LSU Political Communication Scholar Nichole Bauer Awarded Research Grant, University Distinguished Faculty Award
June 23, 2020
BATON ROUGE— LSU Assistant Professor of Political Communication Nichole Bauer was awarded more than $100,000 in a three-year grant by the Louisiana Board of Regents to support her research examining citizens’ responses to female-dominated political institutions and political leadership. Bauer’s innovative research has also led her to be named one of this year’s 10 LSU Alumni Association Rising Faculty Award recipients for outstanding record of scholarship and published research.
Bauer holds a joint appointment in the Manship School and LSU’s Department of Political Science. The grant will fund her project titled, “Feminizing Political Institutions: Does Increasing the Number of Women in Politics Change How Citizens Stereotype Political Institutions?” Bauer will examine whether masculine stereotypes associated with political institutions change to become more feminine when there are more women elected to political office. She hopes to discover if these political gender shifts can open up more pathways for women and other marginalized groups to enter into politics.
“This is an excellent time to study the effect of women’s political representation because there are more women serving in elected office than at any other time in history, and a record number of women are set to run for office in 2020,” Bauer said. “The funding for this research also supports the creation of a Gender & Political Research Lab to support undergraduate and graduate researchers who will help complete the experiments, public opinion studies and news content analyses that are part of this project.”
In addition to the Louisiana Board of Regents grant, Bauer earned the LSU Alumni Association Rising Faculty Research Award for outstanding record of scholarship and published research as a 2020 LSU University Distinguished Faculty Award recipient. The award recognizes faculty at the rank of assistant professor who have outstanding records of scholarship and published research.
“Dr. Bauer is focused on critical questions about representation and inclusion in public life and the policy process,” Manship School Dean Martin Johnson said. “This recognition and support from LSU and the Louisiana Board of Regents are further testimonies to the importance of her contributions and the promise of her ongoing scholarship.”
Bauer’s research focuses on gender and politics and examines how voters make decisions about women who run for political office, the ways that women develop strategic political messages and gender differences in news coverage of political candidates. Her work has been published in the Journal of Politics, Political Psychology and Political Behavior, among other journals. Bauer is the author of the book “The Qualification Gap: Why Women Must be Better than Men to Win Political Office” and the edited volume “Politicking while Female: The Political Lives of Women,” both set for publication this fall. Follow her on Twitter.
For more information, contact acharbonnet1@lsu.edu or sarahg@lsu.edu.
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LSU’s Manship School of Mass Communication ranks among the strongest collegiate communication programs in the country, with its robust emphasis on media and public affairs. It offers undergraduate degrees in public relations, journalism, political communication, digital advertising and pre-law, along with four graduate degree programs: master of mass communication, Ph.D. in media and public affairs, certificate of strategic communication and dual MMC/law degree.
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