Overview
Dr. Jarman is the Kansas Health Foundation Distinguished Directorof the Elliott School of Communication. He teaches courses in the strategic communication emphasis area, including Comm 535 (Communication Analysis and Criticism), 313 (Argumentation and Advocacy), and various 660 seminars in political and legal communication.
His primary research interest is in the influence of political information on the creation of an informed public sphere, including topics such as evidence, argumentation, political debates, and fact checking. Since 1999, Dr. Jarman has authored the annual overview of the new high school debate topic used by thousands of high school debaters around the nation. Dr. Jarman serves as a litigation consultant where he supports trial attorneys with case strategy, witness preparation, community attitude surveys, and mock trial research.
Jarman is the former director of the Wichita State's competitive debate team, serving from 1996 to 2018.
Jarman grew up in Wichita and enjoys living in his home town. He is married to Jan, an attorney for the City of Wichita. They have two daughters.
Education
Ph.D., Communication Studies, University of Kansas, 1998
M.A., Communication Studies, University of Kansas, 1995
B.S., Political Science, Missouri State University, 1993
Classes taught
- COMM 430 Communication Research
- COMM 535 Communication Analysis & Criticism
- COMM 660A/860N Political Communication
- COMM 660 BC, Communication and Persuasion in the Courtroom
- COMM 801 Introduction to Research Methods
- COMM 803 Empirical/Quantitative Research Methodology in Communication
Information
- Political debates
- Persuasion
- Political communication
- Legal communication
- Competitive academic debate
- Presidential debates
- Fact-checking
- Motivated reasoning in political and legal contexts
- Annual high school debate resolution
- Legal communication
- Political communication
- Persuasion
- Communication strategy
Recent publications
Jarman, J.W. (accepted). Large and small: Motivated interpretations of statistical evidence. In Selected proceedings of the 2019 NCA/AFA summer conference on argumentation, D. Hample (Ed.).
Munday, M.W. & Jarman, J.W. (2020). Annual discussion and debate sourcebook. Policy Debate Quarterly, 93(3), 1-78.
Jarman, J.W. (2019). Is fact-checking biased? A computerized content analysis. In C. Winkler (Ed.), Networking Argument (pp. 459-465). New York: Routledge.
Jarman, J.W. (2019). It wasn't even close: Viewers' thoughts about the first 2012 presidential debate. In E. Hinck (Ed.), Televised Presidential Debates in a Changing Media Environment, Volume 1: The candidates make their case (pp. 165-184). Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.
Munday, M.W. & Jarman, J.W. (2019). Annual discussion and debate sourcebook. Forensic Quarterly, 92(3), 1-78.
Jarman, J.W. (2018). Fact-checking and the liberal public sphere: Can argument be recovered? In R. Lake (ed.), Recovering Argument (pp. 125-130). New York: Routledge.
President, Faculty Senate, 2019-2020