Renee Hobbs is one of the world’s leading authorities on digital and media literacy education. She is Professor of Communication at the University of Rhode Island’s Harrington School of Communication and Media, and she has published more than 200 scholarly and professional publications on digital and media literacy, digital learning, contemporary propaganda, professional development in education, and copyright and fair use. Renee Hobbs is the author of 12 books including Mind Over Media: Propaganda Education in Digital Age, which won the 2021 PROSE Award for Excellence in Social Sciences from the American Association of Publishers. She is also the founding co-editor of the Journal of Media Literacy Education, the peer-reviewed, open access journal of the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE).  Renee Hobbs is also the Founder of the Media Education Lab, an online community that advances the quality of media literacy education through scholarship and community service. Learn more: https://mediaeducationlab.com.

Hyeon-Seon Jeong is Professor of Korean Language Education at Gyeongin National University of Education, Director of the Centre for Media Literacy Research, and Founder and Course Leader of the M.Ed./EdD. programs in Digital Media Education. Her research interests include children’s and adolescents’ digital media literacy, critical curriculum redesign, classroom-based research with teacher-researchers, and parents’ digital parenting from a child-rights perspective. Through international collaborations across digital childhood and media education, she has contributed to Learning Beyond the School: International Perspectives on the Schooled Society; Learning to Live with Datafication: Educational Case Studies and Initiatives from Across the World; and The Routledge Handbook of Media Education Futures Post-Pandemic.

Michael Dezuanni is Professor in the School of Communication at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia.  He is program leader for the ‘Creating Better Digital Futures’ program in QUT’s Digital Media Research Centre, and he is a Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child. Michael has been involved with media literacy education as a teacher and researcher for over 30 years and is the current Chair of the Australian Media Literacy Alliance. 

Jad Melki is professor of journalism and media studies and director of the Institute of Media Research and Training at Lebanese American University. He is visiting professor at the Salzburg Academy and at Bournemouth University, and affiliated researcher at the University of Maryland. Melki’s research is at the intersection of media literacy, journalism, war, gender and health communication. His book Media Literacy of the Oppressed provides alternative approaches to media literacy pedagogies for marginalized communities and oppressed people of the Global South, tackling unexplored issues of media literacy of war, terrorism, infodemics, populism, colonialism, genocide, and intersectional feminism.

Maarit Jaakkola, PhD, is co-director of Nordicom, a centre for Nordic media research, and associate professor in journalism at the Department of Journalism, Media and Communication (JMG) at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. She is also an adjunct professor in journalism at Tampere University in Finland. Her latest monographs include Journalists as media educators (Bloomsbury, 2026), Pedagogical opportunities of the review genre (Routledge, 2024), and Reviewing culture online (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022). She has also edited the handbook for journalism education, Reporting on artificial intelligence (UNESCO, 2023). Over the past years, she has played active leadership roles within the academic communities of NordMedia, ECREA, and UNESCO. She is also interested in the linguistic minorities and minority cultures in the Nordic region.

Normand Landry is Canada Research Chair in Media Education and Human Rights and Professor at TÉLUQ University. Normand’s work focuses on communication rights, media education, social movement theory, law and democratic communications. His research has led him to participate in international summits organized under the aegis of the United Nations, to intervene with parliamentary groups and to get involved with civil society groups.