Research and scholarly activities

From 2001-2005, UW-Madison was a top producer of communications-oriented research publications – first in number of overall papers and second in citations (according to an In-Cites study). An Academic Analytics study places the J-School fourth nationally in faculty productivity in mass communication/media studies.

J-School research is among the very best. Learn more about our updates, centers and research groups, and awards.

Updates return to top

• "The Politics of Consumption/The Consumption of Politics" podcasts and article PDFs posted online
• J-School faculty Lew Friedland and Sue Robinson and affiliated faculty member Kathy Cramer-Walsh receive Baldwin grants
• Professor Sharon Dunwoody creates stem cell training fellowships for journalists

Centers and Research Groups return to top

The Center for Communication and Democracy
The Center for Communication and Democracy houses a research and action project at UW-Madison. The goals of the center are to study how citizens can use new communications technologies to advance democratic discussion and civic participation; to explore the relationships between geographic communities and the emerging world of cyberspace; to explore the structural relations among communications and information markets, the civic sector, and government to find relationships necessary to build and sustain a public sphere in communication that is not dominated by the market.

Consumer Culture and Civic Participation
The goal of CCCP is to bridge scholarship from communications, economics, history, marketing, political science, psychology and sociology to investigate the fluid and evolving relationships among media, consumption, markets, and public life. We approach this work from a multiplicity of perspectives, focusing on topics such as taste cultures, identity politics, conspicuous consumption, political marketing, globalization and the notion of the citizen consumer. This working group hosted an international conference in Fall 2006 and published a collection of research on the politics of consumption in the May 2007 issue of the ANNALS

The Mass Communication History Center
The Mass Communication History Center, a part of the Wisconsin Historical Society, provides scholars access to private collections, papers, and various types of unpublished materials relating to the growth of mass communication in the United States and other parts of the world. The Wisconsin Historical Society also has a large collection of bound and microfilm files of American and foreign newspapers.

Mass Communication Research Center (MCRC)
The MCRC encompasses faculty/student research groups that rely on (a). A research orientation – an opportunity for extra-curricular engagement with mass communication research topics, theories, and methods; (b). Open participation – a policy where any students and faculty who demonstrate a desire and willingness to be involved in these collaborations may do so; and (c). Student direction – an expectation that students themselves will be instrumental in setting the agenda for, and contributing to the goals of, each group’s activities, thus helping to develop both leadership and pedagogical skills.

MCRC-Media and Politics
The goal of this graduate student and faculty collaborative is to integrate scholarship from communications, political science, psychology and sociology to investigate the effects of mass media on political judgment and reasoning. This working group has a long history in the school, where it has been a center of research activity focusing on media and politics for over 35 years. Most recently, we have focused on message framing and priming effects, using online survey experiments to engage in dynamic testing of potential influences. Over a dozen articles from this research program have appeared in leading journals, almost all led by student authors.

MCRC-Blog Club
Blog Club is a student-faculty research collaborative focused on the study of the political blogosphere, yet broadly concerned with the implications of the Internet for Democracy. In Fall 2006, we collected multi-level survey data from a cross-section of the top political bloggers and thousands of visitors to these blogs. In Spring and Summer 2007, we conducted a series of online survey experiments concerning online incivility and formal features of political blogs to understand how these factors influence perceptions and judgments.

MCRC-Media & Society Research Group
The Media & Society (MSRG) Research Group looks at the interaction of media content, knowledge, affect and attitudes and their impact on public opinion and behavior for a wide range of issues. Our research seeks to identify the social and interpersonal contexts and variables that shape the communication process. MSRG is one of the research groups in the Mass Communication Research Center (MCRC). MCRC has a long history in the school, where it has been a center of research activity for over 35 years.

Awards return to top

• The Rockefeller Brother Fund in support of “Network Nation: How Political Ads and the Internet Sustain and Erode Democracy” – Dhavan V. Shah, Principal Investigator – 6/1/07 – 8/31/08.
• Center for Excellence in Cancer Communication Research in support of “Insightful Expression and Emotional Reasoning: How Communication in CHESS Affects Message Senders” – Dhavan V. Shah--Principal Investigator, w/ Raymond J. Pingree, Bret Shaw, and Jeong Yeob Han as Co-Investigators.
• “Capital, Consumption, Communication, and Citizenship: The Social Positioning of Taste and Civic Culture in the U.S.” Lewis Friedland, Dhavan V. Shah, Nam-Jin Lee, Mark A. Rademacher, Lucy Atkinson, and Thomas Hove, International Communication Association (Mass Communication), San Francisco, May 25-28, 2007. “Top Paper” Designation.
• Former UW grad student Hye-Jin Paek was the 2006 recipient of the ICA/NCA Health Communication Dissertation Award. Her dissertation was entitled, "Perceived Peer Influences in the Effects of Anitsmoking Media Campaigns: An Exploration of Mediating and Moderating Mechanisms."
• A record 25 Wisconsin papers were presented at the 2006 MAPOR conference, including two honorable mentions and the winner of the 2006 MAPOR Fellows Student Paper Competition.
• Professor Dhavan V. Shah was one of four co-winners of the ICA-Political Communication Division's  Best 2005 Article Award: Dhavan V. Shah, Jaeho Cho, William P. Eveland, Jr., and Nojin Kwak,"Information and Expression in a Digital Age: Modeling Internet Effects on Civic Participation," Communication Research 32 (5): 531-565.