Ivanka Pjesivac named head of Department of Journalism

Grady College is proud to announce Ivanka Pjesivac as the new head of the Department of Journalism.

“Dr. Pjesivac – an accomplished teacher and researcher – has stepped up and assumed leadership at a great time for the Journalism department,” said Charles N. Davis, dean of Grady College. “With a stellar faculty and a wide range of experiential learning opportunities, she leads an exceptional group. I’m delighted to have her on my leadership team.”

In addition to her new role as Department of Journalism head, Pjesivac is the director of the James M. Cox Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research and an associate professor of journalism.

Pjesivac’s research focuses on media trust and credibility, international and cross-cultural communication, and effects of digital news content. She studies factors and processes that affect news credibility and trust across media platforms and national borders. She also researches the roles of cultural contexts in journalism processes, as well as the relationship between political regimes and media systems. Her research has been published in a variety of  major  journals including  Journalism: Theory, Practice, and Criticism; Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly; Mass Communication and Society; Journalism Studies; Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, Science Communication, and Health Communication, among others.

Pjesivac has presented her research at national and international conferences, winning the awards for top papers from International Communication Association, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, and the Broadcast Education Association. She has also been the recipient of the prestigious AEJMC Emerging Scholar grant for 2017 with co-author Grace Ahn, which awards research and teaching grants to emerging scholars to encourage innovative projects in journalism and mass communication.

Prior to receiving her Ph.D., Dr. Pjesivac worked for nearly a decade at the news department of Radio-Television of Serbia in Belgrade, Serbia.

Pjesivac earned a bachelor’s degree in French language and literature from the University of Belgrade in Serbia, and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in communication and information from the University of Tennessee.

The previous head of the Department of Journalism, Jonathan Peters, is the new associate dean for academic affairs at Grady College.

Author: Sarah Freeman, freemans@uga.edu