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Courses: Integrated Journalism, New Media and Society: Journalism
Alfred Hermida is an online news pioneer, digital media scholar and journalism educator. He is an Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia School of Journalism, and was a founding member of the award-winning BBCNews.com website.
His research interests include the impact of digital communications technology on journalism and new models of journalism education. He co-authored Participatory Journalism: Guarding Open Gates at Online Newspapers, published in 2011 by Wiley-Blackwell. His research has been published in Journalism Studies, Journalism Practice and M/C Journal, and he has contributed numerous chapters to academic texts.
He leads the integrated journalism program at the Graduate School of Journalism. The program is based on a model of professional journalism education based on knowledge-enhancement, emerging media and interdisciplinarity, rather than just on static craft development based on industry-specific norms and structures. Skill development is grounded in learning activities that foster reflexivity into how media is changing due to by the interplay between technologies, journalistic practices and society.
He was named an IBM CAS Canada Research Faculty Fellow in 2010, 2011 and 2012, and won the 2011 UBC President’s Award for Public Education Through Media. He was nominated in the 2011 Digi Awards for Canada’s top social media maven.
IIn 2010, he won a Canadian Online Publishing Award for best blog for Reportr.net, and a Commendation of Merit in the SNCR Excellence in New Communications Awards program for UBC/CBC Radio 3 project, the Canadian Music Wiki. He was also the first online journalist to be awarded a Knight-Wallace Fellowship by the University of Michigan.
An award-winning journalist, Hermida is a 16-year veteran of the BBC and was a founding news editor of the BBC News website in 1997. During his four years as daily news editor, the site won the BAFTA for best news website four years in a row. His has also written for The Globe and Mail, The Wall Street Journal, The Times of London, The Guardian and NPR.
Prof. Hermida joined the website after working in BBC radio and television national outlets, and after spending four years as a BBC foreign correspondent in the Middle East, covering military coups, presidential assassinations and the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.
His list of awards include British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awards for the best news website four years running, from 1998 to 2001; a NetMedia Award for Technology Reporting in 2003; and a NetMedia Award for the Best Story Broken on the Net in 2000.
In 2005, Prof Hermida was a Knight-Wallace fellow at the University of Michigan, and has lectured at the American University in London and at City University. London. He holds a post-graduate diploma in International Journalism from City University, London. He also has a Master of Arts in Latin American Studies from University College, London, and a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations (First Class Honours) from Staffordshire University, Stoke-on-Trent.
Research
Through his research at UBC, and his earlier work at the BBC, Prof Hermida has built an international reputation as an authority on new media, with his work appearing in Journalism Practice, New Media and Society and M/C Journal. His work has explored changes in journalistic practices, challenges to established professional dynamics, the role of user-generated content and processes of innovation.
By investigating the information architecture of digital media and the increased opportunities for audience involvement, he has sought to contribute to rethinking the way we understand journalism in the contemporary media environment.
Professional Highlights
Since joining UBC in 2006, Prof Hermida has launched a series of applied research projects designed to connect academic research with industry. These digital initiatives combine scholarly work, student training and practical applications to investigate new directions for media, while contributing to the culture of innovation in Canada.
They include a partnership with CBC Radio 3 to research and develop a participatory online resource for Canadian music, and a collaboration with IBM Canada to investigate the application of data visualization technologies in journalism.
Hermida was named an IBM CAS Canada Research Faculty Fellow in 2010 and was a finalist in the New Media BC 2009 PopVox Individual Stand Out Awards in the Digital Education category. He won a 2010 Canadian Online Publishing Award for best blog for Reportr.net, and a Commendation of Merit in the SNCR Excellence in New Communications Awards program for UBC/CBC Radio 3 project, the Canadian Music Wiki. He was also the first online journalist to be awarded a Knight-Wallace Fellowship by the University of Michigan.
Recent Work
- Hermida, Alfred (2012) “Tweets and Truth: Journalism as a Discipline of Collaborative Verification.” Journalism Practice, iFirst, March 27, 2012.
- Hermida, Alfred, Fred Fletcher, Darryl Korell and Donna Logan (2012) “Share, Like, Recommend: Decoding the Social Media News Consumer.” Journalism Studies, iFirst, March 22, 2012.
- Singer, J.B., Hermida, A., Domingo, D., Heinonen, A., Paulussen, S., Quandt, T., Reich, Z., Vujnovic, M. (2011). Participatory Journalism: Guarding Open Gates at Online Newspapers. New York: Wiley-Blackwell.
- Hermida, Alfred. (2010) “E-democracy remixed: Learning from the BBC’s Action Network and the shift from a static commons to a participatory multiplex.” JeDEM – eJournal of eDemocracy and Open Government, 2 (2):119 – 130.
- Hermida, Alfred and Bryson, Mary. Review essay: Complexities of Networked Media Within the Transitive Spheres of Globalization. New Media and Society, forthcoming.
- Hermida, Alfred (2010). “From TV to Twitter: How ambient news became ambient journalism.” M/C Journal, 13 (2) May 2010.
- Twittering the news: The emergence of ambient journalism by Alfred Hermida, in Journalism Practice, Future of Journalism special issue, 4 (3), August 2010
- Hermida, Alfred and Thurman, Neil (2008), “A clash of cultures: the integration of user-generated content within professional journalistic frameworks at British newspaper websites”, Journalism Practice 2(3)
- Gotcha: How newsroom norms are shaping participatory journalism online by Neil Thurman and Alfred Hermida, in Garrett Monaghan and Sean Tunney (Eds.) Web Journalism: A New Form of Citizenship. Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press, 2010.
- Let’s talk: How blogging is shaping the BBC’s relationship with the public by Alfred Hermida, in Garrett Monaghan and Sean Tunney (Eds.) Web Journalism: A New Form of Citizenship. Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press, 2010.
- Hermida, Alfred. “The blogging BBC: Journalism blogs at ‘the world’s most trusted news organisation’”. Journalism Practice, 24 April 2009.
- Hermida, A. “Twittering the News: The Emergence of Ambient Journalism”, Future of Journalism conference at Cardiff University, September 2009
