 Jamieson was born on November 24, 1946, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.She received her BA in Rhetoric and Public Address from Marquette University in 1967, her MA in Communication Arts from the University of Wisconsin at Madison the following year, and her PhD in Communication Arts from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1972.From 1971 to 1986, Jamieson served as a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Maryland.