Inspired by the series on social media by Danny Brown, “Discussing JMC with…” features a collection of interviews with academics from across the U.S. and abroad discussing current topics and trends in journalism and mass communication.

Francesca Dillman Carpentier is an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her teaching interests include television production, telecommunication management and policy, and media effects. Her research questions focus on how we process mass-mediated messages, with additional focus on understanding what motivates us to select certain media offerings over others.

Francesca’s academic work has been published in a number of journals inside and outside of the communication discipline, for example Media Psychology, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, International Journal on Media Management, Journal of School Violence, and Personality and Individual Differences. She has also written television scripts for children’s and educational videos.

How do you define mass communication?

I would broadly define ‘mass communication’ as any message delivered in any number of vehicles (high tech, low tech, or no tech) to an audience consisting of a group of individuals who might or might not share a number of similarities. [Read more...]