Welcome to the visual communication resources site for Nicole Dahmen. Dahmen is an Assistant Professor at the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon. Her research focuses on ethical and technological issues in visual communication, with an emphasis on photojournalism in the Digital Age. Dahmen’s research is published in such leading journals as Visual Communication Quarterly, Newspaper Research Journal, and Journalism Studies. Her work on visual ethics centers on the “power of the image” and the associated moral responsibilities of visual communicators. Recent work in this area includes visual framing of Hurricane Katrina and 9/11 and study of graphic news media photographs. In regard to technology, her work examines the visual presentation of mass-mediated information and associated technologies—both from a content and effects perspective. Recent work in this area includes cutting-edge eye tracking research and a book chapter on the changing role of photojournalists and the considerations related to static photographs in a dynamic digital space. Visit her blog on Visual Communication in the Digital Age: https://nicoledahmen.wordpress.com
Dahmen also has extensive professional design experience, ranging from the development of content to design and production for multiple platforms. She has been working with desktop publishing software since the mid-1990s and has developed and executed extensive print materials and digital images. Her design experience also crosses into research, writing, and content-development with public relations and strategic communication. She has been working with multimedia design since the infancy of the web, gaining experience in all stages of web development, from information architecture to content and usability. And with the rapid-evolution of media technologies, her content and design experience includes video and social media.
Dahmen spent seven years at the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University as an Assistant and later Associate Professor prior to joining the faculty at the SOJC at the University of Oregon. She received her M.M.C. degree from the Manship School of Mass Communication at LSU and her Ph.D. from the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She lives in Eugene, Oregon with her husband and their two children.