Dr Mary-Anne Romano

Mary-Anne Romano is a Lecturer in Communication in the School of Media and Communication at Murdoch University. Her research examines journalism as a ritualised practice that shapes public meaning, collective memory, and social power, with a particular focus on crime reporting and media representations of victimhood.

Her PhD, The Claremont Serial Killings: Journalism as Ritual, explores how long-running news coverage constructs moral boundaries and hierarchies of victimhood over time. Drawing on ritual theory, media sociology, and cultural criminology, her work develops key concepts including Ritual Amplification—the cumulative power of repeated news narratives—and the Glennon Effect, which examines how media privilege certain victims through gendered, classed, and spatial framings.

Methodologically, her research combines textual analysis, ethnomethodology, and semi-structured interviews with journalists to examine how news is produced and sustained as a cultural practice. Her work contributes to scholarship in journalism studies, media sociology, and crime media research, with growing attention to how digital platforms extend and recirculate these narratives across time.

In addition to her work on journalism and crime, she has contributed to research on media accessibility and disability in the arts sector, and was a researcher on the ARC-funded project The Culture of Implementing Freedom of Information in Australia through Monash University.

Her teaching focuses on strategic communication in digital and platform-driven environments, integrating industry-relevant skills in web strategy, analytics, and campaign design with critical perspectives on media power, datafication, ethics, and representation.

She teaches across undergraduate and postgraduate units, including web analytics, campaign management, and web strategy, with an emphasis on preparing students to design, analyse, and evaluate communication in complex, data-driven contexts. Her teaching is research-informed and aligned with contemporary developments in digital media, platform governance, and communication practice.

Mary-Anne employs authentic assessment and work-integrated learning approaches to support student engagement and graduate employability. She is committed to inclusive, student-centred teaching that develops critical thinking, ethical awareness, and professional capability in diverse communication contexts.