I’m the programme director for the Global Media and Communication MA at National University Ireland Galway and I also teach journalism (social media) in the undergraduate and graduate programmes with a focus on social and digital journalism and media theory.
My research agenda is focused on the ways in which social media have impacted journalism and I am particularly interested in the ways that bad-faith actors are weaponising journalism norms in a social and digital media context. I draw from Andrew Chadwick’s hybrid media theory in understanding how social media has created new ways that information can flow in a hybrid media environment.
I recently completed a PhD which included the following research articles as part of those studies:
- The prevalence of homophily among political journalists from the US, UK, Ireland and Canada on Twitter published at Media and Communication.
- How commercial imperatives help shape news organisations’ social media policies for journalists is published at Journalism Practice
- Current best practice for new and student journalists on Twitter for a Peter Lang series (in press but I can supply a copy if you email).
I started at NUI Galway in 2021 after 10 years as a tenured associate professor at Hofstra University on Long Island in New York where I helped redesign the journalism programme to better prepare students for the hybrid media industry in social media, data journalism and multi-platform storytelling. I also founded their award-winning student news site, Long Island Report.
An accidental Irish emigrant I had only planned on staying 12 months in New York when I arrived in September 2000 on a year’s career break from the Irish Independent. Due back in Dublin in September 2001 I ended up staying on in NY to become the founding editor of IrishCentral. com, the industry-leading U.S.-based Irish web site. During my time in NY I helped non-profits such as the Rory Staunton Foundation, the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform and the Irish charity GOAL, build out their social and digital strategies.
Prior to switching to digital in 2000, and then academia in 2008, I worked at international newspaper titles including the Australian Financial Review (Fairfax) and Sydney Telegraph (News International) in Sydney; the Sunday Independent, Irish Independent and Evening Herald in Ireland and the Irish Voice newspaper and Irish America magazine in New York and I’ve written about the changes in the media industry and media education for Poynter and Education Shift.
