Dafna Lemish

Dafna Lemish is an Israeli media researcher in the fields of children, youth and leisure culture; as well as construction of gender identity in the media.

She serves as the Dean of the College of Mass Communication and Media Arts, at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. She is also the founding editor of the Journal of Children and Media. Lemish is Associate Dean for Programs at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

Biography
Dafna Lemish was born in Haifa. She worked at Oranim College teaching media literacy, and later directed the Institute for the Research of Media and the Family, a non-profit organization later integrated within the Israeli Women's Network in Jerusalem, then ceasing to exist independently. From 1990-1996 she was a Senior Lecturer at The New School of Media Studies, Academic College of Management. In 1995 she moved to Tel Aviv University, as part of the founding team of the Department of Communication, where she taught until 2010 and served as Chair for 5 years.

In 2010 she accepted a position as Chair of the Department of Radio, television, and Digital media at Southern Illinois University, later becoming the Dean of the College of Mass Communication and Media Arts. Since 2016 she serves as an Associate Dean for Programs at the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University, and was promoted to Distinguished Professor in 2019. She has been an active member of the International Communication Association since 1980.

She is the founding editor of the Journal of Children and Media.

Awards and recognition

 * Rutgers Board of Trustees Award for Excellence in Research 2020
 * The Charles Klotzer International Media Literacy Award, The Gateway Media Literacy Partners, 2015
 * Inaugural recipient of the Senior Scholar Award of the Children, Media and Adolescents. Division of the International Communication Association (ICA), 2012.
 * Fellow of the International Communication Association (ICA), 2010.
 * The first recipient of the Teresa Award for the Advancement of Feminist Scholarship, The Feminist Scholarship Division of the International Communication Association, 2009.

Published works

 * Park, J. & Lemish, D. (2019). KakaoTalk and Facebook: Korean American youth constructing hybrid identities. New York, NY: Peter Lang.
 * Götz, M., Lemish, D., Holler, A. (2019). Fear in front of the screen: Children’s fears, nightmares and thrills. New York, NY: Rowman & Littlefield. 249 pages
 * Lemish, D. & Götz, M. (Eds.) (2017). Beyond the stereotypes? Boys, girls, and their images. The International Clearinghouse of Children, Youth and Media, University of Gothenburg, Sweden: Nordicom. 254 pages.
 * Lemish, D., Jordan, A., & Rideout, V. (Eds.) (2017). Children, adolescents and media: The future of research and action. NY: Routledge. 286 pages.
 * Children and media: A global perspective. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
 * The Routledge international handbook of children, adolescents and media. New York and Abingdon: Routledge.
 * Sexy girls, heroes and funny losers: Gender representations in children´s TV around the world. New York: Peter Lang.
 * Lemish, D. (2010). Screening gender in children's TV: The views of producers around the world. New York and Abingdon: Routledge.
 * Cohen, A.A., Lemish, D., & Schejter, A. (2008). The wonder phone in the land of miracles: Mobile telephony in Israel. Newark, NJ: Hampton Press.
 * Lemish, D. (2007). Children and television: A Global perspective. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
 * Lemish, D. & Götz, M. (Eds.) (2007). Children and media in times of war and conflict. Newark, NJ: Hampton Press.
 * Götz, M. Lemish, D. Aidman, A., & Moon, H. (2005). Media and the make-believe worlds of children: When Harry Potter meets Pokémon in Disneyland. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
 * UNICEF Communicating with Children: Principles and Practices to Nurture, Inspire, Excite, Educate and Heal. With Barbara Kolucki (Book and website).