COMM professor featured in AZ Central article

One of Florida State University’s finest, Patrick Merle, contributed to AZ Central’s article ‘Trayvon Martin mailer stirs racial politics in campaign for Congress’ last week. The article analyzed the controversial, emotional appeal used in a fierce race for Phoenix’s 7th Congressional District where African-American voters could tip the scales.

Patrick Merle
Dr. Patrick Merle

Dr. Merle has researched the George Zimmerman case in depth and weighed in on the mailer, analyzing the emotional angle and effectiveness on low-information voters.

AZ Central is one of the oldest and most-visited web portals for Arizona local news. The print version, Arizona Republic, is a prominent publication. Sunday’s paper printed the Trayvon Martin article.

Merle teaches political communication at Florida State University, where he will be teaching a political communication graduate seminar this Fall.

Patrick Merle is part of an interdisciplinary research group led by Carol Weissert, LeRoy Collins Eminent Scholar and Professor of Political Science. Along with Amanda Driscoll, Assistant Professor of Political Science, they officially launched the Florida Policy Agendas at the annual conference for the Comparative Agendas Project in Germany last June.

For further questions and inquiries please contact Patrick Merle at pmerle@fsu.edu or via twitter (@patrickmerle).