Research Summary
I draw on qualitative and quantitative methods to examine how journalists and news audiences think about and interact with one another.
Education
- B.S., Journalism and Creative Writing, Northwestern University
- Ph.D., Media, Technology, and Society, Northwestern University
Biography
Dr. Jacob L. Nelson (Ph.D., Northwestern University) is an assistant professor at the University of Utah. His teaching and research focuses on the changing relationship between journalism and the public. He is the author of Imagined Audiences: How Journalists Perceive and Pursue the Public (Oxford University Press, 2021), which draws on case studies of three news organizations in Chicago to understand how journalists' assumptions about their audiences shape their pursuits of those audiences. His work has been published in top journalism studies and communication journals such as Digital Journalism, New Media & Society, and Social Media+Society, as well as in public-facing venues such as Columbia Journalism Review, The Conversation, and Nieman Journalism Law. He is currently working on a book project that examines public trust in journalism, healthcare, and higher education.