Dafna Lemish Ph.D.
Emeritus Faculty, Radio, Television, and Digital Media

Ph.D. at Ohio State University, 1982
M.A. at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1977
B.A. at Tel Aviv University, 1974
Dafna Lemish joined SIU in 2010 as Professor of Communication and Chair of the Department of Radio,Television, and Digital Media. She served as Dean of the College from 2012 to 2016. Dr. Lemish brings with her wide international background and cross-cultural research experience to the study of media in everyday life of children and adolescents. She is the founding and current editor of the academic Journal of Children and Media - http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/rchm. In recent years she has combined her interests in children with gender representations and feminist theory in her investigation of the gendered nature of mediated childhoods. Dafna Lemish has published 10 books and over 130 refereed journal articles and book chapters in several languages. She is the first recipient of the Teresa Award for the Advancement of Feminist Scholarship, the inaugural receipient of the Senior Scholar Award of the Children, Media and Adolescents Division and a Fellow of the International Communication Association. She is also a Scholar of the Center of Media and Child Health, affiliated with Children's Hospital Boston and Harvard University’s Medical School.
Before joining SIU, Dafna Lemish was a Professor and former Chair of the Department of Communication at Tel Aviv University. She has been active in various international associations, serving on advisory and directors' boards. Her research and scholarly networking takes her around the world.
Interests
Children and media; gender representations and identity construction; media literacy; qualitative methodologies.