Dr. Sandra Banjac

JSC Research Fellow

Project: Audience expectations of news in the digital age

Research Interests

• Journalistic Roles ⎜Audience Expectations ⎜Role Theory ⎜ Boundaries of Journalism ⎜Lifestyle Journalism ⎜Journalism Culture ⎜Intersectionality

Sandra Banjac is an assistant professor at the Centre for Media and Journalism Studies, University of Groningen, The Netherlands. She completed her PhD in Journalism Studies at the Department of Communication at the University of Vienna. Her research explores the relationship between journalists and audiences, focusing in particular on journalistic roles and audience expectations. More broadly, her research interests include the boundaries of journalism, lifestyle journalism, journalism culture, and intersectional approaches to exploring journalism’s inequalities.

Prior to pursuing a PhD, she spent two years at Hamburg University working as a research associate with the Work Package ‘Journalistic ethics and work practices in conflict societies’ within the Media, Conflict and Democratisation (MeCoDEM) project. Before that, she worked for four years as a researcher with Media Monitoring Africa – a media and human rights research and advocacy organisation in Johannesburg, South Africa. She completed an MA in Journalism and Media within Globalisation from the universities of Aarhus, Amsterdam, and Hamburg with a thesis that explored communication strategies between journalists and public relations professionals on the topic of human trafficking. This entire journalism journey started with a BA in Broadcasting (Radio and Television) at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA), Edith Cowan University in Perth, Australia.

Her work has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including Journalism, New Media & Society, Digital Journalism, Journalism Practice, and Poetics, as well as in edited books. She is chair of the YECREA management team, and social media editor for the journal Journalism Studies.