Tamar Wilner
- Assistant Professor
Contact Info
Personal Links
Biography —
Tamar Wilner is an assistant professor in the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas. She joined the KU faculty in fall 2024. Tamar’s research specialties include news literacy, media trust, and misinformation. She also studies the gap between journalism research and journalism practice. An interdisciplinary scholar, Tamar completed a postdoctoral appointment at the University of Texas School of Information, working on the Co-Designing for Trust digital literacy project, and she is interested in connecting with those who study digital literacies and the research-practice gap from a variety of fields.
Tamar received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas School of Journalism in May 2023, where her dissertation examined the roles of news skepticism and news cynicism in news literacy education. Previously, Tamar worked for 15 years as a print and online reporter and editor, covering topics ranging from local music to urban development to renewable energy and corporate sustainability, as well as writing about changes within the media itself.
Education —
With Honors
Research —
Research interests:
- News, Media, Information, Digital Literacies
- Media Trust and Credibility
- Misinformation and Disinformation
- Audience Studies
- Translational Science
Selected Publications —
Wilner, T., Clements-Housser, K., Bélair-Gagnon, V., & Sridharan, N. (In press). Journalists’ views on the research-practice gap. Journalism.
Riedl, M. J., Masullo, G. M., & Wilner, T. (In press). Focus groups in journalism research: A reappraisal. In M. P. Boyle & A. Rainear (Eds.), Evolving Journalism Research Methods: Applications, Trends, Analyses. Routledge.
Elizabeth, J., & Wilner, T. (2023). Democracy Infusion Project curriculum. Distributed by Montclair State University. https://collaborativejournalism.org/democracyday/curriculum/
Masullo, G. M., Wilner, T., & Stroud, N. J. (2022). What social media could be: Normative frameworks for evaluating digital public spaces. Social Media + Society 8(4). https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/20563051221130447
Brown, D. K., Wilner, T., & Masullo, G. M. (2021). “It’s just not the whole story”: Black perspectives of protest portrayals. The Howard Journal of Communications.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10646175.2021.2012852?journalCode=uhjc20
Wilner, T., Montiel Valle, D. A., & Masullo, G. M. (2021). “To me, there’s always a bias”: Understanding the public’s folk theories about journalism. Journalism Studies.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1461670X.2021.1979422?src=
Wilner, T., Wallace, R., Lacasa-Mas, I., & Goldstein, E. (2021). The tragedy of errors: Political ideology, perceived journalistic quality, and media trust. Journalism Practice. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17512786.2021.1873167
Wilner, T., & Holton, A. (2020). Breast cancer prevention and treatment: Misinformation on Pinterest in 2018. American Journal of Public Health, 110, S300-S304. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2020.305812
IREX. (2020). Learn to Discern, Media Literacy: Trainers Manual. https://www.irex.org/sites/default/files/node/resource/learn-to-discern-media-literacy-curriculum-english-3.pdf
Chen, G. M., Muddiman, A., Wilner, T., Pariser, E., & Stroud, N. J. (2019). We should not get rid of incivility online. Social Media + Society, 5(3), 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305119862641
Awards & Honors —
2024: Nafziger-White-Salwen Dissertation Award, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication
2022: First Place Student Paper, Mass Communication & Society Division, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Conference, Detroit, MI
2021: Kappa Tau Alpha honors society, Top Scholar Award, University of Texas chapter
2021: Graduate Research Award, Mass Communication & Society Division, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication
2019: First Place, Moeller Student Paper Competition, Mass Communication & Society Division, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Conference. Toronto, Canada