Dr. Miya Williams Fayne is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research investigates the Black press and Black news audiences in the new media age. She uses qualitative methodology, such as interviews, focus groups, content analysis, and analysis of web metrics, to examine digital journalism production and consumption practices. She is particularly interested in how news content circulates in the digital Black public sphere. Williams Fayne’s book, The Blackish Press: Content, Ownership, and Audience of Digital Black News Outlets, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press. Her research articles have been published in top journals such as Digital Journalism, The International Journal of Press/Politics, Journalism, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Journalism Studies, and Mass Communication and Society.
Dr. Williams Fayne teaches undergraduate courses including Journ 562: Mass Media and Racial Diversity and Journ 669: Literary Aspects of Journalism, and the graduate course Journ 824: Race, Ethnicity, and Media. She is an affiliate of the African American Studies department and advisor for the student publication The Black Voice. Williams Fayne is also an affiliate of the Center for Critical Race and Digital Studies and an executive board member of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication’s (AEJMC) Minorities and Communication Division.
She has received research fellowships/grants from Columbia University’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism, AEJMC’s Newspaper and Online News Division, Northwestern University, and California State University, Fullerton. Her work has also received top paper awards from AEJMC’s Minorities and Communication Division and the National Communication Association’s African American Communication and Culture Division. In 2020, her article “The Great Digital Migration: Exploring What Constitutes the Black Press Online” was named runner-up for Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly‘s Outstanding Article of The Year Award.
Williams Fayne holds a Ph.D. from Northwestern University in media, technology and society, an M.A. from Emerson College in publishing and writing, and a B.A. from the University of Southern California in print journalism.