Researcher

Associate Professor Alyce McGovern

My Expertise

Crime and the media, police media relations, police and social media, yarn bombing and craftivism, criminology education.

Fields of Research (FoR)

Crime and social justice, Communications and media policy, Crafts

SEO tags

Criminal Justice

Biography

Dr Alyce McGovern (she/her) is an Associate Professor in Criminology in the School of Law, Society and Criminology, Faculty of Law and Justice, UNSW, Sydney, Australia. Her research explores intersecting themes of crime, media and culture, including police public relations and image work and police use of social media, and knitting graffiti and craftivism. She is the co-author of Policing and Media: Public Relations, Simulations and...view more

Dr Alyce McGovern (she/her) is an Associate Professor in Criminology in the School of Law, Society and Criminology, Faculty of Law and Justice, UNSW, Sydney, Australia. Her research explores intersecting themes of crime, media and culture, including police public relations and image work and police use of social media, and knitting graffiti and craftivism. She is the co-author of Policing and Media: Public Relations, Simulations and Communications (2013 with Lee, Routledge), Sexting and Young People (2015 with Crofts, Lee and Milivojevic, Palgrave) and author of Craftivism and Yarn Bombing: A Criminological Exploration ( 2019, Palgrave). Alyce was a guest editor for the Current Issues in Criminal Justice journal's Special Issue on 'Crime, Media and New Technologies' (2015) and co-guest editor of the International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy's Special Issue 'Beyond Cybercrime: New Perspectives on Crime, Harm and Digital Technologies' (2022 with Gordon, Thompson and Wood).

My Grants

Awarded 2018 - Research on the role of media in CRV/CVE - Public Safety Canada

Awarded 2011 - Sexting and Young People: Perceptions, Practices, Policy and Law - Criminology Research Council, Australian Institute of Criminology

My Qualifications

PhD, University of Western Sydney, Australia
Graduate Certificate in University Learning and Teaching, UNSW Sydney, Australia
Bachelor of Social Science (Criminology) Honours First Class, University of Western Sydney, Australia
Bachelor of Social Science majoring in Criminology, University of Western Sydney, Australia

My Awards

2017 UNSW Arts and Social Sciences Dean's Award for Teaching Excellence

My Research Activities

Research Areas

Crime, (new) media, and culture
Police media relations; police public relations activities; police use of social media; police image work
Yarn bombing, craftivism and street craft
Criminology higher education

Editorial Board Positions

My Research Supervision

Areas of supervision

Crime and (social) media; police and (social) media; police image work and corporate communications; representations and perceptions of the criminal justice system; craftivism.

Recent HDR completions:

The social construction of juvenile crime in Malaysia - Kamsiah Ali (awarded 2012, co supervisor with Dr Jane Bolitho)
Media representations of crime in the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires (Argentina) during the 1990s - Cynthia Fernandez Roich (awarded 2015, joint with Associate Professor Paul Jones)
Representations of Muslim identities and terrorism within Australian text-based news media - Amy Pisani (awarded 2019, joint with Professor Laura Shepherd)
To converse or not to converse: A critical examination of police-citizen engagement practices on Facebook - Andrew Kelly (awarded 2022, joint with Professor Janet Chan and Dr Phillip Wadds)

Currently supervising

The great war of ideas: A review into Australian national security communications - Samuel Pascoe (commenced 2020, joint with Dr Srinjoy Bose)
Be afraid – Or very entertained: Media coverage of criminal trials and consumption of crime - Leah Findlay (commenced 2015, joint with Professor Jill Hunter)
Alexandre Fleck Soares Brandao (co-supervisor with Professor Jill Hunter, Professor Lyria Bennett Moses and Associate Professor Daniel Joyce)
The limits of looking: Managing crime-images of victims - Laura McDonald (commenced 2016 at Sydney University - external supervisor, primary supervisor Dr Rebecca Scott-Bray)