Jim A. Kuypers

Dr. Jim A. Kuypers is a professor in Virginia Tech’s School of Communication.  His research efforts are devoted primarily to exploring and understanding how professional politicians and citizens publicly address pressing social and cultural issues as these issues are relayed through the mediating lenses of the press.

Kuypers is a pioneer in the area of rhetorical framing analysis. This work has led to important discoveries concerning how original messages of political actors—professionals and citizens alike—are re-framed by the press before being transmitted to the general public. In particular, Kuypers’s methodology allows researchers to investigate how the news media act to shape public awareness, understanding, and evaluations of issues and events in a particular direction.

The framing approach Kuypers has advanced has led to important discoveries that shed light on how framing research from a social scientific point of view and framing research from a rhetorical point of view often yield dramatically different results. For instance, in his work on the War on Terror, Kuypers found that, contrary to much social scientific work on the subject, the press actively countered efforts of the administrative branch of the U.S. Government to combat Islamic Terrorism.

In addition to his work on framing, Kuypers is actively involved in exploring how public advocacy works in the digital age. Such work has resulted in offering courses such as Public Advocacy, Digital Advocacy Campaigns, and Professional Communication. Work in this area has applications across a wide variety of areas, including business relations, marketing, and public relations.

Kuypers joined the faculty of Virginia Tech in 2005 after having first served as a Distinguished Senior Lecturer and Director of the Office of Speech at Dartmouth College.