Autumn 2025
Judicial Sensemaking: Improving Institutional Communication through Research Design
Instructors: Kate Starbird (HCDE), Emma Spiro (iSchool co-lead), Danielle Tomson (CIP Research Manager), Alison Durran (CIP Research-to-Policy Fellow)
This fall, an interdisciplinary team of professors, research scientists, graduate, and undergraduate students at the Center for an Informed Public will host a DRG exploring how rumors, public narratives, and both public and self-perceptions shape trust in and communication from the Judiciary.
As part of this DRG, students will:
- Conduct ethnographic interviews with legal professionals (including lawyers, paralegals, court reporters, and judges) to explore how truths, rumors, and narratives influence institutional communication and public trust in the judiciary.
- Undertake a literature review on institutional communication, diving into scholarly approaches as they exist today and connecting them directly to our work.
- Lay the groundwork for future research, helping to design and prepare for a spring quarter project that will use sociotechnical listening methods to examine these narratives further online.
This DRG is an exciting and unique opportunity to collaborate on a cutting edge research project with real-world impact, while gaining hands-on experience in ethnographic interviewing, data collection, and writing. Students will be part of a supportive team tackling important and meaningful questions about the rule of law, institutional communication, rumors, and public trust.
We are looking specifically for students with interest or experience in ethnographic interviewing, public service, or institutional communication. We seek strong communicators, and enthusiastic learners.
The data collected through this project will be used specifically for further research that will help public officials and institutions improve their communication in an applied context. Written outputs may include public-facing blog posts.
Enrollment Information
- Meeting time: Meeting time will be determined based on student availability
- Credits: 2-3 credits
Who should apply: Students with experience conducting ethnographic interviews or user experience interviews are particularly encouraged to apply. We also encourage students with experience in quantitative social media research methods, particularly those who may be interested in continuing the project in its Spring Quarter sociotechnical listening phase. We seek students from the following degree programs:
- HCDE
- Information Science
- Public policy
- Law
- Communications
- Political Science
We seek third and fourth year undergraduates and graduate students in MA, LLM, or PHD programs.
- This DRG does count toward the PhD directed research requirement. Students will work in teams to conduct a literature review, participate in structuring research questions and design, and participate in communicating results through research papers or blog posts.
- To apply: Please fill out this google form and submit your responses no later than September 13, 2025. Potential students will be briefly interviewed.
- Anticipated notification date: Students will be notified of acceptance no later than September 20th, 2025.
- Questions? Please share all questions with Alison Durran at adurran@uw.edu.