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STUDENT LEADERS:
Lucy Atkinson is a doctoral student in the School of Journalism
and Mass Communication. She is interested in how individuals construct
and negotiate political and social meanings through nontraditional
means, such as consumption behaviors, and the role of mass media
in this evolving process. She is also interested in how news presentations
influence audiences' perceptions, learning, and engagement. She
has presented papers at several conferences, including AEJMC and
MAPOR. In 2006, she was selected to attend the National Communication
Association's National Doctoral Honors Seminar. Porismita Borah is a doctoral student in the School
of Journalism and Mass Communication. Her research focuses on media
effects and the role of individual differences and predispositions
in conditioning these effects. She is interested in understanding
different perspectives on framing theory. She has presented several
conference papers at AEJMC, ICA and AAPOR. In 2006, she won two
top student paper awards at AEJMC. Hilde Breivik is a master's student in the School of Journalism
and Mass Communication. Her interests are broadly centered on the
intersection of politics and consumerism. She is interested in the
interaction between consumption and political messages and politics,
and how these interactions vary across cultures, and between different
political systems. She presented the paper: "Representation in Transition:
Media Portrayal of the UN in the Context of the War in Iraq", at
ICA in 2004. Jasun Carr is a doctoral student in the School
of Journalism and Mass Communication. His current research projects
focus on the interplay of cues, arguments and presentation order
on the persuasive process, cross-cultural consumer attitudes toward
and the effectiveness of product placements. He has presented papers
at several conferences, including AAPOR and AEJMC, and is employed
as a project assistant for Engage at DoIT. Stephanie Edgerly is a master's student in the
School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Her research has focused
on understanding how new technology influences the way people participate
in politics and examining the potential of deliberative democracy.
Melissa Gotlieb is a master's student in the School
of Journalism and Mass Communication. Her research has broadly focused
on understanding (1) media effects on perceptions, attitudes, and
behavior from both a social cognitive and semiotics perspective
and (2) the role of individual differences and predispositions (e.g.,
motivation, knowledge, values/ideology) in fostering a more active
and critical consumption of media. She has presented several conference
papers at AEJMC and MAPOR and has a forthcoming co-authored article
in Journal of Communication on media priming processes. Muzammil Hussain is an undergraduate student in
the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. His interests focus
on (1) the impact of information technologies in developing nations
and (2) the role of the Internet in the interactions of different
social and religious identities. He has presented his work at the
CIC-SROP conference and the UW's Undergraduate Research Symposium,
and has co-authored an article in the Wisconsin Journal of Science.
Hyunseo Hwang is a doctoral candidate in the
School of Journalism and Mass Communication. His research focuses on media effects
on Internet information search behaviors and their outcomes. He has presented
his research at multiple national and international conferences and published
his work in Mass Communication and Society and Journal of Communication.
His interests center on political psychology, political communication, and web
based-survey methodology. He has conducted multiple studies involving online
survey experiments and is a specialist in Internet-based discussion and response
latency methodologies. Nam-jin Lee is a doctoral student in the School
of Journalism and Mass communication. His main research areas include media
framing, public deliberation, and public opinion. He is particularly interested
in pursuing research on how democratic deliberation works as a process rooted
in people's cognitive and communicative activities and on how the quality and
quantity of mediated political communication and of political talk facilitate
or constrain this process. He has presented papers and posters at major communication
conferences such as ICA, AEJMC, and AAPOR. Ray Pingree is a doctoral student in the School
of Journalism and Mass Communication. His research focuses on political discussion,
media effects, and new forms of interaction online. He has an extensive background
in software engineering, and worked professionally in this capacity for over
two years. He now specializes in deliberative theory and web-based survey methodologies.
Reflecting these interests, he has conducted multiple studies involving online
discussion forums and chat rooms, and developed his own software for asynchronous
online deliberation. His research has been published in Communication Theory
and presented at several conferences, including Online Deliberation 2005. Rosanne Scholl is a doctoral student in the School of Journalism
and Mass Communication. Her research focuses on media effects on
economic and political attitudes. She has presented her empirical
research on news framing, economics news content, and online political
discussion at national conferences. She is the lead organizer of
recent media framing studies using online survey experiments within
the MCRC. Scholl both organized that effort and contributed to its
technical aspects using HTML with CSS. She has presented her research
at AEJMC, ICA, and MAPOR, and has a number of pieces under review
at leading journals. Kjerstin Thorson ]is a doctoral student in the
School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Her research explores
the impact of new media on political evaluations and participation
in politics. She has presented her research at the AEJMC, ICA, and
AOIR conferences and published it in the Journal of Computer-Mediated
Communication and the Journal of Interactive Advertising. Prior
to returning to pursuing her doctorate, she worked for several years
in corporate communications and public relations. Aaron Veenstra is a doctoral student in the
School of Journalism and Mass Communication. His research focuses on political
communication and the Internet. He has an extensive background in online data
gathering and analysis of patterns of Internet use, and has conducted multiple
studies involving online communities and web content. He has presented his research
at the annual AEJMC and ICA conferences and published it in the Journal
of Computer-Mediated Communication.
Emily Vraga is a master's student in the School
of Journalism and Mass Communication. Her interests have broadly
focused on how differences in information presentation can interact
with individual differences and predispositions to affect the processing
and the spread of activation regarding that information. She will
be presenting the paper: "To Understand or to Persuade: Cognitive
Breadth, Motivation to Talk, and Deliberative Participation"
at MAPOR in 2006. "Bryan" Ming Wang is a doctoral student
in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. He is interested
in how news, political advertising, and interpersonal political
discussion affect voters’ political learning, political attitudes,
and political behavior. Recently, he has been involved in projects
on framing effects, deliberation, and political blogging . He has
presented his research at the AEJMC.
STUDENT AFFILIATES: Emily Acosta Ashley Anderson Richard Cleland Itay Gabay Joseph Pfaller Rachel Vallens Rosalyna Wijaya Keith Zukas
ALUMNI MEMBERS: Cory Armstrong - University of Florida
Michael Boyle - West Chester University of Pennsylvania
Jaeho Cho - University of California-Davis
Homero Gil de Zuniga - University of Texas - Austin Heejo Keum - Sungkyunkwan University
Eunkyung Kim - Doctoral Student at University
of Wisconsin-Madison Michael McCluskey - Ohio State University
Seungahn Nah - University of Kentucky-Lexington
Hernando Rojas - University of Wisconsin-Madison
Micheal Schmierbach - Penn State University So-Hyang Yoon - Pusan National University
FACULTY COORDINATORS: Douglas McLeod, Professor of Journalism &
Mass Communication, has developed two lines of inquiry into the antecedents
and consequences of mass communication: 1) social conflicts and the mass media;
and 2) media content, public opinion and knowledge. The first program of research
focuses on the role of the media in both domestic and international conflicts,
including media coverage of social protest and its impact on the audience. McLeod’s
second line of research studies several factors shaping the information content
of mass media and its consequent outcomes on public opinion and knowledge, including
research on framing and priming effects. He is currently working on a book looking
at how news framing of the USA Patriot Act influences audience assessments of
issues related to national security and civil liberties. He has published over
50 articles and book chapters and co-edited a book on key communication concepts.
Hernando Rojas, Assistant Professor of Life
Sciences Communication, studies how mass media and political conversations result
in political attitudes and behaviors, paying particular attention to new technologies
and societies in conflict. Ongoing research projects include: (a) the study
of communicative rationality in the context of societies experiencing crises
of action coordination (The first of a series of international studies collecting
survey data at the national level is underway in Colombia, in the context of
their 2006 general elections); (b) an assessment of emerging online journalism
practices under the rubric of citizen journalism both in the US and abroad.
His teaching revolves around the political and societal consequences of new
communication technologies..
Dhavan V. Shah, Louis A. & Mary E. Maier-Bascom
Professor of Journalism & Mass Communication and Political Science, focuses
on the social psychology of political communication. His research concerns (a)
the influence of news framing on political cognitions, social judgment, and
public opinion, and (b) the capacity of mass media, particularly the Internet,
to encourage civic and political engagement. His current work on framing has
been conducted as part of a series of online survey experiments with students
and faculty in the Mass Communications Research Center. His research on media
and civic life is concentrated on two multi-wave national panel studies built
around the 2000 and 2004 elections that consider the effects of traditional
and digital media use within campaign advertising environments. He has authored
articles in leading communication and political science journals and served
as principal investigator on grants from PBS, CPB, Rockefeller Brothers Fund,
Carnegie, Pew, Ford, Russell Sage, and the Journal Foundations.
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