AUTHOR. JOURNALISM SCHOLAR. PROFESSOR.

bio.

Dr. Allissa V. Richardson is an Associate Professor of Journalism and Communication at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School and the founding director of the USC Charlotta Bass Journalism & Justice Lab, the first Black media studies research center on the West Coast. Her research examines how Black communities use media technologies to witness, archive, contest, and survive systems of racial power. Working at the intersection of journalism studies, Black studies, digital media, civic technology, and critical geography, Dr. Richardson explores how emerging technologies shape public memory, visibility, and democratic storytelling.

Dr. Richardson is the author of the award-winning book Bearing Witness While Black: African Americans, Smartphones and the New Protest #Journalism (Oxford University Press, 2020), which examines how Black citizen journalists used smartphones and Twitter to document the Black Lives Matter movement between 2014 and 2018. The book received numerous honors, including the American Sociological Association’s Best Book Award and the AEJMC Tankard Book Award. Her forthcoming book, Canceled: How Smartphones and Social Media Democratized Public Shaming (MIT Press), investigates cancel culture, digital visibility, and the politics of networked accountability.

A pioneer in mobile journalism (MOJO), Dr. Richardson launched the nation’s first smartphone-only college newsroom in 2010 at Morgan State University. She later expanded the curriculum internationally through partnerships in Morocco and South Africa, work that earned her the National Association of Black Journalists’ 2012 Journalism Educator of the Year. Apple also inducted her into its Distinguished Educator program for her innovative uses of technology in journalism education.

Through the Charlotta Bass Journalism & Justice Lab, Dr. Richardson now leads projects exploring artificial intelligence, immersive journalism, geospatial storytelling, and ethical archival preservation. One major initiative is the Second Draft Project, an AI-powered interactive oral history archive developed in partnership with the USC Digital Repository. The project features conversational interviews with figures such as Lora King, Ilyasah Shabazz, Philonise Floyd, and civil rights attorney Lee Merritt, using natural language processing to allow users to engage authentic testimony in real time.

She is also developing Monumental, a mobile storytelling and public memory platform that uses geolocation technology, oral history, immersive journalism, and participatory mapping to document Black cultural landmarks threatened by climate disaster, displacement, and historical erasure. Initially centered in Altadena, California after the 2025 Eaton Fire, the project explores what Dr. Richardson calls “Black sacred cartography”: community-centered digital mapping practices that transform navigation into acts of witnessing and preserve Black spatial memory before it disappears.

Dr. Richardson’s scholarship has appeared in journals such as Journal of Communication, Digital Journalism, Journalism Studies, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, and The Black Scholar. She has lectured widely to audiences ranging from SXSW and Microsoft to Harvard University and the NFL, and her expertise has been featured in outlets including The New York Times, NPR, BBC, MSNBC, Vox, PBS, and MIT Technology Review.

She has held fellowships at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Harvard Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Columbia University’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism, and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Dr. Richardson serves on the editorial boards of Digital Journalism, Journalism Practice, International Journal of Communication, and The International Journal of Press/Politics.

Dr. Richardson holds a Ph.D. in Journalism Studies from the University of Maryland, a master’s degree from Northwestern University’s Medill School, and a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Xavier University of Louisiana, where she was later named a Top 40 Under 40 alumna.

— AWARDS AND HONORS —

Dr. Betty Shabazz Changemaker Award - The Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center (2024)
MIT Press Grant Program for Diverse Voices - Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press (2023)
Book of the Year Award - American Sociological Association, CITAMS Division (2022)
Dorothy Lee Award for Outstanding Book in the Ecology of Culture - Media Ecology Association (2022)
Visiting Fellowship - Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy School (2022)
Tankard Book of the Year Award - Assoc. for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication (2021)
Hazel Gaudet-Erskine Best Book Award - International Communication Association (2021)  
The frank Prize in Public Interest Research - Univ. of Florida (2021)
USC Libraries Floyd Covington Fellowship - University of Southern California (2021)
Kappa Tau Alpha/Frank Luther Mott Book of the Year Award - Assoc. for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (2020)
Outstanding Book Award - National Association of Black Journalists (2020)
Knight Innovation Fellowship at Tow Center for Digital Journalism - Columbia Univ. (2020)
Berkman Klein Center for Internet + Society Fellowship - Harvard Law School (2020)
NewsPro Top 10 U.S. Journalism Educator - Crain Communications (2020)
Africana Digital Humanities Institute Fellowship - Univ. of Arizona (2019)
Spencer Award for Excellence in Graduate Achievement - Univ. of Maryland (2016)
Global Apple Distinguished Educator - Apple, Inc. (2016)
Nieman Foundation Journalism Fellowship - Harvard University (2014)
Named “Top 40 Under 40” Alumna - Xavier University of Louisiana (2014)
Baltimore Proclamation of Excellence - County Executive’s Office (2013)
Outstanding Junior Faculty Award - Bowie State University (2013)
Apple Distinguished Educator - Apple, Inc. (2013)
Journalism Educator of the Year - National Association of Black Journalists (2012)
Top 100 Women in Digital - Digital Sisterhood Network (2012)
Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching - Morgan State University (2007)
Weinstein-Luby Outstanding Young Journalist - Medill School of Journalism (2003)
Freedom Forum Chips Quinn Scholar - Gannett Company (2002)