During the same years he was editor of
Communication Theory, a peer-reviewed journal of the International Communication Association.
Dr. Cody is currently involved in a number of projects using entertainment as a means to educate viewers, including educating viewers about breast cancer and infectious diseases. In 2004 he co-edited, with Arvind Singhal, Everett Rogers, and Miguel Sabido,
Entertainment-Education and Social Change: History, Research, and Practice (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates), and he serves on the Board of Advisers for the office of Hollywood, Health and Society. He judges the Sentinel Awards, an annual award given for promoting health in entertainment programs. He also serves on the Annenberg National Health Survey (with Sheila Murphy at USC and Drs. Cappella and Hornik at the University of Pennsylvania). In 2006 he plans to finish projects on educating the public on emergency preparedness.
Dr. Cody is interested in traveling, hiking, backpacking and camping. His favorite camping areas are Joshua Tree National Park and various locations in the Lake Tahoe area. His favorite vacation areas include Playa del Carmen, Mexico City and Acapulco (Mexico), Hawaii, Lake Tahoe, and Catalina Island. He has traveled in Canada, England, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Scotland, Taiwan, Turkey, and Wales. He spent a year at Tel Aviv University and spent a semester in London.
Dr. Cody lives in Hermosa Beach, California. He has one daughter, Julia Johnston Cody, who graduated from USC with a B.A. in Visual Anthropology.
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