The Roper Center for Public Opinion at Cornell University has announced that Kathleen Hall Jamieson is the recipient of its 2022 Warren J. Mitofsky Award for Excellence in Public Opinion Research. Dr. Jamieson is the Elizabeth Ware Packer Professor of Communication and director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
In announcing the award, the center cited Professor Jamieson’s “scholarly contributions to our understanding of political opinion, in particular its interrelation with media, in a range of contexts from electoral choice to public health and, presciently, the public’s understanding of science and its importance.”
The center also pointed to Dr. Jamieson’s long-standing research interest in the risk of misinformation in the media and its effects on American society. Her 1992 book Dirty Politics: Deception, Distraction and Democracy (Oxford University Press, 1992) explored deceptive practices in political ads and speeches, and the way that inflammatory rhetoric succeeded in capturing media attention. As a means to confront this deception, she co-founded the nonpartisan group FactCheck.org in 2003.
Among Professor Jamieson’s latest books are Creating Conspiracy Beliefs: How Our Thoughts Are Shaped (Cambridge University Press, 2021) and Cyberwar: How Russian Hackers and Trolls Helped Elect a President (Oxford University Press, 2018). She is a member of the American Philosophical Society, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is a past president of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.
Professor Jamieson is a graduate of Marquette University in Milwaukee, where she majored in rhetoric. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in communication from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.