The University of Wisconsin-Madison

The "Communication Ecologies, Political Contention, and Democratic Crisis" research project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison bridges scholars from communication studies, sociology, and political and computer science to investigate the relationship between mass media and civic and political life. Declines in trust, and in the perceived legitimacy of democratic institutions, including the media, have contributed to current US democratic dysfunction. Changes in state media and political ecosystems are central to this process, but have received less scholarly attention. This project seeks to improve understanding of the increasingly fractured political media environment in the state of Wisconsin by analyzing the comprehensive communication ecology of a single regional socio-political geography for the first time.

A grant to the University of Wisconsin-Madison will support the creation of a cumulative index for the first 34 volumes of "The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution." The procedure will start with eight electronic indexes and 14 paper indexes. Eventually all 22 indexes will be edited by a professional indexer who will prepare a merged document for one index amounting to over 1,500 pages. The merged document will be further edited by staff in the university’s Center for the Study of the American Constitution and then published in two printed volumes by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press.