Dhavan
V. Shah
is Maier-Bascom Professor at the UW-Madison and holds appointments
in the School
of Journalism and Mass Communication and the Department
of Political Science. His research concerns the social
psychology of communication influence, especially effects
on personal evaluations, political judgments, health outcomes,
and civic participation. He has authored over 70 articles
and chapters and is currently working on three book manuscripts
extending these inquiries. This research has been supported
by grants from Carnegie, CIRCLE, CPB, Ford, NCI, PBS, Pew,
Rockefeller Bros., and Russell Sage. For details, see the
Research and CV
sections.
Highlighted
Research:
Modern
political campaigns involve advertising and digital media.
This research explores campaign ad effects within this complex
communication environment. We merge two large data sets,
one tracking national ad content and placement and another
measuriung citizens' conventional and digital media use,
interpersonal talk, and levels of participation. We find
that political ad exposure drives news use, leading to political
discussion, online messaging, and participation. Yet exposure
to attack ads appears to diminish print and broadcast news
use, indirectly suppressing participation. Political ads
and digital media work in tandem.
University
Affiliations:
Political
Communication at the UW: A cross-departmental consortium
of faculty examining the connections between mass media, citizen
communication, and politics. The website lists faculty affiliates,
their interests and departmental affiliations, and courses available
to students.|
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Consumer
Culture and Civic Participation (CCCP): A working group
investigating the fluid and evolving relationship among mass media,
consumption, markets, and civic and political life. Organizer
of "The Politics of Consumption/The Consumption of Politics"
coinference and ANNALS volume.|
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Mass
Communications Research Center - "Media and Politics"
(MCRC-MAP): This research team explores the psychological
underpinnings of political communication influences, especially
message framing and priming effects, using dynamic online survey
experiments. |
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Mass
Communications Research Center - "Social Media and Democracy"
(MCRC-SMAD): This research team explores the social and
psychological influences of social media, especially political
blogs and other user-created content, using surveys and experiments.
|
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Points of Interest:
Arts
& Letters Daily: Philosophy, ideas,
culture, politics, disputes, and gossip.|
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The
Edge: Leading intellectuals answer each other's questions.
|
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Info|
Technorati:
News links that are currently popular among bloggers.|
More Info| Cagle's Index: A wonderful archive
political cartoons. |More Info|
