Sharon Dunwoody
Ph.D., Indiana University
Evjue Bascom Professor of Journalism & Mass Communication
Associate Dean for Social Studies, Graduate School

Education:
Indiana University
B.A., Journalism, 1969
Ph.D., Mass Communication, 1978

Temple University
M.A., Journalism, 1975

Courses:
Science and Environmental Journalism

Research areas:
Science communication, risk communication

Recent publications:

Peters, H.P., Brossard, D., de Cheveigne, S., Dunwoody, S., Kallfass, M. & Tsuchida, S. 11 July 2008.  Science 321: 204-205.

Dunwoody, S.  2008. Science journalism. In Bucchi, M. and Trench, B., eds., Handbook of Public Communication of Science and Technology. London: Routledge, 15-26.

Griffin, R.J., Zheng, Y., ter Huurne, E., Boerner, F., Ortiz, S., & Dunwoody, S. 2008. After the flood: Anger, attribution and the seeking of information.  Science Communication 29(3):  285-315.

Scheufele, D.A., Corley, E. A., Dunwoody, S., Shih, T., Hillback. E. & Guston, D. December 2007. Scientists worry about some risks more than the public.  Nature Nanotechnology 2: 732-734.

Dunwoody, S. 2007. Journalistic practice and coverage of the social and behavioral sciences.  In Welch, M.K. & Fasig, L.G., eds. Handbook on Communicating and Disseminating Behavioral Science. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 57-71.

Powell, M., Dunwoody, S., Griffin, R.J., & Neuwirth, K. 2007. Exploring lay uncertainty about an environmental health risk.  Public Understanding of Science 16(3): 323-343.

Dunwoody, S. & Griffin, R.J. 2007. Risk communication, risk beliefs, and democracy. In Brossard, D., Shanahan, J. & Nesbitt, C. eds. The Media, the Public and Agricultural Biotechnology: An International Casebook. Wallingford, UK: CABI Publishing, 264-286.

Dunwoody, S. 2007. The challenge of trying to make a difference using media messages. In Moser, S. & Dilling, L. eds. Creating a Climate for Change. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 89-104.

Kahlor, L., Dunwoody, S., Griffin, R.J. & Neuwirth, K. 2006. Seeking and processing information about impersonal risk. Science Communication 28(2):163-194.

Kahlor, L., Dunwoody,S. & Griffin, R.J. 2004. Predicting knowledge complexity in the wake of an environmental risk. Science Communication 26(1): 5-30.

Biography:

Sharon Dunwoody is Evjue-Bascom Professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as well as Associate Dean for Social Studies in the Graduate School.  Among other affiliations, she is a member of the Governance Faculty of the university’s Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and is a faculty affiliate of the Science and Technology Studies program.

As a scholar, she focuses on the construction of media science messages and on how those messages are employed by individuals for various cognitive and behavioral purposes.  Illustrative of this large domain are her three current research streams:

• How do media messages influence public perceptions of nanotechnology?

• How do individuals use information to inform their judgments about environmental risks?

• What role do perceptions of both journalists and scientists play in the construction of news about science?

In addition to numerous articles and book chapters, she has co-edited two volumes, Communicating Uncertainty (Erlbaum, 1999) and Scientists and Journalists (Free Press, 1986), and authored a third book, Reconstructing Science for Public Consumption ( Deakin University Press, 1993).

Dunwoody has served as a Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer in Brazil, as a visiting journalism fellow at Deakin University in Australia, and most recently as Donnier Guest Professor at Stockholm University.  She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research and, in late 2008, will be designated a Fellow of the Society for Risk Analysis.  She is former head of the section on General Interest in Science and Technology of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and former president of both the Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.  She currently serves on the Committee on the Public Understanding of Science and Technology of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

A former science writer, she earned the BA in journalism at Indiana University in 1969, the MA in mass communication from Temple University in 1975, and the Ph.D. in mass communication from Indiana University in 1978.   Before joining the UW-Madison faculty in 1981, she was on the faculty of the Ohio State University School of Journalism.