Regina Lawrence is Associate Dean of the School of Journalism and Communication in Portland and Research Director for the Agora Journalism Center. She is a nationally recognized authority on political communication, civic engagement, gender and politics, and the role of media in public discourse about politics and policy. Her two latest books are Hillary Clinton’s Race for the White House: Gender Politics and the Media on the Campaign Trail and When the Press Fails: Political Power and the News Media from Iraq to Katrina, winner of the Doris A. Graber Outstanding Book Award from the Political Communication section of the American Political Science Association. 

From 2011 to 2015, Lawrence directed the Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Life at the University of Texas-Austin. She has served as chair of the political communication section of the American Political Science Association and as a research fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She is currently the editor of the journal Political Communication.

• PhD, Political Science, University of Washington, 1996
• MA, Political Science, University of Colorado

2020     Engaged Journalism and News Work: A Sociotechnical Analysis of Organizational Dynamics and Professional Challenges (with Thomas Schmidt).  Journalism Practice. Published online first at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17512786.2020.1731319

2019     When Celebrity and Political Journalism Collide: Reporting Standards, Entertainment, and the Conundrum of Covering Donald Trump’s 2016 Campaign (with Amber E. Boydstun). Perspectives on Politics 18(1): 128-143.  Published online first at: https://doi.org/10.1017/S153759271900238X

2017 Lawrence, Regina G., Damian Radcliffe, and Thomas Schmidt. Practicing “Engagement”: Participatory Journalism in the Web 2.0 Era. Journalism Practice.

2017 Kreiss, Daniel, Regina G. Lawrence, and Shannon McGregor. “In Their Own Words: Political Practitioner Accounts of Candidates, Audiences, Affordances, Genres and Timing in Strategic Social Media Use.” Political Communication.

2016 Lawrence, Regina and Amber E. Boydstun. “What We Should Really Be Asking About Media Attention to Trump.” Political Communication/The Forum.

2016 McGregor, Shannon, Regina G. Lawrence and Arielle Cardona. “Personalization, Gender and Social Media: Gubernatorial Candidates’ Social Media Strategies.” Information, Communication & Society.

2015 Dunaway, Johanna, and Regina G. Lawrence. “What Predicts the Game Frame? Media Ownership, Electoral Context, and Campaign News.” Political Communication.

Lawrence studies media coverage of politics and policy and the role of media in civic engagement. Her current projects examine social media strategies of political campaigns, particularly of female candidates, and how newsrooms are incorporating public engagement strategies into their daily work.

Lawrence has conducted numerous studies analyzing media coverage of politics and policy issues, including the 2008 Democratic primary and its historical predecessors, the so-called “death panels” controversy, the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, shootings in public schools, the obesity epidemic, welfare reform, and other issues. Her work on journalistic norms and routines, including the “game-framing” of political news and media coverage of high-profile news events, has been widely cited. Her research has appeared in Journal of Communication, Political Communication, Political Research Quarterly, Social Science Quarterly, Journalism, Journalism Studies, and the International Journal of Press/Politics.

• Political communication: campaign communication, media coverage/social media and elections
• Women and politics
• Civic engagement: political participation, voter behavior
• Media coverage of politics and policy
• Journalism innovation & engaged journalism