Past Fellows and Visiting Faculty
Spring 2005 Fellows
Doug Ahlers is the co-founder of Modem Media, an interactive advertising and marketing agency. He has been involved in the development and deployment of online services from the first experiments with interactive technology through the explosion of the Internet as a mass medium. Mr. Ahlers helped build the first online shopping site and the first online travel site. He also built the first commercial website on the Internet and created the first banner ad to appear on the Internet. Through his work at Modem Media, Ahlers created comprehensive Internet strategies for Fortune 500 companies. Modem Media subsidiary Poppe Tyson created the first website for the White House and also created the spin-off company DoubleClick, Inc. After the sale of Modem Media, Mr. Ahlers started two venture capital firms in the technology arena. He received his master’s degree in journalism at Louisiana State University in 1983. He is currently working on a book that examines the societal and political impact of new technologies. Paper PDF
Julia Baird is the opinion editor at the Sydney Morning Herald. She writes a weekly column on a range of topics including politics, religion, celebrity, pop culture, and feminism. She earned her Ph.D. in history from the University of Sydney in 2001. The subject of her research was Housewife Superstars: Female politicians and the Australian Print Media 1970-1990. Her book on this subject was published in 2004. She has also worked in radio and has produced documentaries on subjects as diverse as Satanism, heavy metal, and being brought up by nuns in the 1950s. Her research at the Shorenstein Center will focus on the globalization of American opinion in the lead up to the Iraq war, particularly in the major cities of allies such as Britain and Australia. Paper PDF
Hans Mathias Kepplinger is professor in communications at the University of Mainz. He earned his Ph. D. in political science in 1970. His most recent book, Abschied vom rationalen Wähler (Farewell to the Rational Voter), looks at the effects of TV on the images of politicians and their impact upon voting behavior. In Mechanismen der Skandalierung (Mechanisms Steering Scandals), he analyzes 14 typical elements of scandals. It is based on quantitative and qualitative studies dealing with the role of the media in political and environmental scandals. He is author or co-author of 26 books and of articles which have appeared in Public Opinion Quarterly, Communication Research, Journal of Communication, Political Communication, Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media. He is also the author of numerous articles published in major German newspapers and news magazines. Professor Kepplinger’s research will focus on the reciprocal effect of mass media on politicians.
David Rohde is a foreign correspondent for the New York Times. For the last two and a half years, he has covered Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh as the newspaper’s South Asia Bureau co-chief. He has also reported on war in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, fraud in the 2000 Florida presidential election, and New York City’s criminal court system. In 2000, Rohde received an Open Society Institute individual project fellowship to write a series of articles examining ethnic and religious conflict. In 1994 and 1995, he covered the war in Bosnia for the Christian Science Monitor and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his stories on the massacre of 7,000 Bosnian Muslims in the town of Srebrenica. Rohde is the author of the book Endgame: The Betrayal and Fall of Srebrenica. He is a graduate of Brown University. While at the Shorenstein Center, Rohde will examine American efforts to introduce free media in Muslim countries as a way to counter the spread of Islamic fundamentalism. Paper PDF
Richard Schultz is James McGill Professor of Political Science and former director of the Center for the Study of Regulated Industries at McGill University. He was educated at York University, Toronto (B.A. and Ph.D.) and the University of Manchester, England (M.A.). He is the author or co-editor of eight books, the most recent Changing the Rules: Canadian Regulatory Regimes and Institutions and more than 50 articles and book chapters. He is currently writing a book titled Contested Networks: The Politics of Canadian Telecommunications 1976–1993. Professor Schultz’s work at the Shorenstein Center will focus on the policy issues arising from the linkages between media concentration and cross-ownership and possible public policy responses. Paper PDF
Walter Shapiro has covered the last seven presidential campaigns as a newspaper columnist and a news magazine writer. He is the author of One-Car Caravan: On the Road with the 2004 Democrats Before American Tunes In. Shapiro just completed a nine-year stint as the twice-weekly political columnist for USA Today. From 1993 to 1996 he wrote a monthly column on the Clinton administration for Esquire magazine. He covered the 1988 and 1992 elections as a senior writer for Time magazine and the 1984 race for Newsweek. He was on the staff of the Washington Post from 1979-83. During the Carter administration, Mr. Shapiro was a White House speechwriter and a special assistant to the Secretary of Labor. He graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in history. While at the Shorenstein Center, Mr. Shapiro will examine the changing role of the newspaper column in the public debate.
Spring 2005 Visiting Faculty
Steve Jarding, Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy, has spent 25 years working in American politics. He is a past executive director of the South Dakota Democratic Party andc former communications director in Bob Kerrey’s U.S. Senate campaigns in Nebraska. He has served as communications director of the national Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and has run leadership PACs for Senators Bob Kerrey and John Edwards. In 2001, Jarding was campaign manager for Mark Warner’s bid for governor of Virginia, a campaign recognized by many as the best run in the country. Jarding received an undergraduate degree from the University of South Dakota and a master’s degree from the University of Oklahoma where he served as a fellow at the Carl Albert Congressional Studies Center. He has taught at the University of Oklahoma, George Mason University, and American University. He will be teaching a course titled “Running for Office and Managing Campaigns.
