Scott L. Althaus

Scott L. Althaus is Merriam Professor of Political Science, Professor of Communication, and Director of the Cline Center for Advanced Social Research at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, with additional faculty appointments in the School of Information Sciences and National Center for Supercomputing Applications. He joined the university in 1996 and has established himself as a leading scholar in political communication and public opinion research.

Professor Althaus's research explores communication processes that support political accountability in democratic societies and empower political discontent in non-democratic systems. His work examines how journalists construct news in hybridized communication ecosystems, how leaders shape news coverage for political advantage, how citizens interpret news about public affairs, and how citizens convey preferences through collective behaviors like voting and civil unrest. His specific interests include popular support for war, data science methods for extreme-scale news analysis, political psychology, and communication concepts in democratic theory.

His recent publications reveal a strong focus on computational approaches to political communication, with significant contributions in automated content analysis of global news coverage, event data validation, and the development of theoretical frameworks connecting media, politics, and public opinion. His work increasingly applies text analytics and machine learning to analyze millions of news stories for societal insights.

• 2023 International Journal of Press/Politics Hazel Gaudet-Erskine Best Book Award for Building Theory in Political Communication
• 2023 Campus Excellence in Public Engagement Faculty & Staff Team Award
• 2006 Political Communication Article of the Year Award
• 2004 David Easton Prize and Goldsmith Book Prize
• Dean's Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching (2013)

Professor Althaus serves on editorial boards of Political Communication and Public Opinion Quarterly, with research appearing in top journals across political science, communication, and interdisciplinary fields. His work with the Cline Center has produced significant public engagement through projects like SPOTLITE (documenting police uses of lethal force) and the Coup d'État Project. He regularly appears on the university's List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students and has advised numerous research initiatives applying data science to political communication challenges.