Academic Research

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I work in the areas of political communication and journalism studies. I examine how political actors communicate with the public and how the media represents such actors. I have four areas of particular focus: how minor political voices attempt to transmit their message; the role of religion in political messaging; disinformation in media ecologies; and the impact of contentious politics and communication on civic life. I use mixed methods with an emphasis on content analysis, in-depth interviewing and ethnography. I have also undertaken quantitative and qualitative survey research and run academic focus groups.

Centre for Communication and Civic Renewal (2022) Studying the Wisconsin media ecology. (pp. 28–44). In Friedland, Shah, Wagner et al. Battleground: Asymmetric Communication Ecologies and the Erosion of Civil Society in Wisconsin. Cambridge University Press. 

Foley, J., Wagner, M., Hughes, C., Friedland, L., Suk, J. & Shah, D. (2021) Free and Fair? The differential experiences of administrative burdens, voting barriers and voting policies in American midterm elections. International Journal of Public Opinion Research. doi: 10.1093/ijpor/edab009 

Wells, C., Friedland, L., Hughes, C., Shah, D, Suk, J. & Wagner, M. (2021) News media use, talk networks and anti-elitism across geographic location: Evidence from Wisconsin. International Journal of Press/Politics. doi: 10.1177/1940161220985128

Hughes, C. (2020) Thou art in a deal: the evolution of religious language in the public communications of Donald Trump. International Journal of Communication, 13: 4826–4846, https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/12691/3220

Hughes, C. (2020) It’s not easy being green, white, red and blue: Constituency representations versus electoral competition in the Wisconsin Green Party.  International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society. doi: 10.1007/s10767-020-09365-5

Suk, J., Shah, D., Wells, C., Wagner, M., Friedland, L., Cramer, K., Hughes, C. & Franklin, C. (2020). Do improving conditions harden partisan preferences? Lived experiences, imagined communities, and polarized evaluations. International Journal of Public Opinion Research.doi: 10.1093/ijpor/edz051

Hughes, C. (2019) Debatable sphere: major party hegemony, minor party marginalization in the UK leaders’ debate. Communication and the Public. 4 (3): 189–203. doi: 10.1177/2057047319875863

Hughes, C. (2019) It’s the EU immigrants stupid! UKIP’s core-issue and populist rhetoric on the road to Brexit. European Journal of Communication. 34 (3): 248–266. doi: 10.1177/0267323119830050 

Hughes, C. (2019) The God card: Strategic employment of religious language in U.S. presidential discourse. International Journal of Communication. 13: 528–549. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/8484/2547

Hughes, C. (2016) It’s not easy (not) being green: Agenda dissonance of Green Party press relations and newspaper coverage. European Journal of Communication. 31 (6): 625–41. doi: 10.1177/0267323116669454

Hughes, C., Morani, M., Cushion, S. & Kyriakidou, M. Does the political context shape how “due impartiality” is interpreted? An analysis of BBC reporting of the 2019 UK and 2020 US election campaigns. International Communication Association (ICA), May 2022.

Morani, M., Hughes, C., Cushion, S. & Kyriakidou, M. Why media platforms police the boundaries of impartiality: A comparative analysis of UK public service television news and fact-checking in countering political misinformation. International Communication Association (ICA), May 2022.

Kyriakidou, M., Cushion, S., Morani, M., & Hughes, C. Audience understandings of disinformation: towards a pragmatic scepticism of news media and politics. International Communication Association (ICA), May 2022.

Kyriakidou, M., Morani, M., Hughes, C. & Cushion, S. Rethinking fact-checking in the fight against disinformation: An audience perspective. International Communication Association (ICA), May 2022.

Hughes, C., Morani, M., Cushion, S. & Kyriakidou, M. Due and undue impartiality. How context policed BBC reporting during the UK and US elections. Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) Conference, Virtual, August 2021.

Li, J. †, Suk, J., Lukito, J., Hughes, C., Foley, J., Friedland, L., Wells, C., Shah, D., Wagner, M. When the Desert Matters: Contextual Differences in Local News Environment and Polarized Perceptions of Local Economy. AEJMC Conference, San Francisco, US, August 2020. † - presenter

Wells, C.†, Friedland, L., Hughes, C., Suk, J., Wagner, M. & Shah, D. (2019) Integrating the social geography of the lifeworld into the study of media use and opinion formation. International Journal of Press/Politics Conference, Loughborough, UK, September 2019. † - presenter

Hughes, C. (2019) When Pat met Donald: Christian Broadcasting News and the interpretation of Trump. (AEJMC) Conference, Toronto, Canada, August 2019.

Hughes, C. (2019) Thou art in a deal: the evolution of religious language in the public communications of Donald Trump. International Communication Association (ICA) Conference, Washington D.C., May 2019

Hughes, C. (2018) Debatable sphere: major party hegemony, minor party marginalization in the UK leaders’ debate. AEJMC Conference, Washington D.C., August 2018. 

- Best Graduate Student Paper Award, 2nd Place, Political Communication Interest Group.

Hughes, C. (2018) The God card: Strategic employment of religious language in U.S. presidential discourse. AEJMC Conference. Washington, D.C., August 2018. 

- Best Graduate Student Paper Award, 2nd Place, Religion and Media Interest Group.

Hughes, C. (2018) It’s the EU immigrants stupid! UKIP’s core-issue and populist rhetoric on the road to Brexit. ICA Conference, Prague, Czech Republic, May 2018. 

Hughes, C. (2018) “We're not whores, that's why we're poor”: antipartyism, Fundi-Realo positioning and the Frowland Green Party. Chicago Ethnography Conference, Chicago, IL, March 2018.

Hughes, C. (2017) God on our side: Presidential religious rhetoric, issue ownership and competing gospels. AEJMC Conference, Chicago, IL, August 2017.

Hughes, C. (2017) Anti-Europe, anti-immigrant and anti-party: UKIP rhetoric and the road to Brexit. AEJMC, Chicago, IL, August 2017.

Li, J.†, Conathan, D. & Hughes, C. (2017) Rethinking Emotional Desensitization to Violence: Methodological and Theoretical Insights from Social Media Data. International Conference on Social Media & Society, Toronto, Canada, July 2017. † - presenter

Hughes, C. (2016) Not agreeing with Nat: major party hegemony, minor party marginalization in the UK election debate. AEJMC, Minneapolis, MN, August 2016. 

Foley, J., Wagner, M., Lukito, J., Hughes, C., Suk, J., Friedland, L. & Shah, D. Do Conspiracy Theories “Find Me?”: How Communication Ecologies, Information Seeking preferences and Racial Resentment Fuel Conspiratorial Thinking. Under review.

Li, J., Suk, J., Lukito, J., Hughes, C., Foley, J., Friedland, L., Wells, C., Shah, D., Wagner, M. When the Desert Matters: Contextual Differences in Local News Environment and Polarized Perceptions of Local Economy. Under review.

Hughes, C., Morani, M., Cushion, S. & Kyriakidou, M. – paper on BBC election reporting. Under review. 

Kyriakidou, M., Cushion, S., Morani, M., & Hughes, C. – audiences understanding of disinformation. Under review.

Morani, M., Hughes, C., Cushion, S. & Kyriakidou, M – analysis of journalist challenge to politician claims across media platforms. Preparing for submission.

Hughes, C. & Duncan, M. – experiment on perceived efficacy of fact-checking. Writing up.

Hughes, C. Should they persist? Analysis of female politicians in political debates. Data collection.

Hughes, C. When Pat met Donald. A lot. Christian Broadcasting Network and Donald Trump. Data collection. 

Ethnographic fieldwork and interviewing with the Wisconsin Green Party took place from August 2016 to December 2018. 

Seeking power in Jesus’ name: Trump sparks a rise of Patriot Churches. Washington Post.  

Appealing to evangelicals, Trump uses religious words and references to God at a higher rate than previous presidents. The Conversation, Salon. Interviews on Swedish National Television and 570 News. 2020.

How Suffering Farmers May Determine Trump’s Fate. The New Yorker.

Wisconsin is scheduled to vote today. How will the pandemic affect turnout? Washington Post Monkey Cage, 2020.

Real voting equality. Scholars Strategy Network. 2020. 

What Makes Wisconsin Swing? Vox, 2019.

UW-Madison Communication and Civic Renewal team want nonpartisan redistricting and a voice for political minorities. Capital Times, 2019.

Why the Green Party’s whistleblowing manifesto was so important, and what we should learn from it. Screen Shot, 2019.