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Natalia Mielczarek

Natalia Mielczarek, Associate Professor

Natalia Mielczarek
Natalia Mielczarek, Associate Professor
Curriculum Vitae

School of Communication 
144 Shanks Hall
181 Turner St. NW
Blacksburg, VA 24061
540-231-1666 | nmiel@vt.edu

Natalia Mielczarek is an associate professor in the School of Communication. She teaches in the multimedia journalism division and is also on the graduate faculty. Her research interests include visual rhetoric, iconicity, Internet memes and appropriation of images in digital culture. Before returning to academia in 2010, Mielczarek spent 10 years working as a newspaper reporter. She teaches a variety of courses at Virginia Tech, including Media Writing, Multimedia Storytelling, Media and Society and graduate seminars.

  • Visual communication
  • Iconic images
  • Digital participatory culture & viral content
  • Internet memes
  • Editorial cartoons
  • Image appropriation
  • Ph.D., University of Iowa
  • M.A., Missouri School of Journalism
  • B.A., Vanderbilt University 
  • Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication
  • International Communication Association

The Trump Presidency in Editorial Cartoons. (in press). Lexington Books. 

Mielczarek, N. (2022). A hero, a ruler and a sidekick walk into a voting booth: Archetypal characters and their stories in editorial cartoons after the 2020 U.S. presidential elections. Visual Communication Quarterly, 29(4), 223-235.

Mielczarek, N. (2021). Political cartoons during the 2020 post-election phase. In R. E. Denton Jr. (Ed.), Campaigning in the aftermath of the 2020 elections. A communications perspective. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 125-149.

Mielczarek, N. (2021). Visual rhetoric. In J. Kuypers (Ed.), Rhetorical criticism. Perspectives in action(third edition). New York: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 251–276.

Mielczarek, N., & Hopkins, W.W. (2020). Copyright, transformativeness, and protection for Internet memes. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1077699020950492.

Mielczarek, N. (2020). The Situation Room icon and its Internet memes: Subversion of the Osama bin Laden raid and fragmentation of iconicity in remix culture. First Monday, 25(6). DOI: https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v25i6.10531.

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