Jonathan Ladd

Jonathan Ladd is an associate professor, with appointments in the McCourt School of Public Policy and the Department of Government. He is an affiliated faculty member of the Massive Data Institute and the Lab for Globalization and Shared Prosperity, and a faculty adviser to the Institute of Politics and Public Service.

His first book, Why Americans Hate the Media and How it Matters (Princeton University Press, 2012), won the Goldsmith Book Prize from Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, as well as the McGannon Award for Social and Ethical Relevance in Communications Policy Research. He was recently part of a team of eight scholars that co-authored Words that Matter: How the News and Social Media Shaped the 2016 Presidential Campaign (Brookings Institution Press, 2020).

He studies American politics, especially public opinion, the news media, partisan polarization, and the loss of confidence in institutions. He is Director of the American Institutional Confidence Poll which is a panel survey with waves in 2018 and 2021. It examines confidence in institutions, support for democratic principles and norms, overall satisfaction with democracy, and social connectedness in American society.

In the past, he has been a member of the Executive Council of the Elections, Public Opinion and Voting Behavior (EPOVB) section of the American Political Science Association (APSA), a member of the Faculty Advisory Board of the Centennial Center at APSA, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and the president of the National Capital Area Political Science Association.

His spring 2023 semester office hours are Monday 1:30pm-4:30pm in ICC 587. Any Georgetown student can drop in during this time. You do not need to email him in advance.

Education

• Princeton University - Ph.D., Political Science
• Princeton University - M.A., Political Science
• Tufts University - B.A., Political Science

Expertise

American Politics, Public Opinion, Survey Research, Media and Politics, Statistics