Steven Livingston

Steven Livingston

Steven Livingston

Founding Director of the Institute for Data, Democracy, and Politics (IDDP) and Professor of Media and Public Affairs


Contact:

Office Phone: (202) 994-5888
805 21st Street, NW, Office #433 Washington DC 20052

Steven Livingston is the Founding Director of the Institute for Data, Democracy, and Politics (IDDP) and Professor of Media and Public Affairs. He also holds an appointment in the Elliott School of International Affairs and is a non-resident senior fellow in the Illiberal Studies Program in the Elliott School.  In 2019, he led GW’s successful bid for a $5 million grant to found IDDP.  In 2021, Livingston was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Helsinki in Finland where he holds a new special award of the Finish Fulbright Foundation called Seeking Solutions for Global Challenges.  Beginning in January 2023, Livingston will be a senior fellow at the Contestations of the Liberal Script (SCRIPTS) research consortium in Berlin, Germany. SCRIPTS analyses why the liberal model of order has fallen into crisis despite its political, economic, and social achievements. This prestigious appointment will allow him to continue the work he undertook as a Fulbright Scholar in Helsinki. It also aligns with his work with the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) in New York. His SSRC work has included co-leading a research group on the effects of neoliberalism on democracy in the United States. That resulted in the publication of The Disinformation Age, co-edited with Lance Bennett. His current SSCR project involves co-leading with Michael Miller of the SSRC a research group investigating the role of social media in the destabilization of center-right political parties around the world.

Over his 32-year career at GW, Livingston has served as the director of the PoliticalCommunication Program when it was a degree-granting entity within SMPA (1996 – 2002, 2004 – 2006). In 2004, he served as director of the School of Media and Public Affairs, a position held until August 2006. He also founded the Public Diplomacy Institute (PDI) at GW in 2000 and served as the chairman of the Board of Directors until 2008. PDI is now the Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication.

Livingston's research and teaching focus on media/information technology and political theory. He is particularly interested in the role of information technologies and media on democracy.  In recent years, he has been a visiting senior research fellow at the Free University of Berlin; Canterbury Fellow at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand; a Visiting Scholar at the Brookings Institution in governance; a visiting professor at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland; and a visiting professor at the University of Cambridge in Britain. In the fall of 2016, Livingston was appointed a Senior Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University where he served through summer 2019.

Among his publications are The Disinformation Age, with Lance Bennett as co-editor; When the Press Fails: Political Power and the News Media from Iraq to Katrina, with W. Lance Bennett and Regina Lawrence and published by University of Chicago Press, 2007; Bits and Atoms: Information and Communication Technology in Areas of Limited Statehood, with Gregor Walter-Drop; and Africa's Evolving Infosystems: A Pathway to Security and Stability.  He has also published many articles and book chapters. In 2016, When the Press Fails won the American Political Science Association’s Doris Graber Outstanding Book of the decade award.

From 1992-93, Livingston was a SSRC Senior Research Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies. In 1995, he 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. Livingston also received a Goldsmith Award while at Harvard. In April 2004, he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship, declined to assume SMPA directorship. In 2021 he was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to the University of Helsinki.

Livingston has lectured at the National Defense University, the Army War College, the Strategic Studies Group at the Naval War College, the Brookings Institution, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the U.S. Institute for Peace, European Institute of Diplomacy, Vienna, the Foreign Service Institute, the U.S. Department of State, and at universities and think tanks in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. He has appeared on CNN, CNNI, ABC, CBC, BBC, Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera International and many other news organizations commenting on public policy and politics. He has also been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Economist and many other newspapers around the world. He has written for Newsday, USA Today (as a correspondent in Bosnia during the Balkan Wars), and La Stampa in Rome. His research and consulting activities have led to extended stays in Northern Ireland, Russia, Eastern and Central Europe, the Middle East, South Asia and East and Central Africa. At the invitation of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, he was twice in Iraq in 2008 and once again in 2009. At the invitation of the Canadian government and NATO, he was in Afghanistan in 2009 and 2010. He has advised a wide range of governments, the UN and NGOs on matters relating to international affairs, media, technology, and governance.

 


Media and information technology's role in foreign affairs policy making, including economic development, governance, and human rights advocacy and security.

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

Books

 

  • The Disinformation Age: Politics, Technology, and Disruptive Communication in the United States, edited volume with W. Lance Bennett, (New York: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming august 2020).
  • Bits and Atoms: Information and Communication Technology in Areas of Limited Statehood, edited volume with Gregor Walter-Drop, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014).
  • Africa’s Evolving Infosystems: A Pathway to Security and Stability, (Washington, DC: NDU Press, 2011).
  • Africas Information Revolution: Implications for Crime, Policing, and Citizen Security, (Washington, DC: NDU Press, 2013).
  • When the Press Fails: Political Power and News Media from Iraq to Katrina, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007). With W. Lance Bennett and Regina G. Lawrence.
  • “Beyond the CNN Effect: An Examination of Media Effects According to Type of Intervention,” (Cambridge, MA: The Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy, 1996).
  • “Humanitarian Crises: Meeting the Challenges,” (Chicago: The Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation, 1995).
  • The Terrorism Spectacle: The Politics of Terrorism and the News Media, (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994).

Selected Journal Articles

"Africa's Evolving Infosystems: A Pathway to Security and Stability." (2011). National Defense University Press.

"As Goes the Statue, So Goes the War: The Emergence of the Victory Frame in Television Coverage of the Iraq War." Sean Aday, John Cluverius, and Steven Livingston. (2005). Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media

"Embedding the Truth: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Objectivity and Television Coverage of the Iraq War." Sean Aday, Steven Livingston, and Maeve Herbert. (2005). Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 10(1) pp. 3-21. 

"The Effects of New Satellite Newsgathering Technology on Newsgathering from Remote Locations" Steven Livingston and Douglas Van Belle. (2005). Political Communication, Vol 22, No 1 pp. 45 - 62. 

"Diplomacy in the New Information Environment." (2003). Georgetown Journal of International Affairs. Vol. 4, No. 2 pp. 111-117.

"Commercial Observation Satellites: At the Leading edge of Global Transparency." John Baker, Kevin O'Connell, and Ray Williamson (eds.). (2001). RAND Corporation.

"Humanitarian Crises and U.S. Foreign Policy: Somalia and the CNN Effect Reconsidered." Steven Livingston and Todd Eachus. (1995). Political Communication, Vol. 12, No. 4.   

"A Semi-Independent Press: Government Control and Journalistic Autonomy in the Political Construction of News." Steven Livingston and W. Lance Bennett. (2010). Political Communication, Vol. 20, No. 4.

"Mapping Fears: The Use of Commercial High-Resolution Satellite Imagery in International Affairs." Steven Livingston and Lucas Robinson. (2003). AstroPolitics, Vol. 1, No. 2.

"Gatekeeping, Indexing and Live-Event News: Is Technology Altering the Construction of News." Steven Livingston and W. Lance Bennett. (2003). Political Communication, 20:363-380.

 "The Institutional Crisis at the Root of Our Political Disinformation Division,” Items, Social Science Research Council’s Items, October 20, 2020. 

W. Lance Bennett and Steven Livingston, “The disinformation order: Disruptive Communication and the Decline of Democratic Institutions,” The European Journal of Communication. April 2, 2018.

 

Additional Publications

Video selection: Speech delivered on the topic of Africa's Information Revolution at National Defense University, May 3, 2011.

"Diplomacy and Remote Sensing Technology: Changing the Nature of Debate." (2001). iMP Magazine.

"Clarifying the CNN Effect: An Examination of Media Effects According to Type of Military Intervention." (1997). Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government.

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