# Allissa Richardson

Allissa V. Richardson is an American journalist, author, and scholar. She is an associate professor of journalism in the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California and the founding director of the Charlotta Bass Journalism and Justice Lab. She is a proponent of mobile journalism and citizen journalism. Her research, writing, and teaching focus on the use of smartphones by African Americans to document police brutality and other social justice issues, a practice she has termed "mobile witnessing." Richardson is a Nieman Foundation Visiting Journalism Fellow at Harvard University, the 2012 Educator of the Year for the National Association of Black Journalists, and a two-time Apple Distinguished Educator.

## Early life and education

Richardson obtained a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Xavier University of Louisiana, graduating in 2002. Following this, in 2004, Richardson earned her Master's degree of Science in Journalism at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.
Richardson earned her Doctorate of Philosophy in Journalism Studies from the University of Maryland College Park in 2017. Her dissertation is titled, "Bearing Witness While Black: African Americans, Smartphones and the New Protest #Journalism." Richardson explored the lives of 15 mobile journalist-activists who documented the Black Lives Matter movement using only their smartphones and Twitter. She was honored with the Dr. Mabel S. Spencer Award for Excellence in Graduate Achievement.

## Career

Richardson worked as a laboratory researcher for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration while studying biology. Her initial career goal was to become a clinical neonatologist who studied ways to decrease nosocomial infections in newborn babies. Her FDA research focus was antimicrobial resistance. Richardson was accepted to the Howard University College of Medicine in 2002, but declined the offer to matriculate. She completed her degree in biology, but decided to follow her passion for writing instead.
Richardson began her journalism career in 2002 as a general assignment intern for the Observer-Dispatch in Utica, New York, after winning a Freedom Forum scholarship. In 2003, Johnson Publishing Company selected her as its inaugural intern for Jet magazine. She was promoted to assistant editor of Jet at the end of her internship. Richardson chronicled what she described as a "once-in-a-lifetime experience" of working alongside Jet's founder, John H. Johnson, in a personal essay titled "Farewell and Thank You to John H. Johnson", after he died in 2005. She wrote: "When Mr. Johnson died Aug. 8 at the age of 87, I was torn between feeling selfishly saddened by his departure and enormously grateful for the inroads he made in American journalism". Richardson has reported on Capitol Hill as an assistant editor of food policy for Food Chemical News. She also has written on health, technology and culture for O, The Oprah Magazine, The Baltimore Sun and the Chicago Tribune.

### Academic career

At 25, Richardson began her career as an educator as a faculty member of Morgan State University. She served as coordinator of its journalism program, and launched and directed the Morgan MOJO Lab in 2010. Students enrolled in her MOJO Lab classes learned to report news using only iPod Touch devices. Morgan State University became the first and only historically black college in the country to offer mobile journalism courses. Richardson accepted a professorship at Bowie State University in Fall 2012. She relocated the MOJO Lab to its campus. She was a mobile media professor in the Emerging Media and Technology division in the School of Communication until 2017. After earning her doctorate, Richardson joined the journalism faculty at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. She holds a dual appointment in both the journalism and communication departments within the Annenberg School. She studies black feminist media, communication and social justice, mobile journalism, networked journalism, race and the media, and visual communication theory.

## Lectures and media appearances

Richardson has given lectures on mobile journalism throughout Africa, Europe and the United States. She has appeared at Harvard University, South by Southwest, Online EDUCA Berlin, the MacArthur Foundation-supported Digital Media and Learning Conference, and many colleges, universities, libraries and United States embassies. Richardson has appeared on NPR to discuss innovation in journalism and education. You can find more of her work on various other platforms such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, and ABC News. Her company, MOJO MediaWorks, has been featured in Black Enterprise.

## Awards and recognition

* 2002 Freedom Forum Chips Quinn Scholar – Gannett Company
* 2002 Beta Beta Beta Biological Honor Society – Xavier University of Louisiana
* 2003 Weinstein-Luby Outstanding Young Journalist – Medill School of Journalism
* 2007 Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching & Advising – Morgan State University
* 2010 New Voices, Newsroom Innovator – JLab at American University
* 2012 Journalism Educator of the Year – National Association of Black Journalists
* 2012 Top 100 Women in Digital – Digital Sisterhood Network
* 2013 Apple Distinguished Educator – Apple, Inc.
* 2013 Outstanding Junior Faculty Professor of the Year – Bowie State University
* 2013 Baltimore Proclamation of Excellence
* 2014 Nieman Foundation Visiting Journalism Fellow – Harvard University
* 2014 “Top 40 Under 40” Alumna - Xavier University of Louisiana
* 2016 Dr. Mabel S. Spencer Award for Excellence in Graduate Achievement – University of Maryland College Park
* 2016 Global Apple Distinguished Educator – Apple, Inc.
* 2016 Dr. Mabel S. Spencer Award for Excellence in Graduate Achievement - University of Maryland
* 2020 Outstanding Book of the Year Award – National Association of Black Journalists
* 2020 NewsPro Top 10 US Journalism Educator - Crain Communications
* 2020 Frank Luther Mott Book of the Year Award - Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication
* 2020 Tankard Book of the Year Award - Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication
* 2021 Frank Grand Prize in Public Interest Research – University of Florida
* 2021 International Communication Association - Hazel Gaudet-Erskine Best Book Award
* 2022 Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology Award - American Sociological Association
* 2022 Dorothy Lee Award for Outstanding Book in the Ecology of Culture - Media Ecology Association
* 2023 MIT Press Grant Program for Diverse Voices - MIT Press|Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press
* 2024 Dr. Betty Shabazz Changemaker Award - The Shabazz Center

## Selected publications

In 2020, Richardson co-executive produced the virtual reality docu-series "In Protest: Grassroots Stories from the Frontlines," which aired on Facebook Watch and Oculus TV. The series documented the lives of grassroots activists involved in racial justice movements across the United States.
* "The ‘Good News’: How the Gospel of Anti-Respectability Is Shaping Black Millennial Christian Journalism" (2020) – an exploration of Black millennial religious journalism.
* "Endless Mode: Exploring the Procedural Rhetoric of a Black Lives Matter-Themed Newsgame" (2020) – which analyzes how gaming intersects with protest journalism.
* "Dismantling Respectability: The Rise of New Womanist Communication Models in the Era of Black Lives Matter" (2019) – a study on how Black women journalists have reshaped narratives around protest.
Her book, "Bearing Witness While Black: African Americans, Smartphones, and the New Protest #Journalism" explores how Black citizen journalists have been able to utilize smartphones and other forms of media technology to document cases of police brutality, and the significant impact it's had in movements like Black Lives Matter. The book won the 2022 Best Book Award from the American Sociological Association's Communication Division, the 2021 Hazel Gaudet-Erskine Best Book Award from the International Communication Association, and the 2020 AEJMC Tankard Book of the Year Award.

## Activism

Richardson has called for state-level education reform that would mandate the integration of mobile devices in classrooms to create personal learning environments, which empower students to take ownership of their learning experiences.
Richardson is the founder of MOJOPro (formerly known as MOJO MediaWorks). The company creates iPad/iPod storytelling workshops for youth, and mobile learning professional development workshops for educators. In 2012, Richardson co-created the traveling iPod storytelling workshop for the nationally syndicated PBS film, Slavery by Another Name. In 2013, The Washington Post invited her to create a monthly iPad journalism workshop series for journalists, teachers and students in the Washington-Metropolitan area.
Richardson has been an advisory board member for Global Girl Media. The organization trains girls to shoot and edit news using traditional cameras. Richardson created its first mobile journalism curriculum in 2011, and trained young women in South Africa and Morocco to report news using iPod Touch devices.
Richardson has been an advisory board member for Black Girls Code (BGC). BGC trains girls of color to create websites, mobile applications and robot prototypes. In March 2013, Richardson created its first youth mobile journalism workshop that launched at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. The project's novelty earned Richardson and her company acclaim in Black Enterprise magazine as a technology firm on the rise.