Communication scholar · Oklahoma State University
Md. Akil Khanমো. আকিল খান
I study how messages travel, and when they change what people believe and do.
My work spans health campaigns, social platforms and AI, and the newsroom, with much of it set in Bangladesh and South Asia.
About
I came to research through the newsroom and the fact-check desk.
I am a graduate teaching assistant and MS student in Mass Communications at Oklahoma State University's School of Media and Strategic Communications. Before that I was a graduate research assistant in the Department of Communication, Media and Persuasion at Idaho State University, and I earned my bachelor's and master's in Mass Communication and Journalism at Khulna University, Bangladesh.
I reported for campus and national news portals, worked as a fact-checker at Rumor Scanner during Bangladesh's 2024 political crisis, and co-founded Coastal Voices, a U.S. Department of State–funded media literacy project for coastal journalists. I bring that field experience to experiments, surveys, content analysis, and in-depth interviews.
- Position
- Graduate Teaching Assistant, OSU
- Methods
- Experiments, surveys, content analysis, interviews
- Tools
- R, Qualtrics, NVivo
- Languages
- Bengali, English
Health persuasion
Which health messages change beliefs and intentions, and for whom. I test anti-tobacco campaign messages, numeric risk framing in health ads, and the actionable information in health news.
4 worksAI, platforms & politics
How AI-made content, influencers, and social feeds shape trust, identity, and engagement, from deepfake election videos to AI health characters aimed at rural users.
5 worksNews, crisis & environment
How journalists work under constraint and how organizations speak to the public in a crisis, with a focus on environmental reporting in coastal Bangladesh.
4 works-
2026
Environmental journalism under constraint: Literacy, normative pressures, and institutional gaps in Bangladesh
Khan, M. A., Islam, M. S., & Biswas, A.
Journalism Practice
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2025
Mobilizing information in cancer news: How Bengali and English newspapers deliver actionable health messages in Bangladesh
Biswas, A., Khan, M. A., Ahammed, K., Ahmed, S., & Nobel, S. K.
News Research Journal
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Nov 2026
When campaigns move people: Message presence, health beliefs, and quit intentions in South Asian tobacco control
Khan, M. A., Biswas, A., Ferdoushi, L., Sultana, N., Khan, R., & Hossain, M. S.
National Communication Association 112th Annual Convention, New Orleans, LA
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Nov 2026
Numbers in movement: Numeric risk framing in health advertising messages, perceived personal relevance, and the role of numeracy
Khan, M. A., Ferdoushi, L., Sultana, N., & Biswas, A.
National Communication Association 112th Annual Convention, New Orleans, LA