About

1. COMPASS
2. About

Photo Credit (top image): Anna Sullivan / Unsplash

The Consortium on Media Policy Studies (COMPASS) is a program administered by the Media, Inequality & Change Center (MIC), a project of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. It places summer Fellows at major national and non-profit institutions in Washington, D.C.

The program is primarily open to students from six schools: The Annenberg School for Communication at Penn, Penn State's Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications, the University of Michigan's Communication Studies department, the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism at the University of Southern California, the University of Texas at Austin's Moody College of Communication, and Cornell University's Department of Communication. Applications from PhD students from other universities are welcome, with the understanding that COMPASS does not cover transportation to D.C. or living expenses for the duration of the program and those costs would be covered by the applicant’s home institution or the student. For more information, please reach out to Briar Smith (briar.smith@asc.upenn.edu).

Past COMPASS Fellows have been placed in congressional offices, the State Department, the Federal Communications Commission, and a variety of research and advocacy organizations such as Common Cause, Free Press, and New America.

In addition to their work with the institutions where they are placed, students will participate in a weekly seminar taught by a leading scholar on the mechanics of the policy process, including how Communication scholarship can assist policy makers.

By the end of the eight-week period fellows will have acquired an in-depth understanding of a particular topic or area of concern, and gained in-depth experience with the policymaking process.

COMPASS Summer Fellowship Program Call for 2026 Applications

The MIC Center is now accepting applications from Ph.D. students for the 2026 COMPASS Summer Fellowship Program, which is designed to provide Ph.D. students in Communication and Media Studies with hands-on experience in the development and implementation of communication policy. COMPASS is administered out of the Media, Inequality & Change Center (MIC) and co-directed by Annenberg professor Victor Pickard. Successful applicants will have a fellowship (8-10 weeks from early June through early August 2026) in DC-based government offices or agencies, think tanks, advocacy organizations, or other communication-related institutions.

All Fellows are required to participate in an in-person, weekly seminar in Washington, D.C. on the practice of communication policy.* The 2026 seminar will be taught by Gigi Sohn, renowned public advocate for open and democratic communication networks who currently serves as a Benton Institute Senior Fellow and Public Advocate and the Executive Director of the American Association of Public Broadband (AAPB). For over thirty-five years, Gigi has worked across the country to defend and preserve the fundamental competition and innovation policies that have made broadband Internet access more ubiquitous, competitive, affordable, open, and protective of user privacy. In addition to focusing on policy-related research and academic readings, this year’s seminar will also focus on developing public advocacy skills and assessing impact. The seminar will also feature guest speakers.

Additional opportunities for Fellows to attend other policy-related and social events will also be available. Please watch the COMPASS video for more information and to hear about experiences from past Fellows.

Fellowships include assistance in locating an appropriate placement with a host institution and require a stipend from your home institution. In cases where Fellowships involve a hybrid work experience, coworking office space is sometimes provided by the COMPASS program.

Interested students should provide a letter indicating how a summer fellowship would connect to/enhance their research and/or teaching and what kind of placement would be most useful in this regard. In their letter, applicants should also indicate three possible organizations where a fellowship would align with their research interests.

Application letters and CVs are due no later than Friday, January 16, 2026 and should be sent to briar.smith@asc.upenn.edu.

*Some Ph.D. programs will provide Ph.D. course credit for those who successfully meet the requirements of the course. Please check with your institution.

Our Mission and History

In 2003, a group of department chairs and deans from Communication Studies programs around the country formed the Consortium on Media Policy Studies. The current sponsoring programs include the following universities:

• Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania
• Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California
• Moody College of Communication, University of Texas at Austin
• Communication Studies, University of Michigan
• Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State University

Other universities are invited to participate, and can contact MIC Associate Director Briar Smith (briar.smith@asc.upenn.edu) for more information.

The purpose of the consortium is to build bridges between the needs of policy makers and the study of media and communication technologies. COMPASS seeks to train more graduate students in the areas of media policy, law, and regulation; we are dedicated to making the academic study of the mass media and communication systems more relevant to and informing of national and international policy planning and regulatory proposals.

Our initiative seeks to address the paucity of well-informed, well-researched media policy and regulation and the threat this poses to democracy, both in the United States and around the world. We seek to stimulate and generate a new cohort of scholars, activists, and policy-makers who can deal with the realities of contemporary U.S. state and business power and the resultant democratic deficit experienced by people here and around the globe.