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.
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
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