Indiana University

Indiana University School of Journalism

David H. WeaverDavid H. Weaver

Roy W. Howard Professor
EP200-I
812-855-1703
2 - 3:30 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays and by appointment
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Currently teaching:

Recent News

Biography

Professor Weaver has been on the faculty of the School of Journalism since 1974, teaching mainly research methods and political communication to graduate students, and in earlier years beginning newswriting, newspaper editing, and public opinion to undergraduates. He earned his bachelors and masters degrees in journalism from Indiana in the 1960s, and his Ph.D. in mass communication research from the University of North Carolina in 1974. He worked on four daily newspapers in Indiana (including the Indiana Daily Student) and North Carolina, and served nearly two years in the U.S. Army before joining the Indiana faculty. He was selected as the first Roy W. Howard Research Professor in 1988.

Past positions

Reporter, Copy Editor and Assistant Editor, Indiana Daily Student (Bloomington, Ind.), 1966-68; Wire Editor and Reporter, Courier-Tribune (Bloomington, Ind.), 1968; Copy Editor, Post-Tribune (Gary, Ind.), 1968; information officer, U.S. Army, 1970-71 (Fort Bragg, N.C., and Long Binh, S. Vietnam); Wire Editor, The Chapel Hill Newspaper (N.C.), 1973.

Professional organizations

Editorial boards of Asian Communication Research, Chinese Journal of Communication, Journalism, Journalism Studies, and International Journal of Public Opinion Research. Past president of the Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research (MAPOR) and of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). Member AEJMC, MAPOR, American Political Science Association (APSA), International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), International Communication Association (ICA), Kappa Tau Alpha (journalism honorary), Sigma Delta Chi, and World Association for Public Opinion Research (WAPOR).

Publications

Author of Videotex Journalism (Erlbaum, 1983), first author of Media Agenda-Setting in a Presidential Election (Praeger, 1981), co-author (with G. Cleveland Wilhoit) of Newsroom Guide to Polls and Surveys (Indiana, 1990), co-author (with G. Cleveland Wilhoit) of The American Journalist (Indiana, 1986), co-author, The Formation of Campaign Agendas (Erlbaum, 1991), co-author, Contemporary Public Opinion (Erlbaum, 1991), co-author, The American Journalist in the 1990s (Erlbaum, 1996), co-editor, Communication and Democracy (Erlbaum, 1997), editor, The Global Journalist (Hampton Press, 1998), co-editor, Mass Communication Research and Theory (Allyn & Bacon, 2003), co-author of The American Journalist in the 21st Century (Erlbaum, 2007), and co-editor of Global Journalism Research (Blackwell, 2008). Also has written numerous book chapters and articles on media agenda-setting, newspaper readership, and journalists. Current projects: a five-year update panel study of U.S. journalists interviewed for the 2002 American Journalist study (with Professors Randy Beam and Bonnie Brownlee); a 40-year replication of the original 1968 media agenda-setting study in Chapel Hill, N.C., with Professors Donald Shaw and Maxwell McCombs; and a new edition of The Global Journalist book with Professor Lars Willnat.

Awards

Indiana Daily Student Faculty Service Award, 1979-80; AEJMC Krieghbaum Award, 1983; Society of Professional Journalists Research about Journalism National Award, 1986, 1996 (with G. Cleveland Wilhoit), and 2006 (with Bonnie Brownlee, Randal Beam, Paul Voakes, and G. Cleveland Wilhoit); 1992 Worcester Prize from WAPOR for best article in the International Journal of Public Opinion Research; 1993 Fellow of MAPOR; 2000 Fellow of ICA; 2005 Trayes Award from AEJMC for outstanding contributions to mass communication scholarship; 2006 AEJMC Presidential Award for three decades of research on journalists (with G. Cleveland Wilhoit); 2009 Distinguished Faculty Research Lecture from IU-Bloomington, and 2009 Paul J. Deutschmann Award for Excellence in Research from AEJMC.

Teaching and research areas

Research methods, media and politics, public opinion and mass media, social science methods in reporting, journalists' characteristics and working conditions.

Research summary

He is presently working on a follow-up study of journalists who participated in the 2002 American Journalist study with Professors Bonnie Brownlee and Randy Beam. He has begun work on a 40-year replication of the original 1968 media agenda-setting study conducted in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, by Professors Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw; and he is beginning to work on a new edition of The Global Journalist book that he edited in 1998 which included reports of surveys of journalists done in 21 different countries with Professor Lars Willnat.
Recent publications include:
  • David H. Weaver, Randal A. Beam, Bonnie J. Brownlee, Paul S. Voakes, and G. Cleveland Wilhoit, The American Journalist in the 21st Century: U.S. News People at the Dawn of a New Millennium (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2007), pp. 1-291.
  • Martin Loeffelholz and David Weaver, eds., Global Journalism Research: Theories, Methods, Findings, Future (Malden, MA: Blackwell Press, 2008), pp. 1-304.
  • David H. Weaver, "Attitudes of Journalists Toward Public Opinion Research," Ch. 41 in Wolfgang Donsbach and Michael W. Traugott, eds., Handbook of Public Opinion Research (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2008), pp. 451-458.
  • David H. Weaver, "Agenda-Setting Effects," in Wolfgang Donsbach, ed., The International Encyclopedia of Communication, Volume I (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2008), pp. 145-151.
  • David H. Weaver, "Stability and Change: Contradictions in U.S. Journalism," in Bernhard Porksen, Wiebke Loosen, and Armin Scholl, eds., Paradoxien des Journalismus: Theorie-Empirie-Praxis (Paradoxes of Journalism: Theories, Empirical Studies, and Practice) (Wiesbaden, Germany: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2008), pp. 183-192.
  • David H. Weaver, "US Journalism in the 21st Century—What Future?" Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism, 10, 3 (June 2009): 396-397.
  • Randal A. Beam, David H. Weaver, and Bonnie J. Brownlee, "Changes in Professionalism of U.S. Journalists in the Turbulent Twenty-first Century," Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 86, 2 (Summer 2009): 277-298.
On faculty since 1974.