The Board of Directors of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at Cornell University is pleased to announce Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Elizabeth Ware Packard Professor at the Annenberg School for Communication of the University of Pennsylvania and director of the university’s Annenberg Public Policy Center, where she co-founded FactCheck.org, as the recipient of the 2022 Warren J. Mitofsky Award for Excellence in Public Opinion Research. This award recognizes Jamieson’s scholarly contributions to our understanding of public 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.
In recent years, her research has turned the spotlight to the growing risk of misinformation in communication and its impact on society. Starting three decades ago with Dirty Politics, Jamieson began focusing her research on the dangers and effect of deception in American politics. Beyond her research agenda, Jamieson has pioneered the practice of factchecking, as a means of confronting political deception.
She has authored or co-authored 17 books, including Creating Conspiracy Beliefs: How Our Thoughts Are Shaped (2022) and Cyberwar: How Russian Hackers and Trolls Helped Elect a President, which won the Association of American Publishers’ 2019 R.R. Hawkins Award. She co-edited The Oxford Handbook of Political Communication and The Oxford Handbook of the Science of Science Communication. In 2020, the National Academy of Sciences awarded Jamieson its Public Welfare Medal for her “non-partisan crusade to ensure the integrity of facts in public discourse and development of the science of scientific communication to promote public understanding of complex issues.” Jamieson is a member of the American Philosophical Society and the National Academy of Sciences, and a Distinguished Scholar of the National Communication Association. She also is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Political and Social Science, and the International Communication Association, and a past president of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.
In recognition of Kathleen Hall Jamieson’s numerous contributions to understanding American public opinion, this award is given.