About Renee Hobbs

Renee Hobbs is a teacher, researcher, educational leader, and advocate for digital and media literacy education. She is a Professor of Communication Studies at the Harrington School of Communication and Media, a new school at the University of Rhode Island USA with 1,700 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in academic programs in journalism, film/media, writing & rhetoric, communication studies, public relations, and library and information studies. She served as Founding Director of the new school and was the Interim Director of the Graduate Program in Library and Information Studies. At the Media Education Lab, Hobbs advances media literacy education through research and community service, developing interdisciplinary scholarship and practice that stands at the intersections of communication, media studies and education.

Hobbs has provided staff development to educators from across the United States and on four continents around the world. Over 25 years, Hobbs has developed award-winning multimedia curriculum and has published more than 150 scholarly articles, professional publications and books including:

• Routledge Companion on Media Education, Copyright and Fair Use (2018)
• Create to Learn: Introduction to Digital Literacy (2017)
• Exploring the Roots of Digital and Media Literacy through Personal Narrative (2016)
• Discovering Media Literacy: Digital Media and Popular Culture in Elementary School (2013)
• Digital and Media Literacy: Connecting Classroom and Culture (2011)
• Copyright Clarity: How Fair Use Supports Digital Learning (2011)
• Reading the Media: Teaching Media Literacy in High School English (2007).

She is the Founding Co-editor of the Journal of Media Literacy Education (www.jmle.org), an online, open access peer-reviewed scholarly journal sponsored by the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE).

In 2012, she served as the Digital Literacy Fellow for the American Library Association (ALA). In 2010, her white paper, Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan of Action, published by the Knight Foundation and the Aspen Institute, offered a comprehensive approach to implement digital and media literacy education to the 75 million students now enrolled in U.S. elementary and secondary schools. As a multimedia producer, she has created a variety of educational websites, games and curricula, including Mind Over Media: Analyzing Contemporary Propaganda, a user-generated content website for college and high school students and My Pop Studio, an online game that introduces media literacy to girls aged 9 – 14  

She received an Ed.D. from Harvard University, M.A. in Communication and B.A. in English Literature and Film/Video Studies from the University of Michigan. Complete biography here.