Matthew Baum

Matthew A. Baum (Ph.D., UC San Diego, 2000) is the Marvin Kalb Professor of Global Communications and Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and Department of Government. His research focuses on the domestic politics of international conflict and cooperation in general and American foreign policy in particular, as well as on the role of the mass media and public opinion in contemporary American politics. Additional research interests include the interaction of media and electoral institutions, fake news and misinformation, and the relationship between partisan media and polarization. His research has appeared in over a dozen leading scholarly journals, such as the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, and the Journal of Politics. His books include Soft News Goes to War: Public Opinion and American Foreign Policy in the New Media Age (2003, Princeton University Press), War Stories: The Causes and Consequences of Public Views of War (2009, Princeton University Press, co-authored with Tim Groeling), and War and Democratic Constraint: How the Public Influences Foreign Policy (2015, Princeton University Press, co-authored with Phil Potter). He has contributed op-ed articles to a variety of newspapers, magazines, and blog sites in the United States and abroad. He is also co-founder, principal investigator and co-editor of the Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review and co-founder and principal investigator of the COVID States Project. Before coming to Harvard, Baum was an associate professor of political science and communication studies at UCLA.