Bridget Haina
Associate Professor of Communication Studies
Bridget Haina is an associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies. She teaches courses in digital media production, web design, interactive journalism and video motion graphics. Bridget also works on maintaining and updating the department’s website pages and social media outlets. She holds a B.A. in Fine Art Photography and Photojournalism from The University of Albany. While in Albany she began pursuing a career in digital media content creation, focusing on reporting and shooting images for the Times Union as well as UAlbany’s student run newspaper. Later, she went on to obtain her M.S. in Multimedia Photography and Design from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University where she began her teaching career as a graphic design instructional associate.
Bridget has worked as a freelance web designer, photographer and videographer for a wide range of clients and has held the position as the creative director for the online retail company Global Sugar Art. This work allows Bridget to bring real-world, industry standard examples and experiences to her students which help her to reach the main objectives of her teaching philosophy, which are to create a challenging yet fair creative environment that will prepare students to enter the workforce in a large range of career paths.
Recently Bridget has shifted from working in the profit sector to non-profit organizational management. She is the co-founder of American Canary, an NPO using media literacy to strengthen democracy, an advisory board member and Racial Healing Circle facilitator for the Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation Center at SUNY Plattsburgh and web manager for the Shine On! organization based in Plattsburgh that focuses on youth empowerment through media literacy, building character and communication skills.
Bridget’s research interests range from studies on the effects of social media and new media to better ways of creating digital content and distributing that content to the masses. She has numerous publications looking at the prevalence of hate speech in conversations on Facebook surrounding racial injustice. She has shifted focus from content and message analysis to focus on the role of media literacy, caregiving and social justice in our learning spaces.
- Education
- M.S., S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University
- B.A., University at Albany
- Teaching Areas
- Research Areas
- Professional Work, Affiliations & Memberships