About

Barbara Friedman is an awarded scholar and teacher whose work emphasizes the role and representation of gender, race, sexuality, and class in historical and contemporary media. She is an associate professor at UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media and an adjunct faculty member of UNC’s Department of Women’s and Gender Studies. Friedman is the director of The Irina Project (TIP), which monitors media representations of sex trafficking and advocates for responsible and accurate reporting of the issue. She co-founded TIP with Anne Johnston in 2009, and their work has earned them recognition as Thorp Faculty Engaged Scholars and the Donna Allen Award for Feminist Advocacy. Her research has been published in various scholarly journals, and she directs the NewStories oral history project documenting the lives of North Carolina news workers and newsmakers. Friedman joined the school in 2004 and is the author of books on media coverage of British war brides and online research strategies. She directs the Senior Honors Program at the Hussman School and has received awards including the Edward Vick Prize for Innovation in Teaching and the David Brinkley Teaching Excellence Award.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Social psychology
• Sociology
• Demography
• Gender studies
• Psychiatry
• Criminology
• Medicine
• Medical emergency
• Genetics
• Biology
• Cell biology
• Developmental psychology
• Pedagogy

Selected publications

• “Judged, Misrepresented and Misunderstood”: Human Trafficking Survivors’ Engagement with Journalists

  Journalism Studies · 2025-11-18

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Recognize & Resist: An Online Health Intervention to Promote Writing About Sexual Consent and Egalitarian Gender Roles Among One Direction Fanfiction Writers

  UNC Libraries · 2025-03-29

  articleOpen access

  This paper focuses on the development and feasibility of a digitally-based educational intervention, titled <em>Recognize &amp; Resist (R&amp;R)</em>, for writers of One Direction (1D) fanfiction on Wattpad.com. The goal of <em>R&amp;R</em> is to reduce the prevalence of social norms that are supportive of sexual violence within 1D fanfiction. 1D fanfictions, or fictional romance stories written by fans of this British boy band, have hundreds of millions of views on Wattpad.com. Formative research has found that social norms supportive of sexual violence are prevalent in 1D fanfictions and that some authors have internalized these norms. <em>R&amp;R</em> aims to motivate 1D fanfiction writers to highlight sexual consent and egalitarian gender roles in their writing. To evaluate the intervention's feasibility, 15 1D fanfiction authors completed a survey and participated in an interview or focus group. Results demonstrate <em>R&amp;R's</em> feasibility, with high ratings of its acceptability and demand. Insights from the interviews and focus groups provide suggestions for revising <em>R&amp;R</em> before rigorously evaluating its efficacy. Additionally, results demonstrate the utility of using popular culture as a vehicle for attitude-change regarding sensitive health issues.

  PublisherDOI

• Psychologists as vital frame sponsors in news coverage of human trafficking.

  American Psychological Association eBooks · 2023-10-12 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• A Change in Time: <i>American Journalism</i> ’s 2013 Transition to a Commercial Publisher

  American Journalism · 2023-07-03

  article1st authorCorresponding

  AbstractChange is never easy, especially for historians who have their feet firmly planted in the past. So, in 2013, when American Journalism editor Barbara G. Friedman and associate editor Kathy Roberts Forde proposed moving from independent university presses to a commercial academic publisher, there was apprehension. But theirs was a utilitarian goal: creating a solid path for journalism and mass communication scholars to achieve tenure and promotion at their universities in an age when metrics matter and expanding the journal’s reach. In this reflection, part of American Journalism’s fortieth anniversary essay series, the former editors explain how the transition from independent to commercial publishing enabled a “gem of a journal” to achieve—and exceed—those initial goals. The authors also offer some considerations for the future. Notes1 See American Journalism, American Journalism Historians Association, https://www.american-journalism.org/ (accessed June 11, 2023).2 See, for example, Ira J. Winn, “Turning the Screw: Higher Education in the 1980s and 1990s,” Phi Delta Kappan 61, no. 10 (1980): 686–9.3 Jim Martin, Editor’s Note, American Journalism 23, no. 3 (2006): 5. To mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of AJHA, Martin solicited brief recollections of American Journalism from editors Gary Whitby, David Sloan, Wally Eberhard, and Shirley Biagi. Whitby wrote that the journal was born of “mutual whining about how hard (seemingly impossible) it was to get published in the big boy/girl journals of the day.”4 Christopher L. Tomlins, “Wave of the Present: The Scholarly Journal on the Edge of the Internet,” American Council of Learned Societies Occasional Paper No. 43 (1998), http://archives.acls.org/op/43_wave_of_the_present.htm (accessed June 11, 2023).5 Barbara Friedman, Editor’s Note, American Journalism 30, no. 1 (2013): 1.6 See the journal’s website at https://www.american-journalism.org/.7 See the journal’s metrics at Taylor & Francis Online https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=journalMetrics&journalCode=uamj20.8 To learn more about these metrics, see “Understanding Journal Metrics,” Author Services, Taylor & Francis, https://authorservices.taylorandfrancis.com/publishing-your-research/choosing-a-journal/journal-metrics (accessed June 19, 2023)9 “Statement on Productivity (2012), American Historical Association, https://www.historians.org/jobs-and-professional-development/statements-standards-and-guidelines-of-the-discipline/statement-on-productivity (accessed June 19, 2023).10 Mike Conway, “President’s Message: Membership and Convention Fees Changes,” Intelligencer Blog, American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA), https://ajha.wildapricot.org/Intelligencer/13202772 (accessed June 19, 2023).11 “Aims and Scope,” American Journalism, Taylor & Francis Online, https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=aimsScope&journalCode=uamj20 (accessed June 19, 2023).Additional informationNotes on contributorsBarbara G. FriedmanBarbara G. Friedman is an Associate Professor in the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at the University of North Carolina. Her research focuses on media constructions of gender, race, and class. She is director of The Irina Project (TIP), which monitors and analyzes media representations of sex trafficking, and advocates through research and engagement the responsible and accurate reporting of the issue.Kathy Roberts FordeKathy Roberts Forde is a Professor in the Journalism Department and Associate Dean of Equity & Inclusion in the College of Social & Behavioral Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her research interests focus on democracy and the public sphere, the Black freedom struggle and the press, the First Amendment, literary journalism, and the history of the book and print culture.

  PublisherDOI

• <i>Recognize &amp; Resist</i> : An Online Health Intervention to Promote Writing About Sexual Consent and Egalitarian Gender Roles Among One Direction Fanfiction Writers

  Health Communication · 2023

  • Sociology
  • Psychology
  • Social psychology

  before rigorously evaluating its efficacy. Additionally, results demonstrate the utility of using popular culture as a vehicle for attitude-change regarding sensitive health issues.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• 1 Kurze Einführung in das Werk Pierre Janets

  Psychosozial-Verlag eBooks · 2022-01-01

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• A Commemorative Bind: How the <i>Birmingham News</i> Redressed Past Journalistic Failure through Contemporary Civil Rights Memory

  Journalism History · 2022-10-02

  articleSenior author

  Ideological clashes over race in American memory reveal an existential divide in journalism, between an ethos of activism and the normative rituals of objectivity. This study examines a crisis of memory that occurred upon a newspaper’s centennial in the 1980s alongside mainstream commemorations of the US civil rights movement amid an age of apology and backlash. The Birmingham News, a White newspaper that in the 1960s used proximity to a national story to conceal rather than bear witness, a generation later sought to reposition itself in a radically changed environment. This study, building on the scholarship of journalism as a site of collective memory, analyzes how a news organization arbitrated a reckoning with the past and its own professional failure. We analyze the strategies by which the News sought forgiveness and redress, and thereby sought to reclaim authority. The case illustrates how notions of journalistic legitimacy collide with the project of truth and reconciliation, and how journalists find a way forward by refashioning collective memory to navigate the present.

  PublisherDOI

• Polymer models reveal how chromatin modification can modulate force at the kinetochore

  Molecular Biology of the Cell · 2022 · 4 citations

  • Biology
  • Cell biology
  • Genetics

  A key feature of chromosome segregation is the ability to sense tension between sister kinetochores. DNA between sister kinetochores must be packaged in a way that sustains tension propagation from one kinetochore to its sister, approximately 1 micron away. A molecular bottlebrush consisting of a primary axis populated with a crowded array of side chains provides a means to build tension over length scales considerably larger than the stiffness of the individual elements, that is, DNA polymer. Evidence for the bottlebrush organization of chromatin between sister kinetochores comes from genetic, cell biological, and polymer modeling of the budding yeast centromere. In this study, we have used polymer dynamic simulations of the bottlebrush to recapitulate experimental observations of kinetochore structure. Several aspects of the spatial distribution of kinetochore proteins and their response to perturbation lack a mechanistic understanding. Changes in physical parameters of bottlebrush, DNA stiffness, and DNA loops directly impact the architecture of the inner kinetochore. This study reveals that the bottlebrush is an active participant in building tension between sister kinetochores and proposes a mechanism for chromatin feedback to the kinetochore.

  DOI

• Adolescents’ Victim-Blaming Responses to Narratives About Sex Trafficking: Strategies for Curriculum Development

  Violence Against Women · 2022

  • Psychology
  • Social psychology
  • Developmental psychology

  In the United States, sex-trafficking awareness and prevention has increasingly become part of government-mandated health education. This exploratory study surveyed 250 U.S. adolescents to learn more about the use of media narratives in curricula about sex trafficking in light of research findings about victim-blaming responses to survivor narratives, as well as adolescents' still-developing emotion-regulation skills. Victim blaming is counterproductive to the goals of trafficking awareness and prevention curricula. Participants viewed one of four narrative messages about a sex-trafficking victim/survivor. Over half of participants reported victim-blaming responses after viewing the message. Participants reported low perceived efficacy regarding the ability to recognize the signs of trafficking, and some participants experienced intense fear responses to the messages. Victim blaming was not associated with fear or perceived efficacy, contradicting predictions from the Extended Parallel Process Model. This study concludes with recommendations for educators and others tasked with communicating with adolescents about sex trafficking.

  PublisherDOI

• Pierre Janet : trauma et dissociation

  Carrefour des psychothérapies · 2021-10-12

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Onno van der Hart

  8 shared

• Kerry Bloom

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  8 shared

• Anne Johnston

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  8 shared

• Josh Lawrimore

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  7 shared

• Betty Houchin Winfield

  University of Southern California

  4 shared

• Diana M. Cook

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  4 shared

• Elaine Yeh

  4 shared

• Ayush Doshi

  University of Virginia

  3 shared

Labs

• The Irina Project (TIP)PI

Education

• Ph.D., M.A., School of Journalism

  University of Missouri

Awards & honors

• Thorp Faculty Engaged Scholars
• Donna Allen Award for Feminist Advocacy
• Edward Vick Prize for Innovation in Teaching (2024)
• David Brinkley Teaching Excellence Award (2014)