Kathleen Searles

Kathleen Searles

Associate Professor in Mass Communication; Associate Professor in Political Science 
Patrick J. Sorrells Professor; Darlene and Thomas O. Ryder Professor

Biography

Associate Professor of Political Communication Kathleen Searles (Ph.D. Washington State University) holds a joint appointment in the Manship School of Mass Communication and the Department of Political Science at Louisiana State University. Her interests include news media, campaign advertising and political psychology. Specifically, her research examines the content of partisan news, poll coverage and the influence of emotional appeals in campaign ads. Most recently, her work focuses on using bio-metrics to better understand the effects of political television ads and direct mail. She has published in Public Opinion Quarterly, Political Research Quarterly, Political Communication, The Journal of Experimental Political Science and Political Psychology. She also serves on the editorial board for #WomenAlsoKnowStuff, a site designed to amplify the voice of women political scientists in public discourse and decrease the gender imbalance in media representation of experts. 

Videos

Selected Publications

Strach, Patricia, Katherine Zuber, Erika Franklin Fowler, Travis Ridout and Kathleen Searles. Forthcoming. “In a Different Voice? Explaining the Use of Men and Women as Voiceover Announcers in Political Advertising.” Political Communication.

Smith, Glen and Kathleen Searles. 2014. “Who Let the (Attack) Dogs Out? New Evidence for Partisan Media Effects.” Public Opinion Quarterly.

Smith, Glen and Kathleen Searles. 2013. “Fox News Nation: Identifying Media Effects During the 2008 Presidential Election.” Political Research Quarterly.

Fowler, Erika Franklin, Travis N. Ridout and Kathleen Searles. 2011. “Testing the Reliability of Electronic Newspaper Databases.” International Journal of Social Research Methodology. 15 (6): 451.

Ridout, Travis and Kathleen Searles. 2011. “It’s my Campaign I’ll Cry if I want to: How and When Campaigns use Emotional Appeals.” Political Psychology. 32(3): 439.

Searles, Kathleen. 2010. “Feeling Good and Doing Good for the Environment: The Use of Emotional Appeals in Pro-environmental Public Service Announcements.” Applied Environmental Education and Communication. 9 (3): 173.