Charles L. Briggs is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at UC Berkeley. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. His work combines linguistic and medical anthropology with socio-cultural anthropology and folkloristics.

Daniel C. Hallin is Distinguished Professor of Communication, Emeritus, at the University of California, San Diego, and is a Fellow of the International Communication Association. His work concerns journalism, political communication, and the comparative analysis of media systems.