Margaret M. Howard
Visiting Assistant Professor

Phone: (202) 994-6227
Fax: (202) 994-5806
E-mail: meghow@gwu.edu
Office: MPA 425

Expertise

Journalism, Media, Public Opinion and Statistics

Courses Taught

PCM 149, Public Opinion/Media/Democracy
SMPA 51, Research Methods

Selected Works

?Integrity in Prediction: The Responsibilities of Journalism and the Public ?Calling? Elections.? Public Integrity, Journal of the American Society for Public Administration, Spring 2002.

?A New Generation of Catholics: Catholic Youth In the Context of Other Catholic Generations.? Horizons, Journal of the National Religious Vocation Conference, Winter 2002.

?Getting the Message Out: Regulatory Policy and the Press.? The Harvard International Journal of the Press/Politics, Summer 1998.

Background

Margaret Howard has worked in the media and taught about media and politics for almost 15 years. Her six years as a journalist in local television and radio spurred her interest in media use, political knowledge and public opinion. She has researched how people's attention to news affects their understanding and opinion of politicians and policies. Her most recent research investigates the trend in journalism to predict, not just describe, events and journalists' ethical responsibilities with this trend.

Howard taught as a Lecturer in the Department of Political Science at Eastern Michigan University where she instructed classes on women in politics, American government and political knowledge and mass media. At the University of Michigan, Howard served as a visiting professor, teaching in the Department of Political Science and Communications Studies and instructed classes in radio reporting and editing at the University of Missouri-Columbia, while serving as news director of the university?s FM radio station. Howard also worked as a Research Associate and Research Assistant Professor at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University where she designed and analyzed national public opinion surveys.

In 1996, Howard received a Goldsmith Research Award from the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, for a study of media coverage of rulemaking by regulatory agencies with Professor Cary Conglianese of Harvard University.

Education

Ph.D. Political Science, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, 1998
M.A. Political Science, University of Missouri-Columbia, 1989
B.A. Journalism, University of Missouri-Columbia, 1982