- Professor
- Communication Studies
- Email: hobbs@uri.edu
- Office Location: Davis Hall, Rm 108
- Website
Biography
Renee Hobbs is an internationally recognized authority on media literacy education. Through community and global service and as a researcher, teacher, advocate and media professional, Hobbs has worked to advance the quality of digital and media literacy education in the United States and around the world. She is the Founder and Director of the Media Education Lab, whose mission is to improve the quality of media literacy education through research and community service.
Professor Hobbs has written 12 books, published over 200 articles in scholarly and professional journals, and raised more than $5 million in funding for research and community projects in media literacy education. She is the founding co-editor of the Journal of Media Literacy Education, an open-access peer-reviewed journal for the global media education community.
Research
Media literacy, digital literacy, contemporary propaganda, media education pedagogy, social media for learning, online learning, children and media.
Education
- Ed.D., Human Development, Harvard University
- M.A., Communication Studies, University of Michigan
- B.A., English Literature, Film/Video Studies, University of Michigan
Selected Publications
Websites
Books
Hobbs, R. (2021). Media Literacy in Action: Questioning the Media. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Hobbs, R. (2020). Mind Over Media: Propaganda Education for a Digital Age. New York: W.W. Norton. Winner, 2021 PROSE Award for Excellence in Social Sciences.
Scholarly Articles
Hobbs, R., Moen, M., Tang, R. & Steager, S. (2022): Measuring the implementation of media literacy instructional practices in schools: Community stakeholder perspectives. Learning, Media and Technology, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2022.2151621
Hobbs, R. (2022). Media Literacy. In D. Lemish (Ed.), The Routledge International Handbook of Children, Adolescents, and Media, 2nd edition (pp. XX – XX). New York: Routledge.
Hobbs, R. (2022). Postman’s legacy in a ‘post-truth’ landscape of algorithmic propaganda. ETC: A Review of General Semantics, 79 (1/2), 4 – 17.
Mann, I. & Hobbs, R (2022). Exploring how propaganda constructs the enemy. Social Education 86(6), 407 – 412.
Hobbs, R. and Kanižaj, I. (2022). Confronting coronavirus propaganda. In Karen Fowler-Watt and Julian McDougall (Eds), The Palgrave Handbook of Media Misinformation (pp. 139 – 156). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11976-7_10
Hobbs, R. (2021). Hope matters: How an online learning community advanced emotional self-awareness and caring during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Media Literacy Education, 13(3), 123-132. https://doi.org/10.23860/JMLE-2021-13-3-10
Hobbs, R. (2021). “A most mischievous word”: Neil Postman’s approach to propaganda education. Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Misinformation Review. https://doi.org/10.37016/mr-2020-65
Hobbs, R. (2021). Beyond the smear word: Media literacy educators tackle contemporary propaganda. In G. Rawnsley & Y. Ma (Eds), Research Handbook on Political Propaganda (pp. 416 – 428). Edward Elgar Publishing.
Hobbs, R. (2020). Propaganda in an age of algorithmic personalization: Expanding literacy research and practice. Reading Research Quarterly 55(3) 521 – 533. doi:10.1002/rrq.301