Andrea Baker

Dr Andrea Jean Baker is a senior lecturer in journalism in the School of Media, Film and Journalism at Monash University. She is also the Undergraduate Coordinator for the Journalism program.

Previously, Andrea was a coordinator of the School of Journalism and Australian Studies‘ PhD and Honours programs. 

She has taught extensively across journalism practice and journalism studies units, from Undergraduate, Masters and PhD programs at Monash (and previously at Swinburne and La Trobe Universities). 

In 2006 Andrea began the first, foundational International Journalism field trips in the Journalism tertiary sector in Australia, travelling to the USA, UK and Europe. 2006 (New York City); 2007 (London, Brussels and Paris); 2008 (London  and New York City), and 2010 (London and New York City). Now International Journalism field trips are common place in the sector. 

Andrea is recognised as a radio and music journalist. While producing national women’s news and current affairs radio programs, during the late 1990s, she won local, national and USA awards for her radio reportage about women's health and land rights.

As a journalism studies scholar, she has published international radio research linking interdisciplinary areas, such as Urban Music History, Digital and Urban Communication, Musicology, Safety and Gender.

Academic research outputs include 2 academic monographs, co-editor of 2 special journal editions (Australian Journalism Review; Journalism Practice), 15 academic journal articles; more than 20 non-traditional research articles, and extensive commentary in the media. 

Published in March 2019, Andrea’s 2^nd book, The Great Music City (Palgrave Macmillan, London), was this year's Finalist in the USA-led, International Book Awards in the category: Education/Academic. The monograph is this first international, comparative study about the music cities paradigm in the contemporary space. Across 15 chapters, and based on an algorithm that Andréa devised, the book explores  the music, space and identity of various music cities, such as London, Los Angeles, New York City, Melbourne, Austin and Berlin. 

In 2012 the International Association for Media and Communications Research and the Hampton Press (New York) prestigious award series chose Andrea’s 1^st monograph, 

Virtual Radio Ga Ga: Youths and Net-Radio for publication, which was the 1^st monograph (comprising of 12 chapters) commissioned in this series by a journalism, media and communications scholar since 2001.

In 2013 Andrea was appointed the foundational, academic representative on the City of Melbourne’s Music Strategy Committee; and has presented or chaired panels about global music cities, in 2013 at International Association for the Study of Popular Music, Australia  New Zealand; in 2014 at South by South West Inc., and in 2015 at Australia’s first national symposium about music cities, which was held in Melbourne. 
 
Using Melbourne as a case study, in 2017 Andrea designed an algorithm to assess music activities in urban contexts, which was published by Sage Open. In April 2018 she participated on an academic panel, “The Impact of Cultural Policy on Music Cities” for the now biannual ‘Music Cities Convention’. It was the first time the convention was held in the Southern Hemisphere.

As an international, award winning radio journalist, Andrea has had contract work, produced various radio documentaries and been a commentator intermittently at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) since 1992.

Andrea has held overseas research residencies at City University of New York, University of Texas at Austin (USA) and at Freie Universitiat in Berlin (Germany).

Research interests, PhD, Masters and Honours, Supervisory areas:

1. Media histories and mixed methods analysis
2. Urban communication, technology and creative arts (main focus, music) 
3. Alternative media and arts journalism

If you want to get to know Andrea more, check out this link..