Allissa V. Richardson

Allissa V. Richardson

Bio:

Allissa V. Richardson is an assistant professor of journalism at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. She researches how marginalized communities use mobile and social media to produce innovative forms of journalism — especially in times of crisis. Richardson is the author of Bearing Witness While Black: African Americans, Smartphones and the New Protest #Journalism (Oxford University Press, 2020). The book explores the lives of 15 mobile journalist-activists who documented the Black Lives Matter movement using only their smartphones and Twitter, from 2013 to 2017. 

Richardson’s research has been published in Digital Journalism, Journal of Communication, Journalism Studies, Convergence, The Black Scholar and many other venues. Richardson serves on the editorial boards of Digital Journalism and the International Journal of Communication. She is an affiliated researcher with New York University’s Center for Critical Race and Digital Studies (CR + DS). Richardson holds a Ph.D. in journalism studies from the University of Maryland College Park; a master’s degree in magazine publishing from Northwestern University’s Medill School; and a bachelor of science in biology from Xavier University of Louisiana.