Dawn Wheatley
Dr
Dawn Wheatley is an Assistant Professor in the School of Communications focusing on journalism studies. She received her PhD in 2018 for her research into online news production and coverage of the Irish healthcare sector, with a particular emphasis on sources and voices, and how newsroom sourcing practices are established and reproduced. She remains particularly interested in how different groups, and women in particular, are represented in the news.
Dawn worked as a production journalist for the Irish Daily Mail and the Irish Times before turning to research and teaching in DCU. She has been chairperson of the BA Journalism programme since 2021, where she teaches both practical and theoretical subjects such as Data Journalism, Representations in the News, and Understanding Digital News. Her research has been published in New Media & Society, Digital Journalism, Journalism Practice, Information, Communication & Society, and on RTÉ's Brainstorm.
Dawn is also involved in various international projects, working on the Irish contribution to the international Worlds of Journalism study which surveys journalists, and co-ordinating the Irish data for the Global Media Monitoring Project which analyses the role of women in the news. She has also been an author of the Digital News Report (Ireland) since 2021.
Peer Reviewed Journal
| Year | Publication | |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Wheatley, D. (2025) 'Journalists’ Use of Social Media Disconnection Practices: ‘I Try Not to Block People, but…’'. DIGITAL JOURNALISM, . [Link] [DOI] | |
| 2024 | Dawn Wheatley; Karen Ross; Cynthia Carter; Karen Boyle (2024) 'Gender in/and the news in the UK and Republic of Ireland: Slow but (un)steady progress?'. JOURNALISM: THEORY, PRACTICE & CRITICISM, . https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849241276836 | |
| 2022 | Eirik Vatnøy; Dawn Wheatley (2022) 'Mediated recognition in campaigns for justice: The case of the Magdalene laundry survivors'. COMMUNICATIONS-EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION RESEARCH, 47 (4):532-552. https://doi.org/10.1515/commun-2022-0039 | |
| 2022 | Wheatley, D. (2022) 'Irish audiences and news information from official sources during Covid-19'. Administration, 70 . [Link] [DOI] | |
| 2021 | Robbins, D.; Wheatley, D. (2021) 'Complexity, Objectivity, and Shifting Roles: Environmental Correspondents March to a Changing Beat'. JOURNALISM PRACTICE, 15 . [Link] [DOI] | |
| 2021 | Wheatley, D; Ferrer-Conill, R (2021) 'The Temporal Nature of Mobile Push Notification Alerts: A Study of European News Outlets’ Dissemination Patterns'. DIGITAL JOURNALISM, 9 (6):694-714. [DOI] | |
| 2022 | Wheatley, D.; Vatnoey, E. (2022) 'Understanding attitudes towards social media segregation: spatial metaphors in the discussion of Twitter blocklists'. Information Communication and Society, 25 . [Link] [DOI] | |
| 2020 | Dawn Wheatley (2020) 'Victims and voices: Journalistic sourcing and the use of private citizens in online healthcare-system news'. Journalism Studies, 21 (8):1017-1036. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2020.1727355 | |
| 2020 | Dawn Wheatley & Eirik Vatnoey (2020) '‘It’s Twitter, a bear pit, not a debating society’: A qualitative analysis of contrasting attitudes towards social media blocklists'. New Media and Society, 22 (1):5-25. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444819858278 | |
| 2020 | Wheatley, D. (2020) 'A Typology of News Sourcing: Routine and Non-Routine Channels of Production'. JOURNALISM PRACTICE, 14 . [Link] [DOI] | |
| 2017 | Wheatley, D.; O’Sullivan, J. (2017) 'Pressure to Publish or Saving for Print?: A temporal comparison of source material on three newspaper websites'. DIGITAL JOURNALISM, 5 . [Link] [DOI] |
Published Report
| Year | Publication | |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Dan Lloyd; Eileen Culloty; David Robbins; Dawn Wheatley; Jane Suiter (2025) Digital News Report (Ireland) - 2025. Coimisiún na Meáin, . | |
| 2024 | Colleen Murrell; Claire English; David Robbins; Dawn Wheatley (2024) Digital News Report Ireland 2024. Coimisiún na Meán, . | |
| 2023 | Kevin Rafter; Dawn Wheatley (2023) Irish Journalists at Work: Values, Roles & Influences. DCU, . [Link] https://www.dcu.ie/sites/default/files/inline-files/full_irish-journalists-at-work-11122023-1.pdf | |
| 2023 | Dawn Wheatley (2023) Social media and online hostility: Experiences of women in Irish journalism. . | |
| 2023 | Dawn Wheatley; Leysi Rubio Arevich (2023) Attitudes towards news media in Ireland: Perspectives from Nigerian and Polish migrants. Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, . | |
| 2023 | Colleen Murrell; Kirsty Park; David Robbins; Dawn Wheatley (2023) Digital News Report Ireland 2023. Coimisiún na Meán, . | |
| 2022 | Colleen Murrell; Kirsty Park; David Robbins; Dawn Wheatley (2022) Digital News Report (Ireland) 2022. Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, . | |
| 2022 | Dawn Wheatley (2022) Gender & Diversity in Ireland 2016-2021 & Internationally 2021. Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, . | |
| 2021 | Colleen Murrell; Kirsty Park; David Robbins; Dawn Wheatley (2021) Digital News Report (Ireland) 2021. Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, . |
Book Chapter
| Year | Publication | |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Dawn Wheatley; Kevin Rafter (2024) 'The Media and Politics' In: Politics in the Republic of Ireland (7th Edition). London : Taylor & Francis. [DOI] | |
| 2023 | Dawn Wheatley (2023) 'Mobile News' In: The Routledge Companion to Digital Journalism Studies (2nd Ed). London : Routledge. | |
| 2021 | Dawn Wheatley (2021) 'Solid swansong from caretaker government' In: Political Communication and COVID-19: Governance and Rhetoric in Times of Crisis. Oxon : Routledge. | |
| 2020 | Eirik Vatnøy & Dawn Wheatley (2020) 'Eksplorerende retorisk analyse av sosiale medier” (Exploratory rhetorical analysis of social media)' In: Retorikkens metoder (The methods of rhetoric). Denmark : Samfundslitteratur. |
Conference Contribution
Thesis
| Year | Publication | |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Dawn Wheatley (2018) Sourcing the Story: Journalistic practices and online news coverage of Irish healthcare policy. THES [Link] |