As a graduate student in the Ph.D. concentration in political communication, you may take courses from a wide range of faculty across the University of Washington. Most of the courses in the concentration will be taught by one of the faculty members listed below. These faculty also supervise collaborative research teams and chair the doctoral committees of political communication students.
Jerry Baldasty, Professor, Communication (Ph.D., Communications, University of Washington, 1978). Interests include: economic aspects of media; media organizations; media and politics; race, class, and gender.
Lance Bennett, Professor, Political Science and Ruddick C. Lawrence Professor of Communication (Ph.D., Political Science, Yale University, 1974). Interests include: the press and politics; political psychology, public opinion and public discourse; communication theory; comparative media systems; digital media and political information networks; citizenship and information; and the uses of communication technologies in transnational social movements. Director, Center for Communication and Civic Engagement.
Philip Bereano, Professor, Human Centered Design and Engineering (M. Regional Planning, Cornell University, 1971; J.D., Columbia University, 1965). Interests include: technology and social values, ethics, and environment; women, ethnic minorities, and technology; public policies regarding data technologies, genetic engineering, alternative technologies.
Leah Ceccarelli, Associate Professor, Communication (Ph.D., Speech Communication, Northwestern University, 1995). Interests include: the rhetoric of science; rhetorical criticism and theory; American public address.
David Domke, Professor, Communication (Ph.D., Mass Communication, University of Minnesota, 1996). Interests include media framing and priming; personal values, cognition, and public opinion; race relations and social change; social science methods; journalism.
Kathleen Fearn-Banks, Associate Professor, Communication. Interests include public relations, crisis communication management, presidential communication.
Kirsten Foot, Associate Professor, Commmunication. (Ph. D., Communication, U. C. San Diego, 1999) Interests include the reciprocal relationship between information/communication technologies and society. As co-director of the WebArchivist.org research group, she is developing new techniques for studying social and political action on the Web in the context of issue debates and political events such as elections. Associate Director, Center for Communication and Civic Engagement.John Gastil, Professor, Communication (Ph.D., Communication Arts, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1994). Interests include: the role of public deliberation in the democratic process; communication in political campaigns; and the formation and change of political attitudes; group decision making.
Tony Giffard, Professor, Communication (Ph.D., English, University of Washington, 1968). Interests include: international media systems; media and international relations; African and European media; editing and reporting; content analysis.
Philip Howard, Associate Professor, Communication (Ph. D., Sociology, Northwestern University, 2002) Teaches courses on research methods, new media and society, and political communication. He has written a number of articles and book chapters on new media and society, and the use of new media as tools for social scientists. His doctoral research was an ethnography and social network analysis of tech-savvy political consultants active during the 2000 campaign season, and he is continuing to explore the role of new media technologies in the contemporary economic, political and cultural life of the United States.Richard Kielbowicz, Associate Professor, Communication (Ph.D., Mass Communication, University of Minnesota, 1984). Interests include: communication policy; history of political communication; mass media law.
Beth Kolko, Associate Professor, Human Centered Design and Engineering. (Ph. D., English, University of Texas, Austin, 1994). Interests include: Computer-mediated communication and educational/business/social/ gaming virtual environments; cross-cultural patterns of information and communication technology [ICT] adoption and adaptation (specialist on Central Asia); issues of diversity such as race, gender, and disability with respect to ICT use.
Patricia Moy, Associate Professor, Communication (Ph.D., Journalism & Mass Communication, Wisconsin-Madison, 1998). Interests include: media effects on public opinion, political participation, political deliberation, research methodology.
Nancy Rivenburgh, Associate Professor, Communication (Ph.D., Communications, University of Washington, 1991). Interests include: international communications; media and foreign policy; public and cultural diplomacy; intercultural communications and ethnocentrism; development communications; cross-cultural research methods.
Mark Smith, Associate Professor, Political Science (Ph.D., Political Science, University of Minnesota, 1997). Interests include: interest groups, ballot initiatives and referenda, public opinion, rhetoric of conservatism.
Doug Underwood, Professor, Communication (M.A, Journalism, Ohio State, 1974). Interests include: newspaper economics; government and the media; media coverage of business; intellectual history of mass media.