Marina Vujnovic (SJMC Ph.D. 2008)

By: Marina Vujnovic, Dean Kruckeberg, Rob Logan, Anthropic (2025)

Marina Vujnovic is a Professor of Journalism in the Department of Communication at Monmouth University, West Long Branch, NJ, where she has been a faculty member since Fall 2008. A native of Croatia, Vujnovic came to the United States in 2003 to pursue her graduate education in communication and mass communication.

Dr. Vujnovic completed her undergraduate degree in journalism and political science from the University of Zagreb in Croatia in 1998. She earned her M.A. in Communication from the University of Northern Iowa in 2004 and her Ph.D. in Mass Communication at the University of Iowa in 2008.

Before immigrating to the United States, Dr. Vujnovic had extensive mass media experience in Croatia. She worked as a journalist for seven years at the local newspaper Otok Ivanic before becoming a research assistant at the Department of Graphic Design and Communications at the University of Zagreb. There, she assisted faculty with research and taught courses in communication research. She also worked as a PR practitioner for Cyprus-based PR agency, Action Global Communications.

During her doctoral studies at Iowa, she taught as a graduate assistant in both supervised and stand-alone classes.

At Monmouth University, Dr. Vujnovic served as Faculty Council Chair and as the Director of the Master of Arts in Communication program. During her tenure as the Faculty Council Chair, she led with courage and integrity during the challenging COVID-19 period in 2020, earning colleagues' respect for her tireless work on behalf of faculty, students, and the institution. Dr. Vujnovic has also served as a director of Monmouth University’s Institute for Global Understanding. She is an active member of the faculty union FAMCO and was a lead negotiator for the final stretch of the latest faculty union contract negotiations.

Monmouth’s students know her as “Dr. V.”

Dr. Vujnovic’s scholarship focuses on journalism studies, global communication, public relations, gender and media, and the emergence of new communication technologies. Her work employs feminist political-economic approaches and critical perspectives on transparency, neoliberalism, and media systems. Her other research interests include media history, participatory journalism, public relations ethics, transparency and pseudo-transparency in communication, neoliberalism and media, nationalism and identity, and digital rhetoric.

Dr. Vujnovic’s book Forging the Bubikopf nation: Journalism, gender, and modernity in interwar Yugoslavia (Vujnovic, 2009) examines Ženski List, Yugoslavia’s most popular interwar women’s magazine, its editor Marija Jurić Zagorka, and readers. The book describes the magazine’s alternative visions of modernity throughout Yugoslavia and in its diasporic communities in the United States and Canada during the publication’s existence (from 1925-1938). Dr. Vujnovic is also co-author of: Participatory journalism: Guarding open gates at online newspapers (Singer et al., 2011) and co-editor of: Globalizing cultures: Theories, paradigms, actions (Mele & Vujnovic, 2015). She is also the co-author of: Higher education and disaster capitalism in the age of COVID-19 (Vujnovic & Foster, 2022), and co-author of Exploring artificial intelligence: Implications for mass communication education (Galloway et al., 2025).

Dr. Vujnovic’s scholarly articles include work with Dean Kruckeberg on “Pitfalls and promises of transparency in the digital age” (Vujnovic & Kruckeberg, 2016) and a chapter, “In the bind between theory and practice: Public relations and ethics of neoliberal global capitalism” (Vujnovic & Kruckeberg, 2017) in The Moral Compass of Public Relations, among many others. Her research critically examines transparency as conceptualized in communication and public relations, introducing the concept of pseudo-transparency and arguing that organizations use transparency to maintain the status quo.

Her recent research includes collaborative work with Michael Phillips-Anderson, “Sympathy is an out-of-network benefit: An examination of digital rhetoric and dark humor following the death of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO,” (Vujnovic & Phillips-Anderson, 2025), which was presented at the Rhetoric in Society #9 Conference at the University of Zagreb. This work builds on their earlier co-authored research, “Watchdogs and fact checkers: Contemporary journalism and political influence” (Phillips-Anderson & Vujnovic, 2013).

Dr. Vujnovic holds the APR (Accredited in Public Relations) credential, a professional designation from the Public Relations Society of America that recognizes expertise and ethical standards in the public relations field.

Dr. Vujnovic continues to be an active scholar and educator, bringing her unique international perspective and critical analytical approach to her teaching, research, and service at Monmouth University.

References:

Anthropic. (2025). Claude 4.5 [Large language model]. https://claude.ai/.

Galloway, C., Vujnovic, M., Swiatek, L., & Kruckeberg, D. (2025). Exploring artificial intelligence: Implications for mass communication education. Peter Lang.

Mele, V., & Vujnovic, M. (2015). Globalizing cultures: Theories, paradigms, actions. Brill Academic.

Phillips-Anderson, M., & Vujnovic, M. (2013). Watchdogs and fact checkers: Contemporary journalism and political influence. In A. Handlin (Ed.), Dirty deals: Encyclopedia of lobbying, political influence and
corruption. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.

Singer, J. B., Domingo, D., Heinonen, A., Hermida, A., Paulussen, S., Quandt. T., Reich, Z., & Vujnovic. M. (2011). Participatory journalism: Guarding open gates at online newspapers. Wiley-Blackwell.

Vujnovic, M., & Foster, J. (2022). Higher education and disaster capitalism in the age of COVID-19. Palgrave MacMillan.

Vujnovic, M., & Kruckeberg, D. (2017). In the bind between theory and practice: Public relations and ethics of neoliberal global capitalism. In B. R. Brunner (Ed.), The moral compass of public relations. Routledge.

Vujnovic, M., & Kruckeberg, D. (2016). Pitfalls and promises of transparency in the digital age. Public Relations Inquiry, 5(2), 121-143.

Vujnovic, M., & Phillips-Anderson, M. (2025). Sympathy is an out-of-network benefit: An examination of digital rhetoric and dark humor following the death of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO. Paper presented at the Rhetoric in Society #9 Conference, June 2025.

Vujnovic, M. (2009). Forging the Bubikopf nation: Journalism, gender and modernity in interwar Yugoslavia. Peter Lang.