Erika Franklin Fowler

A month after one of the most momentous national elections in recent memory, the Wesleyan Media Project hosted their 2024 Post-Election Conference at the Frank Center for Public Affairs on Dec. 6. The all-day event featured four panels, moderated by Government department faculty members: Associate Professor of Government Logan Dancey, Associate Professor of Government Alyx Mark, Professor of Government Erika Franklin Fowler, and Assistant Professor of Government Justin Peck. More than a dozen scholars from institutions across the country presented their research to the audience of faculty and students. The topics of panel presentations ranged from political advertising in 2024…

By: Phuc Ngo ’27 I Updated on Nov. 20, 2024 President Michael S. Roth ’78 spoke with the New York Times for a piece on potential consequences for higher education under Donald Trump’s leadership. “President-elect Trump has threatened the largest deportation in American history, and we have students and faculty and staff who will be threatened by that,” Roth said in an interview. “I want them to know that the university will do what it can to support them.” The.Ink conducted an interview with Roth on the same subject. Roth spoke on practical idealism, the university’s response to the protests against…

Senior Julia Armeli '25 is one of a dozen undergraduate students using innovative technologies to make sense of the deluge of political ads targeting citizens at Delta Lab, the computational arm of the Wesleyan Media Project (WMP). This election season, Armeli, her student colleagues at Delta Lab — and another group of students at WMP known as human coders — will continue to apply their research and analytical skills to shed light on an increasingly diverse and polarized media messaging landscape. Delta Lab is a student-centered lab that draws on the skills and passion of students to analyze political ads…

The Wall Street Journal published a piece on the pressure faced by college administrators for the upcoming academic year after widespread student protests last year. President Michael S. Roth ’78 said the situation poses an opportunity for students to be actively engaged in politics. Wesleyan offers students political engagement grants through the Jewett Center for Community Partnerships to make it easier for them to be involved in political campaigns and other civic engagement opportunities. “The real issue is, how are we going to govern ourselves in the next four years? And students can play a big role in that,” Roth…

A team of Wesleyan researchers recently released the results of its first public poll, which focuses on Connecticut political and social issues. The team was comprised of Logan Dancey, Associate Professor of Government; Erika Franklin Fowler, Professor of Government; Alisha Butler, Provost’s Equity Fellow in the College of Education Studies; and Natália de Paula Moreira, Postdoctoral Fellow with the Wesleyan Media Project/Quantitative Analysis Center. The poll found that a majority of registered Connecticut voters approve of the job Ned Lamont is doing as governor and support tax relief proposals being considered in the Connecticut General Assembly. Among other issues, most…

Outside group advertising on television in federal races is breaking records, according to a new analysis released by the Wesleyan Media Project on October 20. Since the 2010 election cycle, the Wesleyan Media Project has provided real-time information on the extent of corporate and union spending in federal election campaigns across the country, who specifically is doing that spending, and which candidates are benefiting. The project releases a detailed report addressing the current political advertising landscape every two weeks during election season. In just the last two weeks alone, the Republican super PAC, Congressional Leadership Fund, has targeted ads in 42 different…

Wesleyan's Board of Trustees recently announced the promotions of nine faculty members, effective July 1, 2020. Five faculty were conferred tenure with promotion. They join six other faculty members who were awarded tenure earlier this spring. Joslyn Barnhart Trager, associate professor of government Anthony Keats, associate professor of economics Andrew Quintman, associate professor of religion Michael Slowik '03, associate professor of film studies Takeshi Watanabe, associate professor of East Asian studies In addition, four faculty members are being promoted. They join one other faculty member who was promoted earlier this spring. Erika Franklin Fowler, professor of government Barbara Juhasz, professor…

Wesleyan in the News 1. Washington Post: "Biden Makes End Run Around Trump as the President Dominates the National Stage" Erika Franklin Fowler, associate professor of government and co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project, comments on Biden's unusual strategy during an unprecedented time for the 2020 presidential campaign. “There is not a ready off-the-shelf playbook for how you campaign in this environment if you are a nonincumbent, so that’s part of what you’re seeing,” she said. “We’re all being thrown into this new environment, where campaigns are going to need to reinvent, to some extent, how they go about things,…

Wesleyan in the News 1. CNN: "How Coronavirus Has Reshaped Democratic Plans for 2020" This article on how Democrats are politicizing the government's response to the coronavirus crisis features research by the Wesleyan Media Project, which found that this past month has seen a huge drop in campaign advertising overall. "The messaging and the attacks that we've seen on [coronavirus] do feel louder ... in part because there are fewer messages overall," said Erika Franklin Fowler, associate professor of government, co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project. She notes that health care was emerging as a top issue in 2020 advertising…

Associate Professor of Government Erika Franklin Fowler is an expert on political communication. When she’s not analyzing campaign advertising with the Wesleyan Media Project, she investigates how media, including ads and news, influence opinions and attitudes in a variety of health-related policy areas. Her past studies, many of which are co-authored with Sarah Gollust ’01, have examined media around the Affordable Care Act, mammography screening and the HPV vaccine. “I’m drawn to research on messaging at the intersection of health and politics because it has such important—sometimes life-saving—consequences for citizens, and there are practical actions we can all take to…

Wesleyan in the News 1. USA Today: “America Has a History of Lynching, but it’s Not a Federal Crime. The House Just Voted to Change That” Benjamin Waite Professor of the English Language Ashraf Rushdy is interviewed on the topic of legislation that would make lynching a federal crime. In the interview he called lynching “the original hate crime.” “Lynching is a blot on the history of America,” he said. “But it’s never too late to do the right thing." 2. The New York Times: “Starbucks Baristas Accuse Service Company of Abuse and Pay Gaps” Associate Professor of Sociology Jonathan…

Wesleyan in the News 1. The Open Mind: "Democratizing the Jury" Associate Professor of Government Sonali Chakravarti is interviewed in connection with her new book, Radical Enfranchisement in the Jury Room and Public Life, in which she offers a "full-throated defense of juries as a democratic institution." "I am very interested in how ordinary people engage with political institutions, and juries are the place where ordinary people have the most power," she says. Chakravarti calls for more robust civic education, continuing into adulthood, in order to have a "more effective, modern jury system." 2. Hartford Courant: "Sen. Murphy, Aiming to…

Post-Election Conference Probed Impact of Political Ads, Messaging

Wesleyan in the News: November 2024

Student-Led Lab Shines Light on Political Advertising

Wesleyan in the News: August 2024

Researchers Release New Poll on Connecticut Politics

Wesleyan Media Project Political Advertising Update: October 20

5 Faculty Conferred Tenure, 4 Promoted

Wesleyan in the News

Wesleyan in the News

Fowler: Effective Communication Around Health Crises Has “Life-Saving Consequences”

Wesleyan in the News

Wesleyan in the News