Paul Mihailidis

Paul Mihailidis is a professor of civic media and journalism and Special Advisor to the Provost at Emerson College in Boston, MA. He is founding program director of the MA in Media Design, and faculty chair and director of the Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change.

Dr. Mihailidis's academic interests in civic media and community engagement are closely connected to his leadership work in higher education. As a scholar with an established research record, 8 books and over 70 papers, book chapters, reports, etc, Dr. Mihailidis has collaborated across disciplines to explore how civic media interventions can support inclusive, just and equitable futures. He's consulted around the world on news and media literacies as tools for civic empowerment and meaningful engagement in communities. This past year, Dr. Mihailidis was commissioned by the Kettering Foundation to produce a report titled Restoring Civic Health in a Culture of Distance, that highlights how media have inserted distance between people and their proximal environments, and what we can do to re-establish meaningful relationships to the institutions we rely on for robust civic health. His research has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Scientific American, Slate, CNN, USA Today, and Newsweek, among others. Dr. Mihailidis was honored with the national researcher of the year award from the National Association of Media Literacy Education. In 2018, he was profiled in the New York Times Education Life Section.

Since joining Emerson in 2011, Dr. Mihailidis has brought in over $1.3 million in grants to support research, public/civic projects, and new technologies. Most recently, he oversaw the Mapping Impactful Media Literacy project, which is funded by a 250K grant to research and design more impactful media literacy approaches for educators and practitioners building equity-driven media-based initiatives with their communities. In addition to a report and field guide for community stakeholders, a forthcoming book, Equitable Media Literacy Futures, argues for more open, transparent and robust media and news interventions to support restorative civic practices.

Professor Mihailidis holds a visiting professorship at Bournemouth University in England, and serves on the advisory board for NAMLE and iCivics. Mihailidis holds a Ph.D. from the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park, an MPhil from Stirling University, and a BA from the University of At Massachusetts, Amherst. 

At Emerson, Professor Mihailidis teaches Media Literacy, Civic Media, Community Activism, and Digital Media and Culture.