Katelyn Brooks

Biography:

Katelyn Brooks is a PhD Candidate in the Brian Lamb School of Communication and an Instructor at Lindsey Wilson College. She researches political and government communication, crisis communication, and social media. Specifically, her dissertation will examine how the affordances and norms of social media platforms influence the creation of government social media content. She earned her bachelors degree from Middle Tennessee State University (2017) and masters degree from the University of Utah (2020).

Research and Teaching:

Katelyn’s research focuses on how political actors including government agencies, elected officials, and the public use social media to talk about themselves, each other, and major political events. She uses a range of methods including interviews, content analyses, and thematic analyses. Recently, she has researched political figures’ responses to their sexual scandals and public reactions to political sex scandals. Her dissertation will interview government communicators to understand in what ways social media platforms’ affordances and norms influence government social media content.

Katelyn teaches a variety of communication undergraduate courses. At Purdue, she taught multiple versions of COM 114 (Introduction to Presentational Speaking) including online, hybrid, and specialized sections for honors, Summer/Early Start, and the Business Opportunity Program. Additionally, she taught organizational communication (COM 324), interviewing (COM 325), and science communication (COM 217). She also served as an assistant director for COM 217 (2022-2023) and COM 114 (2023-2024) in which she trained, mentored, and supported instructors. Her teaching excellence was recognized with the Bruce Kendall Excellence in Teaching by a PhD Student Award in 2024. She is excited to begin teaching at Lindsey Wilson College beginning fall 2024, including public speaking and social media communication.