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Staff Profile

Dr Murray Dick

Senior Lecturer In Multimedia Journalism

  • Telephone: +44 (0) 191 208 4640
  • Address: Media Culture and Heritage
    School of Arts and Cultures
    Room 2.86
    2nd Floor Armstrong Building
    Newcastle University
    Newcastle upon Tyne
    NE1 7RU

    Consultation & feedback hours 2020-21: email me for an appointment
Background

Introduction

I lecture in Multimedia Journalism in the department of Media, Culture, Heritage.

Before moving permanently into academia (in 2009), I was a trainer in online research at the BBC, and latterly at the Centre for Investigative Journalism. I was also an occasional freelance technology journalist.

During my time at the BBC (2004-2008) I established a training praxis that involved applying theories from the field of Information Science to the practices of professional journalism, 

This knowledge informed much of my early research, including my first monograph: Search: Theory and Practice in Journalism Online (Palgrave 2013).

Today, my approach to teaching and learning at Newcastle is primarily concerned with the embodied communication of visual data.

Qualifications

  • PhD ('News Values in Online and Data-visual Journalism') (Brunel University, London)
  • Postgraduate Diploma in Academic Practice (Brunel University, London)
  • MSc in Information Science, with distinction (City University, London)
  • BA(Hons) in English (University of York)

Membership of scholarly societies

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (2012-present).

Academic activities

Editorial Board member: Journalism Practice

Research

Summary

My PhD by publication ('News Values in Online and Data-visual Journalism' [2015]) was concerned with how news values are operationalized in online journalism and in visual data journalism. This early phase in my research involved reflexive and ethnographic methods, with a particular focus on newsroom ethnography.

More recently my research has shifted towards visual methods. Over the last few years I have devised and developed a new (multilevel discursive) theoretical framework for exploring data visualizations.

I have written a number of articles, chapters and reference works on this topic, and, in 2020, a monograph: The Infographic: A history of data graphics in news and communications, which is published by MIT Press.

An excerpt from this book has been re-published by TIME magazine, and by Popular Science.

I am currently undertaking a number of projects concerned with applying cognitive psychological and linguistic methods to data visualizations.

Teaching

Teaching roles

I lead the following modules:

I also contribute to teaching, and supervise students on the following modules:

Administrative roles

I am currently acting Degree Program Director for our International Multimedia Journalism MA programme.

Publications