The Washington, D.C. Student Voices Project
Professor Sean Aday received a grant from the Annenberg Foundation and Pew Charitable Trusts to launch the Washington, D.C. Student Voices Project. The project engages students in local politics by bringing the study of a local political campaign – in this case, the Washington, D.C. mayoral race – to the classroom.

Using the general mayoral election as a guide, the program’s curriculum integrates classroom and community activities to teach youth to identify top community issues and to make their voices heard. In addition to classroom instruction on local political history and leadership, the program includes classroom visits by candidates and online chats.

Part of a nationwide civics education program, Student Voices works with approximately 600 high school students in 21 public and private schools across the District.

The Virtual Trail: Political Journalism on the Internet
The Virtual Trail documents the ways that the Internet has reshaped political journalism -- transforming the reporting of political money, increasing the number and diversity of sources, increasing deadline pressure, causing e-mail overload, and posing some new ethical challenges, among other things.

The report, sponsored by The Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet, also contains tips on using the Internet more effectively, a list of the top ten Web sites that journalists have found the most useful as well as a Q & A section to help in framing questions to political campaigns and others about the online campaign.

Albert L. May, associate professor in the School of Media and Public Affairs (SMPA) at The George Washington University, is the principal author. Other primary contributors are Joseph Graf, visiting assistant professor in SMPA and Jason Thompson, graduate research assistant in SMPA. Jonah Seiger, co-founder and chief strategist of Mindshare Internet Campaigns, LLC, contributed the Q&A section.

Crisis and Confidence: One Year Later

The Crisis and Confidence survey (Crisis and Confidence.doc) reveals that a return to partisan politics may explain the decline in trust in government between September 2001 and August 2002. Professors Kimberly Gross and Sean Aday from GW's School of Media and Public Affairs, along with Professor Paul Brewer of GW's Political Science Department, conducted the study, funded by the National Science Foundation and the Russell Sage Foundation.

Immediately following the terrorist attacks, respondents with strong patriotic sentiments and those who followed the news closely exhibited greater trust in government. One year later, patriotism matters less and partisanship matters more in explaining who trusts the government.