Avery Holton
Avery serves as Chair of the nationally ranked Department of Communication at the University of Utah. He is Co-Coordinator of Research for the University’s Center for Excellence in Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications Research (UCEER), which focuses on genetic communication and is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Additionally, he is the Vice-Head of the Council of Divisions for the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) and Director for the Utah Artificial Intelligence Research Center in the Humanities (UT-ARCH).
His research engages journalistic labor and identity, mental health and well-being among journalists and in newsrooms, and constructs of health, identity and ability. He is co-author of The Paradox of Connection (University of Illinois Press, 2024) and co-editor of Happiness in Journalism (Routledge, 2024) along with more than 90 other peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and special issues.
He previously served as an Associate Chair (2018-2020) for the Department and was the University’s Student Media Faculty Advisor (2016-2023). As Director of the University’s Communication Institute (2020-2021), he helped establish the largest historical donor gift for the Department of Communication. A $1.5 million gift from Edna Anderson-Taylor provided a new physical and communal space for the center as well as perpetual support funds. Additionally, in 2023 he helped coordinate an educational partnership with the Great Salt Lake Collaborative that partners more than a dozen media organizations with Utah’s College of Humanities around news coverage of environmental, cultural, and climate issues in the west and across the nation.
The University of Utah Department of Communication ranks among the Top 10 in the country in areas of research publication and citation, book publication, and grant engagement (more than $60 million in the Department as of December 2023).
Avery was selected as a Vice President's Clinical and Translational Research Scholar (2018-2020) and as a Digital Journalism Research Fellow with Oslo Metropolitan University in 2019. He was also named a 2018 National Humanities Center Summer Fellow and a Rising Star in the Humanities (2014).
He completed his PhD as a William Powers Fellow in the College of Communication at the University of Texas Austin (2013) where he also received a Doctoral Certification in Disabilities Studies. In addition to his journalism background, he was a communications specialist for the Triple-A Round Rock Express, then part of the Houston Astros baseball organization.
He makes his home in Salt Lake City with his wife, Katy, their daughters, Luna and Bea, and their pups, Dezi and Roark.
Address: Salt Lake City, UT
His research engages journalistic labor and identity, mental health and well-being among journalists and in newsrooms, and constructs of health, identity and ability. He is co-author of The Paradox of Connection (University of Illinois Press, 2024) and co-editor of Happiness in Journalism (Routledge, 2024) along with more than 90 other peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and special issues.
He previously served as an Associate Chair (2018-2020) for the Department and was the University’s Student Media Faculty Advisor (2016-2023). As Director of the University’s Communication Institute (2020-2021), he helped establish the largest historical donor gift for the Department of Communication. A $1.5 million gift from Edna Anderson-Taylor provided a new physical and communal space for the center as well as perpetual support funds. Additionally, in 2023 he helped coordinate an educational partnership with the Great Salt Lake Collaborative that partners more than a dozen media organizations with Utah’s College of Humanities around news coverage of environmental, cultural, and climate issues in the west and across the nation.
The University of Utah Department of Communication ranks among the Top 10 in the country in areas of research publication and citation, book publication, and grant engagement (more than $60 million in the Department as of December 2023).
Avery was selected as a Vice President's Clinical and Translational Research Scholar (2018-2020) and as a Digital Journalism Research Fellow with Oslo Metropolitan University in 2019. He was also named a 2018 National Humanities Center Summer Fellow and a Rising Star in the Humanities (2014).
He completed his PhD as a William Powers Fellow in the College of Communication at the University of Texas Austin (2013) where he also received a Doctoral Certification in Disabilities Studies. In addition to his journalism background, he was a communications specialist for the Triple-A Round Rock Express, then part of the Houston Astros baseball organization.
He makes his home in Salt Lake City with his wife, Katy, their daughters, Luna and Bea, and their pups, Dezi and Roark.
Address: Salt Lake City, UT
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Perspectives on Change, Challenges, and Solutions."
Since the purpose of journalism has been to provide citizens with useful information so that they can make individual and collective decisions about their governments, lives, communities, and society, it is important to understand how peripheral news actors in journalism such as web analytics companies are altering news production and culture. Such consideration can provide insights into what news is today and what it may look like in the near future. Drawing on interviews with we analytics managers representing some of the leading web analytics companies in the world, this study examines how these companies perceive their roles in journalism and how they may be altering news production and culture.
Perspectives on Change, Challenges, and Solutions."
Since the purpose of journalism has been to provide citizens with useful information so that they can make individual and collective decisions about their governments, lives, communities, and society, it is important to understand how peripheral news actors in journalism such as web analytics companies are altering news production and culture. Such consideration can provide insights into what news is today and what it may look like in the near future. Drawing on interviews with we analytics managers representing some of the leading web analytics companies in the world, this study examines how these companies perceive their roles in journalism and how they may be altering news production and culture.