Monica Ancu (Ph.D., University of Florida) is an assistant professor and undergraduate program coordinator in the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at the University of South Florida. She studies the role of online technologies, especially online social media, in political campaigns. Within this framework, she investigates how political candidates and voters use social network websites, blogs, podcasts, online advertising, etc. and how these online technologies affect political communication and political behavior. Her research appeared in Journalism Studies, American Behavioral Scientist, Journal of Broadcast and Electronic Media, as well as in several books.
Emily Kay Balanoff (Ph.D., University of Texas, Austin) is an assistant professor of Political Science at Texas State University. Balanoff's primary research interests are in organizational communication, civic engagement, and the non-profit and voluntary sector. She has taught undergraduate courses in public personnel administration and graduate courses in nonprofit and voluntary sector theory and ethics. Her current work in public administration examines how non-profits express and maintain public values. Dr. Balanoff has presented work at various regional and national conferences and is a board member of the Section for Women in Public Administration.
Jody C. Baumgartner (Ph.D., Miami University) is an associate professor of political science at East Carolina University. His research focuses on the vice presidency, political humor, and various aspects of presidential campaigns.
Stephanie Brookes (Ph.D., University of Melbourne) is lecturer in Media and Communications at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Her research interests are election campaign language; constructions of national identity in political discourse; and the intersection of local, national and global identity in news media. She has published peer-reviewed papers on Australian election campaign language, media coverage and national identity, and is the co-author of the chapter on government advertising in Government Communication in Australia. She teaches in Australian media and journalism studies, global media theory and media policy.
Raluca Cozma (Ph.D., Louisiana State University) is an assistant professor at the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication at Iowa State University. Cozma's research interests include political communication, foreign correspondence, and social media, and her work has been published in venues such as the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, the Newspaper Research Journal, Journalism Studies, and The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics.
Daniela V. Dimitrova (Ph.D., University of Florida) is an associate professor in the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication at Iowa State University where she teaches classes in International Communication, Political Communication, Multimedia Production, and Communication Technology and Social Change. Her research interests focus on political communication, new media technologies, and the news framing of political events. Dimitrova's scholarly record includes more than 40 peer-reviewed publications in journals such as Communication Research, The Harvard International Journal of Press/ Politics, International Communication Gazette, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, New Media & Society, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, and American Behavioral Scientist. She is a member of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, the largest U.S. organization for journalism educators, and recently served as Head of its Communication Technology Division.
David A. Dulio (Ph.D., American University) is professor and chair of Political Science at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. Dulio has published eight books including Cases in Congressional Campaigns: Riding the Wave and Vital Signs: Perspectives on the Health of American Campaigning. He teaches courses on campaigns and elections, Congress, and political parties and interest groups.
Juliana Fernandes (Ph.D., University of Florida) is an assistant professor in the Department of Strategic Communication at the University of Miami. Her research interests include affective impact of advertising, social media and international political communication.
Jacob Groshek (Ph.D., Indiana University) was recently appointed at the University of Melbourne. His research interests include the democratic utility of communication technologies and the ways in which the structure, content and uses of online and mobile media may influence political change. Additional research pursuits include applied econometric analyses, data mining, public sentiment, and media ethics. He has over 20 peer-reviewed publications and his recent work is featured in Journal of Communication, New Media & Society, International Communication Gazette, and Journalism, among others. Jacob also sits on the editorial board of Communication Yearbook and is currently the Head of the Communication Technology Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.
Gary Hanson (M.A., Kent State University) is a professor in the School of Journalism & Mass Communication at Kent State University. His research interests include the impact of new media on traditional media practices, new communication technologies, journalism ethics, and issues of journalistic accuracy.
Paul Haridakis (Ph.D., Kent State University) is a professor in the School of Communication Studies at Kent State University. His research interests include media use and effects; social media and other new communication technologies; media law, freedom of speech; mediated sports; and media history.
Joshua Hawthorne (B.A., University of Illinois) is a graduate student in communication at the University of Missouri working on his master's degree. His interests include political uses of social media and the influence of uncivil political messages on political violence.
Spiro Kiousis (Ph.D., University of Texas, Austin) is Executive Associate Dean of the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida and a professor in the Department of Public Relations. Kiousis was Research Foundation Professor from 2009-2011. His current research interests include political public relations, political communication, and new media.
Rita Kirk (Ph.D., University of Missouri) is the Director of the Cary M. Maguire Center for Ethics & Public Responsibility and a professor in the Division of Communication Studies at Southern Methodist University. She is an Altshuler Distinguished Teaching Professor and a Meadows Distinguished Teaching Professor. As an academic, she is recognized for her analysis of political and persuasive campaigns. She is the author of three award-winning books and numerous articles, including Political Empiricism: Communications Strategies in State and Regional Elections; Hate Speech, a book analyzing implications for hate discourse in public communication, with coeditor David Slayden; and Solo Acts: The Death of Discourse in a Wired World. Specializing in communication strategy, she has more than 25 years of experience as a strategist for city council, mayoral, state, U. S. Representative, and gubernatorial races. In addition to her political consulting, she serves as a communications consultant to several national and multinational corporations on public policy matters.
Neta Kligler-Vilenchik (M.A., University of Southern California) is a doctoral candidate at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism. Her work examines changing models of youth citizenship in contexts of new media and popular culture. Her recent research projects have examined the civic practices encouraged through participatory cultures and fan communities.
Mei-Chen Lin (Ph.D., University of Kansas) is an associate professor in the School of Communication Studies at Kent State University. Her research interests include intergroup communication and identity management, communication and aging, intergenerational communication, and new communication technologies.
Jessica Mahone (M.A., East Tennessee State University) is a doctoral candidate in political communication at the University of Florida. Mahone's research interests include media and social movements, credibility and non-institutional political groups, and political advertising.
Roxana Maiorescu (Ph.D., Purdue University) is an assistant professor in the Department of Marketing Communication at Emerson College. Her research interests include the strategic use of social media to enhance corporate identification, global crisis communication, corporate social responsibility, and ethical business practices. Roxana's work has been published by Sage and appeared in peer-reviewed journals including the Business Research Yearbook and the International Journal of Interdisciplinary Research. She has presented her work at national and international conferences such the National Communication Association Convention, the International Academy of Business Disciplines, the International Public Relations Research Conference, and the Academy for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.
Jennifer L. McCullough (Ph.D., The Ohio State University) is an assistant professor in the School of Communication Studies at Kent State University. Her research interests include media use and effects, media and children, parental mediation, consumer communication, and new communication technologies.
Sarah Turner McGowen (M.A., Northeastern State University) is a doctoral candidate in communication at the University of Missouri. Her research interests surround the intersection of gender, media, and politics.
David S. Morris (M.A., University of Virginia) is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Virginia. His research focuses on educational inequality and social stratification, with particular interests in student behavior, school discipline, family life, and political participation.
Jonathan S. Morris (Ph.D., Purdue University) is an associate professor of Political Science at East Carolina University. His research focuses on the media and politics, especially political humor and cable news. He is co-editor of Laughing Matters: Humor and American Politics in the Media Age, and has published in several journals, including Political Research Quarterly, Public Opinion Quarterly, and Political Behavior. His teaching interests are in American Government, political communication, and political analysis.
Eisa Al Nashmi (Ph.D., University of Florida) is an assistant professor in the Department of Mass Communication at Kuwait University. His research interests include online journalism, new media in the Middle East, and political communication.
Cynthia Opheim (Ph.D., University of Texas, Austin) is Associate Provost for Academic Affairs and a professor of Political Science at Texas State University. Her research focus is American politics, with an emphasis on legislative process, political parties, comparative state politics, and the role of the Internet in politics. She has published articles in leading academic journals such as the Legislative Studies Quarterly, Regional and Federal Studies, and Public Administration Review. She has taught both the graduate and undergraduate courses on the U.S. Congress as well as the senior capstone course on American politics. She has directed and is a regular participant in the Texas State in England Study Abroad program where she teaches courses comparing the British parliamentary and American presidential systems. Dr. Opheim served as Chair of the Political Science department from 1996-2003 and Interim Chair of Geography from 2004-2005. She has served as both Vice President and President of the Southwestern Political Science Association.
Diana Owen (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison) is Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of American Studies at Georgetown University. She teaches in the Communication, Culture, and Technology graduate program of which she is a cofounder. She is the author of Media Messages in American Presidential Elections, New Media and American Politics (with Richard Davis), and American Government and Politics in the Information Age (with David Paletz and Timothy Cook). She is the co-editor of The Internet and Politics: Citizens, Voters, and Activists (with Sarah Oates and Rachel Gibson) and Making a Difference: The Internet and Elections in Comparative Perspective (with Richard Davis, Stephen Ward, and David Taras, Lexington). She is the author of numerous journal articles and book chapters in the fields of media and politics, political socialization and civic education, elections and voting behavior, and political psychology/sociology. She is the research editor of Electronic Media and Politics.
David Lynn Painter (Ph.D., University of Florida) is a Course Director in the new media journalism and public relations Master of Arts programs at Full Sail University. His research interests include online political communication and political advertising.
LaChrystal D. Ricke (Ph.D., University of Kansas) is an assistant professor of Mass Communication at Sam Houston State University in Texas. Her primary area of research is the intersection of Web 2.0 technologies, specifically YouTube, and political communication and civic engagement. Her research has appeared in the Journal of Information Technology and Politics, the Encyclopedia of Social Media and Politics, and in the book Politics and Popular Culture. Her primary teaching interests are mass media theory and criticism.
Jesper Strömbäck (Ph.D., Stockholm University) is a Lubbe Nordström professor and Chair in Journalism as well as professor in Media and Communications at Mid Sweden University. He has published more than 100 journal articles, book chapters and books on political communication, political news journalism and strategic political communication.
Emma Svensson (M.A., Lund University) is a doctoral candidate in political communication at Mid Sweden University. Her research interests concern strategic political communication in general and political public relations in particular.
Kjerstin Thorson (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison) is an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Southern California. Her research explores the effects of digital and social media on political engagement, activism and persuasion, especially among youth. Recent research projects have investigated uses of Facebook around the 2012 election, video activism in the Occupy Movement, and the contributions of media use in shifting conceptions of politics among young adults.
Terri L. Towner (Ph.D., Purdue University) is an assistant professor of Political Science at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. Towner's research focuses on the influence of new media on political attitudes, the role of race and ethnicity in politics, attitudes toward the Iraq War, and the pedagogical value of social networks. Her work has been published in journals such as The Journal of Political Marketing, New Media & Society, and The Howard Journal of Communications and as book chapters. She teaches courses on public opinion, political behavior, politics and the Internet, and quantitative methodology.
Emily K. Vraga (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison) is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at George Mason University. Her research examines how individual predispositions like partisan identity influence the processing of media content, particularly in the evolving digital environment. Recent projects have explored the use of social media in promoting political and social engagement, the role of dissonance in explaining response to incongruent information, and the impact of tone in
judging content credibility.
Benjamin R. Warner (Ph.D., University of Kansas) is an assistant professor of communication at the University of Missouri. His research interests include political extremism, incivility, and political uses of digital media.
Andrew Paul Williams (Ph.D., University of Florida) is a writer, researcher, communication consultant, and social media strategist who approaches his work from international and interdisciplinary perspectives. He is President/Founder of Williams Media Management, LLC. He researches the use of new media and evolving technologies - primarily in the context of political communication - and analyzes the ways mass media, organizations, and audiences frame issues, objects, and events. His work has been published in journals such as Journal of Political Marketing, Journal of International Business Disciplines, American Behavioral Scientist, Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, Journalism Studies, and Mass Communication and Society. He is the co-editor of the book, The Internet Election: Perspectives of the Web in Campaign 2004. Williams has presented many speeches and findings from his research at leading international communication and political science conferences. He has received top-paper awards at the annual conferences of the Broadcast Education Association and the International Communication Association. He taught communications classes at Virginia Tech, University of Florida, and Flagler College. Williams has been recognized for his outstanding teaching by the International Communication Association. As a journalist, his work has also been published as feature articles in magazines and newspapers such as Where, Jacksonville Magazine, Financial News & Daily Record, and The Clay County Leader.
Hyun Jung Yun (Ph.D., University of Florida in mass communication; Ph.D., University of Florida in political science) is an associate professor of Political Science at Texas State University. Her research is dedicated to interdisciplinary approaches across Political Communication, Public Opinion, Geopolitics, and Applied Methodology. Her research has been published in several leading journals, such as American Behavioral Scientist and Journalism Studies. Additionally, she has authored several book chapters that examined the media coverage of policy issues and political candidates across different political regions to observe the relationship between voters' embedded political characteristics and political information effects. She has served as the Data Analyst and Research Manager of several grant-supported and inter-university collaborated projects since 2004. She teaches Senior and Graduate level courses with her concentration focusing on Political Communication and Applied Quantitative Methodology.
