Ruth Palmer

Ruth Palmer is Associate Professor of Communication at IE University, where her courses include Communication Foundations, Public Opinion and Persuasion, and Political Communication in the Bachelor, and Media Relations in the Master of Corporate Communication. She has also taught in the IE-Brown University Summer Program, and co-directed the IE Communications Lab. Her research explores how people think about and relate to the news media. Her articles have appeared in the journals Journalism, Journalism Studies and Literary Journalism Studies. Her book Becoming the News: How Ordinary People Respond to the Media Spotlight (Columbia University Press, 2017) explores how it feels for private citizens to interact with journalists and become the subject of a news story. She received her PhD in Communication from Columbia University in 2013.

ACADEMIC EXPERIENCE

• Assistant Professor of Communication, IE University, 2013 – Present

• Case Writer, The Case Consortium, Columbia University, 2009 – 2013

• Instructor/Co-instructor/Teaching Assistant, Columbia University, 2007 – 2012

ACADEMIC BACKGROUND

• Ph.D in Communication and Media Studies, Columbia University, 2007 – 2013

• Masters, Communication and Media Studies, Columbia University, 2006 – 2007

• B.A, Comparative Literature, Bryn Mawr College, 1997 – 2001

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

• Palmer, R., Toff, B. (2022). “Neither Absent Nor Ambient: Incidental News Exposure From the Perspective of News Avoiders in the UK, United States, and Spain.” International Journal of Press/Politics

• Fink, K. Palmer, R. (2020). “We have to stand out to blend in: Ordinary transgender people speak about being subjects of news stories”. Journalism Studies, Vol. 21 (8): 1109 – 1126

• Palmer, R., Toff, B., Nielsen, R.K. (2020). “The Media Covers Up a Lot of Things: Watchdog Ideals Meet Folk Theories of Journalism”. Journalism Studies, Vol. 21 (14): 1973 – 1989