research overview
- Dr. Ryan balances traditional academic research with professional/creative work. She considers herself first & foremost an oral historian/documentary filmmaker. These 2 areas are linked by an exploration of individual lives/experiences & a sensitivity to the needs of the narrator. Documentary film allows for the public dissemination of research considered crucial by oral history, inserting untold stories into the public record. She is exploring using emerging augmented reality & location-based storytelling in these projects. Another key area of research, visual communication, links to her documentary storytelling (how to tell a story in a visually compelling way). But she is also interested in understanding how we are drawn to & create meaning from visual representations, specifically photography. Increasingly, her work looks at the ethics and practice of image creation in online and other artificial spaces through artificial intelligence, deepfakes, etc. Her final research area is in television/multimedia news, exploring the news agenda, talent representation, & the shifting notion of a newscast of record in a news-on-demand world.