Steven Livingston
Interim Director, School of Media and Public Affairs
Program Director, Political Communication
Associate Professor of Media and Public Affairs
Associate Professor of International Affairs

Phone: (202) 994-5888
Fax: (202) 994-5806
E-mail: sliv@gwu.edu
Office: MPA 411

Expertise

Media and political processes, advanced media and information technology's role in foreign and military policy making and operations, media and terrorism.

Courses Taught

PCM 100, Introduction to Political Communication
PCM 140, Media and Foreign Policy
SMPA 50, Introduction to Media and Public Affairs
SMPA 51, Research Methods
SMPA 199, Senior Seminar

Selected Works

Clarifying the CNN Effect: An Examination of Media Effects According to Type of Military Intervention, a monograph published by Harvard University, 1996.

The Terrorism Spectacle, Westview Press, 1994.

"The New Information Environment and Diplomacy," in Cyber-diplomacy in the 21st Century, Evan Potter (ed.).

"Remote Sensing Technology and the News Media," in Commercial Observation Satellites: At the Leading Edge of Global Transparency, John Baker, Kevin O'Connell, and Ray Williamson (eds.).

"Transparency and the News Media," in Power and Conflict in the Age of Transparency, Bernard Finel and Kristin Lord (eds.).

Steven Livingston and Lucas Robinson, “Mapping Fears: The Use of Commercial High-Resolution,” AstroPolitics, forthcoming.

Steven Livingston and Douglas Van Belle, “The Effects of New Satellite Newsgathering Technology on Newsgathering from Remote Locations,” Political Communication, forthcoming.

Steven Livingston and W. Lance Bennett, “Gatekeeping, Indexing and Live-Event News: Is Technology Altering the Construction of News?,” Political Communication, forthcoming.

Background

Steven Livingston is a professor of Political Communication in the SMPA and holds a joint appointment in the Elliott School of International Affairs. He is also a research professor in the Political Science Department, and is a Faculty Associate in GWU's Space Policy Institute. Livingston's research and teaching focus on media, advanced information technology, and international affairs. He is also chairman of the board of the Public Diplomacy Institute, an organization within SMPA he co-founded. He has lectured at the Naval War College, The Army War College, the National Defense University, and has spoken at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the US Institute of Peace, and the Rand Corporation, among other institutions.

Following service in the United States Army and the completion of his Ph.D. at the University of Washington, Livingston joined the faculty of The George Washington University in 1991. In the 1992-93 academic year, he was a Social Science Research Council Senior Research Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies (funded by the Ford Foundation). In 1995, Livingston received funding from the Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation to investigate the role of the military and the media in humanitarian crises. In 1996, he was a Research Fellow at the Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He also received a Goldsmith Award while at Harvard. He has participated regularly in the Cantigny Foundation's "Media and Military" conferences that bring together flag rank military leaders with representatives of the national press corps. He has been an observer of training exercises at sea by the U.S. Navy and by the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory at Twenty-nine Palms, California.

He has appeared on CNN, CNNI, ABC's "20/20," and many other news organizations commenting on public policy and politics. His research and consulting activities have led to extended stays in Northern Ireland, Russia, eastern Europe, the Middle East, and East Africa.

Education

Ph.D., Political Science, University of Washington, 1990

M.A., Political Science, University of Washington, 1984

B.A., Political Science, University of S. Florida, 1981