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Steve Rains

Professor
Steve Rains

Office: Communication 319

srains@arizona.edu
Research Areas
Communication Technology
Social Influence
Health Communication

Steve Rains is a Professor of Communication. His research is situated in the areas of health communication, social influence, and communication and technology. He is interested in better understanding how and why messages influence people, particularly in health contexts and when using communication technologies. His work in recent years has primarily focused on social support, though he routinely studies digital coping, incivility, persuasion resistance, and related topics. He is especially interested in leveraging computational social science techniques to explore the dynamic communication processes involved in these phenomena. Dr. Rains currently serves as co-editor of the journal Communication Research. 

Dr. Rains will not be accepting graduate students for Fall 2027.

Selected Publications

A complete list of publications

Degrees

  • B.S. (Bradley University)
  • M.S. (Illinois State University)
  • Ph.D. (University of Texas at Austin)