A Pulitzer Prize-winner and a doctoral student are among this spring’s crop of fellows at the Kennedy School of Government’s Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ellen Goodman ’63, Blogform Publishing CEO Michael Maier, former ABC political correspondent Linda Douglass, and University of California at Los Angeles doctoral student Elizabeth Stein are this semester’s fellows, the Center announced Monday.

In addition, Mark Halperin ’87, the political director of ABC News, will serve as a non-resident joint fellow at the Institute of Politics and the Shorenstein Center.

There was substantial competition to garner the fellowship—which funds research projects addressing the influence of the press on public politics—according to Shorenstein Center Fellows and Programs Administrator Edith Holway,

There were fourty-five applicants this semester and fellows were “selected on the currency of their proposal” and in light of past projects, Holway said.

Douglass, who became interested in politics while working on a political campaign as a college senior, will examine the factors that have influenced network news coverage of immigration issues.

Maier, whose grandfather was a journalist arrested by the Nazis in Austria, will study how blogs, Internet news outlets, and social media have affected both politics and the media industry and the ways that readers can participate in news media.

“There is no more strict line between journalists and consumers,” Maier said.

Stein will research political activists’ use of the media to gauge government tolerance and assess the risk of participation in anti-regime activities.

Goodman, who was awarded the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Commentary, will examine a possible new gender gap in news media and the Internet.

Goodman, a 1963 graduate of Radcliffe College and a former Neiman Fellow, has published several books and worked for Newsweek magazine, the Boston Globe and other publications.

Halperin, founder and editor of ABCNews.com’s “The Note,” will work on an undisclosed project with Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy Mark McKinnon, who served as chief media advisor to President George W. Bush during the 2000 and 2004 election campaigns.

Halperin was not active in journalism during his undergraduate years, but looks forward to studying the press at Harvard this semester.

“This was the right time,” the former Mather House resident said. “This is a chance to learn from students and from Harvard overall.”

Douglass too hopes to benefit tremendously from a semester at the Center.

“I can already tell that this is such a rich environment,” she said. “And I’ve only been here one and a half days.”

—Staff writer Alexandra C. Wood can be reached at awood@fas.harvard.edu.