The Colorado State University Office of the Vice President for Research announced Jan. 16 it will be granting more than $90,000 to projects for furthering education and resources in facets of democracy.

The grants follow the theme of the 2023-24 thematic year, Year of Democracy. The theme of the year focused on building civic engagement and discussion leading up to the 2024 national elections.

The grants vary in payout; they range from $7,000 for single-discipline teams to up to $10,000 for interdisciplinary projects.

The grants will supply funding to 11 projects that will further research and education regarding democracy in a variety of departments and disciplines.

Revitalizing democracy in news deserts: Prototyping a model of local journalism

Jenny Fischer, co-director of the Northern Colorado Deliberative Journalism Project, and Martín Carcasson, director of the CSU Center for Public Deliberation, received grant money to strengthen local journalism in Wellington, Colorado.

The project involves holding conversations with citizens about their media consumption habits, establishing a source of news for Wellington and writing a paper about media in news deserts, which Wellington is.

The revitalization effort would give student reporters — as well as student media and the department as a whole — the ability to gain experience in real-world reporting, resulting in internships and employment opportunities.

“If we move forward with the media outlet in Wellington, student reporters will be involved,” Fischer said. “We will engage student media and the department to help give students the capability of reporting on Wellington and giving them opportunities to have internships for eventual employment doing work.”

Promiscuous politics: Perverting, promoting democratic community

Communication studies Professor Karrin Anderson plans to use her grant money to write a book that explores the sexualization of women in politics, which she described as the “pornification of politics.”

In her book, Anderson will discuss how the sexualization of girls and young women in political dialogue and advertising act as a barrier preventing women from exercising their civil duties.

“I’ve noticed all of these other examples of weird sexualization, usually particularly of women in mainstream political dialogue,” Anderson said. “I’ve been researching; I developed this continuum of pornification. Sometimes it’s just jokey banter, but sometimes it’s really sexualized visions of gendered violence against women candidates and women voters.”

Anderson said she noticed the increase in misogyny and sexualization among the upper echelons of the government. She argued that such sexualization is an autocratic trait.

“We have this situation where we’ve got misogyny and transphobia that have been mainstreamed and sexualized, and the argument that I’m going to be making (in) my book is that is a characteristic of authoritarianism,” Anderson said.

Democratic backsliding, gender: Bridging the gap

Gamze Çavdar, professor of political science, is analyzing the relationship between democratic backsliding and gender. Çavdar’s grant will be used for a joint project with the University of Denver and involves collaboration between scholars to workshop an academic paper studying the relationship between democracy and gender standards.

Çavdar noticed that cases of states rolling back on democratic rule have also compromised the rights of women.

“Scholars have developed different ways of measuring (democracy), different ways of conceptualizing it,” Çavdar said. “My project started by saying that we have to really look at the issue of gender as a proxy to measure democratic backsliding because, in every case that is experiencing de-democratization, there have been changes and deterioration of gender standards and women’s rights.”

Costume crafts: The artisan’s hand — and heart — in democracy, civic engagement

Erin Carignan, assistant professor of theater, is using her grant to write a book on the use of costume crafts to forward democratic engagements, particularly in political movements.

The project will focus on the art of costume craft itself and encourage work on such, encouraging volunteer work and critical thought of the role it plays in civic engagement.

“There’s (a) lot of really fantastic kind of engagement with the public through making these items,” Carignan said. “We have that with costumes, too, because the community can come in and interact with everyone.”

Beyond the art of costume craft itself, the theory behind it serves a key purpose in building civic engagement. Carignan made a point to touch upon the symbolism costume craft plays in various types of civic engagements.

“I’d like to feature something in a lot of the chapters that’s similar to that sort of thing,” Carignan said. “How have we used these articles in different ways? To serve as symbols that are bigger than just a hat, or just a whisk.”

Reach Robert Sides at news@collegian.com or on social media @CSUCollegian.