Sean Aday
Associate Professor of Media and Public Affairs

Phone – (202) 994-4220
Fax – (202) 994-5806
E-mail – seanaday@gwu.edu
Office – 508

Expertise

Political Communication; media coverage of war, politics, and foreign policy; media effects and public opinion, including political and international trust

Education

Ph.D., The Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, 1999
M.A., The Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, 1995
B.S.J., The Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University, 1990

Courses Taught

SMPA 100, Journalism: Theory and Practice
SMPA 190, Campaigns and Elections
SMPA 194, Media and War
SMPA 51, Research Methods
SMPA 202, Media Theory and Effects

Background

Read Full CV.

Sean Aday joined The George Washington University's School of Media and Public Affairs in 2000, after completing his Ph.D. and a post-doctoral fellowship at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. His work focuses on the intersection of the press, politics, and public opinion, especially in relation to war and foreign policy. He has published widely on subjects ranging from the effects of watching local television news to coverage of American politics to media coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has been involved in media and government capacity training projects globally, including in Iraq and Afghanistan. He currently serves as the director of GW's Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication and directs the Global Communication Master's Program. As part of a National Science Foundation grant, he, along with two colleagues, conducted a series of surveys about Americans' attitudes about government and media following the September 11th terrorist attacks. Aday was also the principle investigator for DC Student Voices, a curriculum-based project in Washington DC high schools that aimed to get students more involved in politics. He has been a frequent commentator in the press on news coverage of elections, crime, and war.

Before entering academia, Aday served as a general assignment reporter for the Kansas City Star, Kansas City, MO, the Milwaukee Journal in Milwaukee, WI, and the Greenville News, Greenville, SC. He graduated from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 1990.

Selected Works

Taking the State Out of State-Media Relations Theory: How Transnational Advocacy Networks are Rewriting (Some) of the Rules about What We Think We Know about News and Politics. Sean Aday and Steven Livingston (in press). Media, War, and Conflict.

Selective Attention to Online Political Information. Joe Graf and Sean Aday (in press). Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media.

The Framesetting Effects of News: An Experimental Test of Advocacy versus Objectivist Frames. Sean Aday (2007). Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 83(4), 767-784.

The Real War Will Never Get Televised: An Analysis of Casualty Imagery in American Television Coverage of the Iraq War. (2005) Media and Conflict in the 21st Century, Phil Seib (ed), Palgrave.

As Goes the Statue, So Goes the War: The Evolution and Effects of the Victory Frame in Television Coverage of the Iraq War. With John Cluverius and Steven Livingston.

A Panel Study on Media Effects on Political and Social Trust After September 11th, 2001. (Forthcoming) Harvard Press/Politics. With Paul Brewer and Kimberly Gross.

International Trust and Public Opinion About World Affairs, American Journal of Political Science (48)1, January 2004, pp. 93-110. With Paul Brewer and Kimberly Gross, Lars Willnat.

The Scary World in Your Living Room and on Your Neighborhood: Using Local Broadcast News, Neighborhood Crime Rates, and Personal Experience to Test Agenda Setting and Cultivation Hypotheses, Journal of Communication, 2003. With Kimberly Gross.

Style Over Substance: Newspaper Coverage of Elizabeth Dole's Presidential Bid. Harvard Journal of Press and Politics, Vol. 6 (2), 2001. With James Devitt.

How Does Reporting of Poll Results Affect Campaign Coverage? in Jamieson, K.H. Everything You Think You Know About Politics and Why You're Wrong. Basic Books, 2000. With Kathleen Hall Jamieson.

Issue Advocacy Advertising During the Early 1999-2000 Election Cycle. Annenberg Public Policy Center, University of Pennsylvania, 2000.

Framing Politics: The Role of the Press in Covering Elections, Policy Making and Political Crises. Oxford Companion to Politics of the World, 2nd Edition, Oxford University Press, New York, 2001. With Kathleen Hall Jamieson.