720 Strategies

Michael Cornfield

VP, Research and Media Strategy

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Michael is Vice President for Research and Media Strategy at 720 Strategies, a Washington, D.C.-based public persuasion firm specializing in integrated communications – online, on video, and in print.

Michael, a political scientist, is the author of two books about the Internet and American politics: Politics Moves Online: Campaigning and the Internet  (The Century Foundation, 2004) and The Civic Web: Online Politics and Democratic Values, co-edited with David M. Anderson (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003).  He is an Adjunct Professor at The Graduate School of Political Management (GSPM) of The George Washington University, where he has taught the core course on strategy and message development since 1994.  While at the GSPM full time, he helped found its Semester in Washington Program for undergraduates, and its Institute for Politics, Democracy, & the Internet.

Michael is interviewed frequently about online politics by the press, and has lectured on the subject at colleges, universities and professional conventions throughout the world.  Among his many journalistic publications, he co-authored (with Lee Rainie) a review of the state of online campaigning in 2006 for the “Outlook” section of the Washington Post.  He has contributed chapters to numerous academic anthologies, the latest being The Year of Obama; How Barack Obama Won the Whitehouse (Larry J. Sabato, editor, Longman, 2009), and Rewired Politics: Presidential Nominating Conventions in the Media Age (Costas Panagopoulos, editor, LSU Press 2007).  From 1999 until 2007, Cornfield wrote a monthly column for Campaigns & Elections magazine.

Michael has served as a Senior Research Consultant to the Pew Internet & American Life Project (www.pewinternet.org), where he pioneered the study of political online advertising, blogs and subscriber email, collaborated in survey research and analysis of political media use by citizens, and commented on related new developments in online campaigning.  Cornfield has worked with Rightclick Strategies, Buzzmetrics, ElectionMall.com and other firms in consulting capacities.  

Michael received his B.A. from Pomona College and his Ph.D. from Harvard University. Before coming to The George Washington University, he taught at the University of Virginia and the College of William and Mary.  He lives with his wife, Kathryn Mimberg, and son Matthew in Arlington, Virginia.