I am a critical media studies scholar who analyzes the connections between media texts, media industries, communication policies, emerging technologies, audiences/users, and culture. My current research focuses on the relationships between media, health, and politics. More specifically, I explore the history and rise of the “health freedom” movement through their media creation and distribution strategies in relation to the global growth of wellness cultures, increasing mis/distrust of government and health systems and organizations, and the informational challenges engendered by our contemporary communication environment.
Zimdars, Melissa. “Media Creators, Health Mis/Disinformation, and the Past and Present Failures of U.S. Media Governance.” Journal of Cinema and Media Studies (2026).
Zimdars, Melissa. Mis/Disinformation and Democratic Society. Routledge, 2025.
Cullinan, Megan E., Melissa Zimdars, and Kilhoe Na. “Their Truth is Out There: Scientific (Dis)trust and Alternative Epistemology in Online Health Groups.” Social Media + Society (2024). https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051241269288
Zimdars, Melissa. “Alt-Health Influencers and the Threat of Social Media Deplatforming.” Journal of the Association of Information Science and Technology 75, no. 10 (2024): 1216-1229. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24870
Zimdars, Melissa. “Do Not Use This Hashtag: Fat Acceptance (Mis)information and Discursive Boundary-Work as Content Moderation on Instagram.” International Journal of Communication (2023): 1654-1674. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/19137/4072
Zimdars, Melissa, Megan E. Cullinan, and Kilhoe Na. “Alternative Health Groups on Social Media, Misinformation, and the (De)stabilization of Ontological Security.” New Media and Society 26, no. 10 (2023): 6059-6076. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448221146171
Zimdars, Melissa. “Medicalized Reality Weight-Loss Television and the Negotiation of Neoliberalism on My 600 pound Life.” Critical Studies in Television: The International Journal of TV Studies 18, no. 4 (2022): 367-384. https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020221134014
Zimdars, Melissa. “Mis/Disinformation and Social Media.” In The Social Media Debate: Unpacking the Social, Psychological, and Cultural Effects of Social Media, edited by Devan Rosen, 120-136. Routledge, 2022.
Zimdars, Melissa. “The Self-Surveillance Failures of Wearable Communication.” Journal of Communication Inquiry 45, no. 1 (2021): 24-44. https://doi.org/10.1177/0196859920977113
Zimdars, Melissa and Kembrew McLeod. Fake News: Understanding Media and Misinformation in the Digital Age. MIT Press, 2020.
Zimdars, Melissa. Watching Our Weights: The Consequences and Contradictions of Televising Fatness in the “Obesity Epidemic. Rutgers University Press, 2019.
