Dr T.J. Thomson is an associate professor and Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow at RMIT, where he co-leads The News, Technology, and Society Network. His research is united by its focus on visual communication.

T.J. is the author of a number of books and edited colllections, including Everyday Visual News: Audience Expectations, Engagements, and Meanings (Routledge, 2026), The Routledge Companion to Visual Journalism (2025), and To See and Be Seen: The Environments, Interactions, and Identities Behind News Images (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019).

T.J. has obtained more than $1.32 million in external research funding from a number of organisations, including the Australian Research Council, the Australian Academy of the Humanities, the Office of the Queensland Chief Scientist, the University of Nottingham Ningbo China, and the International Visual Literacy Association. He has also been awarded research fellowships in China (Ningbo) and Germany (Berlin and Bochum).

T.J. undertakes research, postgraduate supervision, and media commentary in the following areas:

• visual communication
• visual journalism
• media production
• visual culture
• journalism studies

Leadership

T.J. is actively involved nationally and internationally in a number of Associations and initiatives that contribute to the interdisciplinary visual communication field. These include serving as an international engagement editor of Digital Journalism, serving on the editorial board of the journal Visual Communication Quarterly and acting as one of its associate editors (from 2017—2025), serving on the editorial board of Communication Research and Practice, and serving as an officer in a number of national and international journalism and communication associations, including the Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia, the National Communication Association, the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, and the International Communication Association (as international liaison, secretary, and vice-chair of the Visual Communication Studies Division).

Awards and honours

T.J.’s peers have recognised his research and disciplinary contributions with a number of awards and honours, including the Communication and Ageing Outstanding Journal Article Award from the National Communication Association; the James Edwards Article of the Year Award from the National Communication Association; the Diane S. Hope Book of the Year Award from the National Communication Association; the Anne Dunn Scholar of the Year Award, jointly bestowed by the Australian and New Zealand Communication Association and the Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia; the Distinguished Young Alumnus Award from Chadron State College; the Mizzou Recent Alumni Honoree Award from the University of Missouri; and top paper awards from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and the International Communication Association.

In 2022, T.J.’s peers elected him to the Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences in recognition of his significant contributions to the academy, the professions and/or society as a whole. In 2023, the Australian Academy of the Humanities awarded him the Max Crawford Medal, the country’s most prestigious award for achievement and promise in the humanities.

Industry Experience

T.J. has experience with both journalistic and corporate communication. Before entering academia, he worked as a visual journalist and designer for a number of news outlets and organizations, including The Associated Press, The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, and the Omaha World-Herald. Corporate clients include QuickFire Networks, which was acquired by Facebook in 2015; Colorado Academy; and HotelTonight.

View TJ’s institutional profile here.