Biography

Jennifer Midberry, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in The Media School’s Journalism unit. Her research focuses on ethical issues related to photographing vulnerable people, empathic and other affective responses to photojournalism of social issues, and visual stereotypes, with an emphasis on depictions of Islam and the Middle East in U.S. media. She currently teaches Visual Communication and Photojournalism Reporting courses. She earned her doctorate in Media and Communication from Temple University, and holds a master’s degree in Near Eastern studies from New York University and a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Messiah College. Previous to her academic career, she worked as a photojournalist and photo editor at organizations such as the Philadelphia Daily News, Associated Press, AOL News, and ABC News.

Publications

• Midberry, J. (2017). Photos of the day online galleries: Representing a more nuanced world. Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism, 19, 700-715. doi: 10.1177/1464884916636124
• Midberry, J. (2017). “Only image I ever see”: U.S. media consumers’ perceptions of Iraqis. Journalism Studies, 18, 925-942. doi: 10.1080/1461670X.2015.1088399
• Midberry, J. (2017). Photos of breastfeeding in uniform: contesting discourses of masculinity, nationalism, and the military. Feminist Media Studies. doi: 10.1080/14680777.2017.1283340
• Nguyen, V.A., Boyd-Graber, J., Resnik, P., Cai, D., Midberry, J., & Wang, Y. (2014). Modeling topic control to detect influence in conversations using nonparametric topic models. Machine Learning, 95, 381-421. doi:10.1007/s10994-013-5417-9

Selected Conference Presentations

• Midberry, J., Comfort, R. N., & Roskos, J. E. (2018) Celebrating Life or Adversity? The Redefinition of Features in the Pictures of the Year International Contest. Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Conference, Washington, DC. (forthcoming) Top Faculty Paper, Visual Communication
• Midberry, J. (2016) Visual Frames of War Photojournalism, Empathy, Compassion, and Information Seeking. National Communication Association Conference, Philadelphia, PA. Top Student Paper, Visual Communication
• Midberry, J. (2016) Evoking Compassion, Empathy, and Information Seeking: The Human-cost-of-war Frame. Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Conference, Minneapolis, MN. Top Student Paper, Visual Communication
• Midberry, J. (2015) Visual Frames of Syria War Photojournalism, Empathy, and Information Seeking. Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Conference, San Francisco, CA. Top Student Paper, Visual Communication
• Midberry, J. (2014) Photos of the day galleries: Representing a more nuanced world. Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Conference, Montreal, Canada. Top Student Paper, Visual Communication