Affiliated Faculty
The School of Journalism and Mass Communication maintains affiliate relationships with a number of faculty members in other departments. These individuals bring expertise in a range of related disciplines and strengthen and broaden our School’s offerings. Each has been nominated by a faculty member, and each has agreed to serve in a three-year renewable “zero percent” affiliate appointment with the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Barry Burden, Professor, Political Science (2022-2025)
Professor Burden’s research and teaching focus on U.S. elections, public opinion, representation, and the U.S. Congress. His recent research has centered on aspects of election administration and voter participation. He is the author of Personal Roots of Representation and co-author with David Kimball of Why Americans Split Their Tickets. Burden has published articles in journals such as the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, British Journal of Political Science, Public Opinion Quarterly, Legislative Studies Quarterly, and Election Law Journal. Burden earned his Ph.D. at The Ohio State University and was a faculty member at Harvard University before joining UW-Madison in 2006.
Katherine Cramer, Professor, Political Science (2022-2025)
Professor Cramer’s work focuses on the way people in the U.S. make sense of politics and their place in it. She is known for her innovative approach to the study of public opinion, whereby she invites herself into the conversations of groups of people to listen to the ways they understand public affairs. Her most recent book, The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker, examines rural resentment toward cities and its implications for contemporary politics (University of Chicago Press, 2016).
Louise Mares, Professor, Communication Arts (2022-2025)
Professor Mares’s research focuses on children, particularly the possibility that television and other media can be used for positive social change, including reducing prejudice. In her research on adults, she has examined what it is about aging that might cause changes in media use and effects, such as how the emotional experiences we seek out via media use vary across the life span. Her recent work has extended into health communication through her collaborations with CHESS around the use of social technology to support active aging among older adults.
Zhongdang Pan, Professor, Communication Arts (2022-2025)
Professor Pan has conducted research on media and social changes in the People’s Republic of China. His research focuses on mediated communication in politics and public life. He has published research on news framing and its effects, significance of political talk, implications of perceptions of media effects, news production and media effects on values in China, and civic implications of the Internet in China. He is currently conducting research on how individuals may use diverse media sources in politics with distinct civic outcomes and how civic ideals may inspire the journalistic practices that may contribute positively to the emergence of civic culture in China.
Karl Rohe, Associate Professor, Statistics (2022-2025)
Professor Rohe specializes in network analysis and statistical machine learning, including graph sampling, community detection, graph contextualization, and social clustering. He often applies these techniques in collaboration with political communication scholars working in the School of Journalism and Department of Political Science for the detection of online communities and the flow of information diffusion through large networks.
Catalina Toma, Associate Professor, Communication Arts (2022-2025)
Professor Toma’s research examines how people understand and relate to one another when interacting via communication technologies (online dating, social network sites, blogs, etc.). She focuses on the impact of communication technologies on relational processes such as: Impression management and impression formation, Deception and trust, Self-worth, self-esteem and emotional well-being, and Interpersonal attraction and relationship development, She is also interested in how language is produced and interpreted in computer-mediated contexts, especially as it relates to self-presenters’ deceptiveness and perceived trustworthiness.
EMERIT FACULTY
Professor Ray Anderson
Professor Ray Anderson was with SJMC from 1981-1996. He taught graduate seminars in specialized reporting as well as courses in feature writing, public affairs reporting, foreign reporting and editorial and column writing. A long-time reporter for The New York Times, Ray spent many years in Eastern Europe as a correspondent before leaving the newspaper to join the school as a professional in residence. He often returned to the Times over summer breaks to work the copy desk, and in his later years with the school he signed on during the summers with The International Herald Tribune. rhanders@facstaff.wisc.edu
James P. Danky, Faculty Associate, Journalism and Mass Communication
Expert on alternative press in America and now the African Diaspora. Founded and directed the Print Culture Center. Faculty Associate at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison since 1990 where he taught the course “Mass Media and Minorities” for a decade. Today he limits his activities to working with faculty and graduate students when asked.
Professor Robert Drechsel
Professor Robert Drechsel held the James E. Burgess Chair in Journalism Ethics and was director of the School’s Center for Journalism Ethics. He also held an affiliated faculty appointment in the Law School. Drechsel served as director of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication from 1991-98. His research and teaching focused primarily on media law, the relationship between media law and media ethics, and media coverage of the judiciary. He joined the Wisconsin faculty in 1983 after spending four years as an assistant professor at Colorado State University. Most recently, the former has focused on the relationship between law, ethics and professionalism, the latter on local television and newspaper coverage of the justice system. Drechsel is the author of one book, News Making in the Trial Courts, and articles in a variety of legal and communication journals. His work on journalist-source interaction in trial courts has been cited by the United States Supreme Court. drechsel@wisc.edu
Professor Lewis A. Friedland
Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor Lewis A. Friedland joined the University of Wisconsin faculty in 1991. Friedland’s scholarship and teaching focused on civic and citizen journalism, communication and society, communication research methods, international news reporting, and civil society and public life. He is the author of five books, including Public Journalism: Past and Future; Civic Innovation in America: Community Empowerment, Public Policy and the Movement for Civic Renewal, with Carmen Sirianni; Covering the World: International Television News Services, and the forthcoming Battleground: Asymmetric Communication Ecologies and the Erosion of Civil Society in Wisconsin with Mass Communication Research Center colleagues Dhavan Shah, Mike Wagner, Chris Wells, Kathy Cramer, and Jon Pevehouse. During his time in the department, Friedland founded and led the Center for Communication and Democracy and Madison Commons, both of which made huge impacts on students, researchers and the publics they served. After three decades of research, teaching and service in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at UW-Madison, Friedland retired in 2021.
Professor Albert C. Gunther
Professor Al Gunther taught courses in journalism writing, health communication and graduate seminars in theory and research methods. Gunther’s research interests focused on the psychology of the media audience, particularly partisans and special interest groups. Most of this research is set in the context of science or public-health controversies. His work has won over a dozen top-paper awards at major international meetings and in 2006 he received the International Communication Association’s Outstanding Article award for the “best article published in the field of communication during the past two years.” He has received over $1.8 million in research funding from numerous sources including the USDA, NSF, NIH, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. His international work includes research collaborations and/or sabbaticals in Singapore, Malaysia, Nepal, New Zealand, Israel and France. agunther@wisc.edu
Distinguished Teaching Faculty Pat Hastings
Distinguished Teaching Faculty Patricia Hastings joined SJMC in 1998. A graduate of SJMC, she specialized in video and audio journalism and was responsible for overseeing the Badger Report, a live streamed student produced newscast, which has received many awards for student work, Long Form Video Journalism, Reporting Principles and Practices and Storytelling Through Sound. Prior to joining SJMC, Hastings worked in radio and television news in a variety of major markets both in reporting and producing. She owned her own media consulting firm and has produced independent films and streamed video events. She retired from SJMC in 2022. patricia.hastings@wisc.edu
Professor Robert Hawkins
Professor Robert Hawkins joined the school in 1973, and over his 30+ years of service, taught a range of courses, including effects of mass communication, mass media and youth, health communication, mass communication and the individual, communication research design, and cognitive theory of communication. Hawkins’s research addressed use, attention to, and comprehension of mass communication, cognitive processes in mass media use and effects, perceptions of social reality, and styles of media use. At the time of his retirement in 2005, he was the school’s most often-cited scholar. Professor Hawkins continues to participate in research projects at UW–Madison, especially as part of the Center for Health Enhancement Systems Studies. rhawkins@wisc.edu
Professor James Hoyt
Professor James Hoyt joined the SJMC faculty in 1973 and spent the next 29 years teaching courses in broadcast and electronic journalism and journalism ethics, along with the school’s introductory course to mass communication. He served as director of SJMC from 1981 to 1991, and Chairman of the UW Athletic Board and as Wisconsin’s Faculty Representative to the NCAA and the Big Ten Conference from 1991 to 2000. He received his Bachelor’s (1965), Master’s (1967) and Ph.D. (1970) degrees from UW–Madison. In 2002 the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication named him their Outstanding Broadcast Educator, and in 2001 the International Radio-Television Society honored him as its Frank Stanton Fellow. In 2017, he was inducted into the Silver Circle of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for his impact on local news in the Midwest.
jlhoyt@wisc.edu
Professor Jack McLeod
Professor Jack McLeod made his mark on the SJMC with an impressive 38-year span of education, advising and research. He focused on political communication, mass media effects, public opinion, and the role of media in broadening democratic participation. An internationally esteemed scholar, he joined the UW faculty in 1962, shaping the School of Journalism and Mass Communication into a research and doctoral training powerhouse. He served as director of the Mass Communications Research Center (MCRC) at University of Wisconsin-Madison for 34 years and advised more than 70 Ph.D. students.
He received, among many honors, the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication’s Deutschmann Award for a distinguished research career. He retired from SJMC in 2001. jmmcleod@wisc.edu
Professor Jack W. Mitchell
Professor Jack Mitchell joined the faculty of the School in 1998 after a 30-year career in public radio. He has taught a wide range of courses, from basic reporting skills and professional media practices to seminars on the history and analysis of non-profit media which serve the public interest. But his most important teaching contribution to our school was his regular leadership of the 400-student Comm-B course “Introduction to mass communication,” where he not only introduced thousands of students to our major, but also mentored dozens of graduate teaching assistants by providing an exemplary model of classroom organization and instruction. Mitchell’s awards include the Edward Elson National Public Radio Distinguished Service Award, the UW-Extension Award for Excellence, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s Edward R. Murrow Award, public radio’s highest honor. He currently serves on the Advisory Board of the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism. jwmitch1@wisc.edu
Undergraduate Advisor and Lecturer Robert Schwoch
Undergraduate academic advisor and lecturer Robert Schwoch joined the department in 2006 and taught courses in media strategy, sports communication and literary journalism. A graduate of SJMC, he brought more than 30 years of experience in reporting, editing and political/advocacy communication to his dual roles. He has worked for such organizations as The Milwaukee Journal, the Wisconsin State Legislature on both Democratic and Republican legislative staffs, the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin, and has held freelance writing and consulting roles. He retired from SJMC in 2022. schwoch@wisc.edu
Professor Hemant Shah
Helen Firstbrook Franklin Professor of Journalism Hemant Shah joined the faculty in 1990. In both the U.S. and international contexts, Shah’s research investigates the role of mass media in various types of social change, such as national development, construction of cultural identities, creation of racial anxieties, social movements, and other similar processes. Shah is the author of The Production of Modernization: Daniel Lerner, Mass Media and the Passing of Traditional Society (Temple University Press, 2011), co-author of Newspaper Coverage of Interethnic Conflict: Competing Visions of America (Sage Publications, 2004), and co-editor of Reorienting Global Communication: Indian and Chinese Media Beyond Border (University of Illinois Press, 2010). After three decades of research, teaching and service in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at UW-Madison, Shah retired in 2022. hgshah@wisc.edu
Professor Stephen Vaughn
Professor Stephen Vaughn joined the University of Wisconsin faculty in 1981 after having taught three years at Indiana University and a year at the University of Oregon. Vaughn’s scholarship focused on such topics as propaganda, the uses of history, the relationship between the entertainment industries and American politics, censorship, and in recent years, the history and social influence of new media. He is the author of four books: Holding Fast the Inner Lines, The Vital Past, Ronald Reagan in Hollywood and Freedom and Entertainment. At the time Vaughn retired, he was completing The Age of New Media, 1975-1930, about the ways new technologies were received at the time of their invention. Vaughn’s scholarship strongly influenced his teaching. He mentored many graduate students and undergraduates during his 35 years at UW. He directed more than a dozen Ph.D. dissertations and some of his students now teach at such American institutions as UW-Madison, DePaul University, and Colorado State University, as well as schools abroad. He was the winner of two Fulbright Awards, one of which involved teaching in the former Soviet Union. slvaughn@wisc.edu