Matthew Powers

Ph.D. in Media, Culture and Communication, New York University, 2013

Office: CMU 233
E-Mail: mjpowers@u.washington.edu

Matthew Powers is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication, and Co-Director of the Department’s Center for Journalism, Media and Democracy.

His most recent book, The Journalist’s Predicament: Difficult Choices in a Declining Profession, (with Sandra Vera-Zambrano) was published in 2023 by Columbia University Press. Based on a decade of research in France and the United States, it asks how individuals become attracted to journalism — and how they manage that attraction amidst the many transformations (economic, social, technological) that confront the profession.

With Adrienne Russell, he is editor of Rethinking Media Research for Changing Societies (Cambridge University Press, 2020). Bringing together leading scholars of media and public life, the book asks how researchers can make sense of the massive changes confronting politics and media.

His first book, NGOs as Newsmakers: The Changing Landscape of International News (Columbia, 2018), examines the growing role of non-governmental news organizations in shaping–and sometimes directly producing–coverage of humanitarian and human rights issues. It received the “Outstanding Book Award” from the Journalism Studies Division of the International Communication Association in 2019.

At the University of Washington, Powers teaches undergraduate courses in ethics and comparative media. At the graduate level, he runs seminars in qualitative and comparative methods, as well as in the sociology of journalism and cultural production.

Selected publications

“A Game Worth Playing: The Formation of a Journalistic Illusio in Late Nineteenth Century France and the United States” (with Sandra Vera-Zambrano). Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism, 25(3): 511-527, 2024.
“The Direction and Demographics of Journalists’ Trajectories: Evidence from One American City, 2015-2021.” Journalism Studies, 23(3): 392-411, 2022.
“Journalistic Judgement in Comparative Perspective: A Weberian Analysis of France and the United States.” (with Sandra Vera-Zambrano). International Journal of Press/Politics, 27(2): 478-496, 2022.
“Endure, Invest, Ignore: How French and American Journalists React to Economic Constraints and Technological Transformations” Journal of Communication, 2019
“A Trojan Horse for Marketing? Solutions Journalism in French Regional Media” (with Pauline Amiel), European Journal of Communication, 2019.
“The Universal and the Contextual of Media Systems: Research Design, Epistemology, and the Production of Comparative Knowledge” (with Sandra Vera-Zambrano), International Journal of Press/Politics, 23(2): 143-160, 2018.
“How Journalists Use Social Media in France and the United States: Analyzing Technology Use Across Journalistic Fields” (with Sandra Vera-Zambrano). New Media & Society, 20(8): 2728-2744, 2018.
“Les études comparatives comme des relations sociales: Les coulisses réflexives d’une enquête sur les pratiques politiques du journalisme local en France et aux Etats Unis.” [Comparative research as social relations: Backstage reflections of a survey of local journalism practices in France and the United States.”] (with Sandra Vera-Zambrano). Sur Le Journalisme, 6(2): 20-27, 2017.
“Journalistic Autonomy and Democratic Accountability in Public Media: A Comparative Analysis of Best Policy Practices in 12 Leading Democracies.” (with Rodney Benson & Tim Neff). International Journal of Communication, 11: 1-22, 2017.
“The News Crisis Compared: The Impact of the Journalism Crisis on Local News Ecosystems in Toulouse (France) and Seattle (US).” In R.K. Nielsen, Local Journalism, 2016.
“Beyond Boon or Bane: Using Normative Theories to Evaluate the Newsmak i ng Efforts of NGOs.” Journalism Studies, 2016.
“NGO Publicity and Reinforcing Path Dependencies: Explaining the Persistence of Media-Centered Publicity Strategies.” International Journal of Press/Politics, 2016.
“Explaining the Formation of Online News Startups in France and the United States: A Field Analysis.” Journal of Communication, 2016.
“Opening the News Gates? Humanitarian and human rights NGOs in the US News Media, 1990-2010.” Media, Culture & Society, 2015.
“Contemporary NGO-Journalist Relations: Reviewing and Evaluating an Emergent Area of Research.” Sociology Compass, 2015.
“The role of qualitative methods in political communication research: Past, present, and future.” (with David Karpf, Daniel Kreiss, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen). International Journal of Communication, 2015.
“The new boots on the ground: NGOs in the changing landscape of international news.” Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism, 2015.
“The structural organization of NGO publicity: Explaining divergent publicity strategies at humanitarian and human rights organizations.” International Journal of Communication, 8: 90-107, 2014.
“Is the Internet homogenizing or diversifying the news? External pluralism in the U.S., Danish and French Press.” International Journal of Press/Politics 19(2): 246-265.
“In forms that are familiar and yet-to-be invented: American journalism and the discourse of technologically specific work.” Journal of Communication Inquiry, 36(1): 24-43, 2012.
“Media Systems On-line and Off: Comparing the form of news in the United States, Denmark and France.” (Co-author with Rodney Benson (lead), Mark Ørsten, Ida Schultz, and Sandra Vera). Journal of Communication, 62(1): 21-38, 2012.
“Public Media and Political Independence: Lessons for the future of journalism from around the world.” (co-author with Rodney Benson), Policy report for Free Press.