Allissa V. Richardson researches how African Americans use mobile and social media to produce innovative forms of journalism — especially in times of crisis. Richardson’s award-winning book, Bearing Witness While Black: African Americans, Smartphones and the New Protest #Journalism (Oxford University Press, 2020) explores the lives of 15 mobile journalist-activists who documented the Black Lives Matter movement using only smartphones and Twitter.

Richardson is the founding director of the USC Charlotta Bass Journalism & Justice Lab. The research center saves, studies and shares Black media that changed the world. In February 2023, the Bass Lab debuted the University’s first AI-powered Black oral history interviewee with Lora King — the daughter of Rodney King, whose brutal police encounter was caught on tape in 1991. 

Richardson’s research has been published in Journal of Communication, Digital Journalism, Journalism Studies, and many other venues. She has lectured to diverse and wide-ranging audiences around the world — from SXSW to SnapChat, Microsoft and the NFL. Her expertise in mobile media activism has made her a frequent commentator for news outlets such as ABC, BBC, CBC, Columbia Journalism Review, Los Angeles Times, MSNBC, NPR, Teen Vogue and Vox. 

She is an inductee into Apple’s elite Distinguished Educator program. Additionally, Richardson is the recipient of three esteemed Harvard University posts: the Nieman Foundation Visiting Journalism Fellowship (‘14), the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society Fellowship (‘20), and the Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights Fellowship (‘22). 

Richardson holds a PhD in journalism studies from the University of Maryland College Park; a master’s degree in magazine publishing from Northwestern University’s Medill School; and a BS in biology from Xavier University of Louisiana, where she was named a “Top 40 Under 40” alumna.