About

Overview

I earned my PhD from the Department of Communication at the University of Washington. I use content analysis and experiments to study the discourse and effects of climate change communication by political actors.

Whereas a wide body of work examines climate change messaging in the media, my dissertation focuses on the climate change discourse of presidents and governors in the United States. In a series of papers, I examined presidential communications containing references to climate change. In one paper, I focus on the presence of different frames in this discourse, such as a general environmental focus, sidestepping, economic, and national security frames. In another paper, I examine the effect of geographic location on the density and content of climate change invocations. In my ongoing research, I examine the effectiveness of different frames as well as the credibility of distinct sources.

Abstracts about my other research on international climate change discourse and presidential press questions are available on my research page. Feel free to contact me at kjcalder@uw.edu.

Education

University of Washington

Ph.D., Communication, August 2021

Committee: David Domke (Chair), John Crowley, Benjamin Mako Hill, Susan Joslyn, Adrienne Russell

Southern Illinois University

M.A., Speech Communication, August 2012

B.A., Political Science, August 2010

Academic Positions

Lecturer, University of Washington

Associate Faculty, Edmonds Community College

Graduate Teaching Assistant, University of Washington

Director of Debate and Instructor, Concordia University Irvine

Associate Faculty, Irvine Valley College

Graduate Teaching Assistant, Southern Illinois University