Professor Participates in Refocus Wisconsin

Ken Goldstein, professor, political science, University of Wisconsin-Madison, is one of the featured contributors and “activists” leading WPRI’s Refocus Wisconsin initiative.

During my first semester of college, I took Intro to American Politics with Professor Goldstein. Within the first few minutes of the first day of class, he captivated the lecture by challenging the 300+ students sitting in the audience to try and figure out his political affiliation.

That same semester I went to Professor Goldstein’s house with my section as a reward for having the highest average and since then I've heard him speak several times on campus and elsewhere. Also, I regularly watch the student-broadcasted show he hosts and supervises, “Office Hours.”

When I saw that Professor Goldstein was participating in this project, I thought it would be a great opportunity to analyze his contributions and activism from an online identity perspective.

Political activists and online identity is a major theme I want to explore in my practicum summary, so I’ll just briefly hit on some of my main observations and connections.

Goldstein’s online representations of self are strategic and abundant. He has clearly made it a point to strategically produce an objective persona.

Complete some simple background research and it’s obvious he is an accomplished academic with extensive research experience, innovative polling strategies and fresh ideas on the effects of political advertising in mobilizing publics. He has been featured on “liberally-biased” and “conservatively-biased” media outlets and has conducted polls for Democrat organizations, as well as Republican organizations.

He doesn’t have a personal homepage displaying his impressive credentials and areas of expertise; rather, Goldstein relies on his diverse associations and online activities to help drive his personal brand or identity.

I think it’s really interesting that Professor Goldstein has managed to maintain an identity – online and offline – as an objective expert who transcends biases at all costs. He is criticized from the left and the right for being too conservative or too liberal. Through and through, however, Goldstein upholds a levelheaded, objective approach to the media.

Here is an article where Goldstein is criticized for poll results that were allegedly altered by the conservative thinktank, WPRI.