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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. | More Info |

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. | More Info |

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. | More Info |

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. | More Info |


Points of Interest:

Arts & Letters Daily: Philosophy, ideas, culture, politics, disputes, and gossip. | More Info |

The Edge: Leading intellectuals answer each other's questions. | More Info |

Technorati: News links that are currently popular among bloggers. | More Info |

Cagle's Index: A wonderful archive political cartoons.
| More Info |

 


For other links, see the Resources section.

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© 2004. Dhavan Shah & Homero Gil de Zuniga