Warwick Blood is Professor of Communication in the School of Professional Communication, University of Canberra, Australia.

He teaches communication research methods and health communication. His research interests are in risk communication theory and practice, media representations and analyses, and public opinion research.

He is currently completing research funded by the Australian Research Council that investigates the changing dynamics and hotly contested interplay between media, journalistic, medical, health professional and lay discourses about suicide and mental illness news.

During 2000 and 2001, he worked with colleagues at the University of Melbourne on a major research project for the then Department of Health and Aged Care. The research examined Australian media reporting and portrayal of suicide, and mental health and illness, and informed the revision of the Commonwealth’s resource for media professionals, Reporting Suicide and Mental Illness. He has also completed research on news about depression for the Commonwealth government’s National Depression Initiative beyondblue.

He serves on the Editorial Advisory Board for the Australian Journal of Communication and for the Australian Journal of Professional and Applied Ethics. He was Editor of the Australian Journalism Review from 1998 to 2000. He was elected President of the Australian and New Zealand Communication Association for 1995-96. (Vice-President, 1994-95).

Selected Recent Publications:

Blood, RW., Pirkis, J, Hickie, I & Martin, G (2003), The Pill That Killed: A case study of reporting risk knowledge. Australian Journal of Communication, 30(2): 47-63.

Francis, C., Pirkis, J., Blood, R.W., Burgess, P. & Dunt, D. (2003), Media reporting of specific mental illnesses in the context of crime: Implications for mental health literacy. Medical Journal of Australia, 179 (1/15 December): 638. [Letter].

Blood, RW, Williams, J & McCallum, K (2003), Media Representations of Public Risk: Illegal drugs in the Australian press. Media International Australia, 108: 82-100.

Blood, R.W., Putnis, P. & Pirkis, J. (2002), Mental-illness News as Violence: A news frame analysis of the reporting and portrayal of mental health and illness in Australian media. Australian Journal of Communication, 29(2): 59-82.

Putnis, P., Blood, R.W. & Payne, T. (2002), Death of a Politician: Australian Media Reporting and Portrayal of the Death of Greg Wilton, MP. Australian Journalism Review, 24(2): 21-40.

Pirkis, J, Francis, C, Blood, R.W, Burgess, P, Morley, B, Stewart, A & Putnis, P.
(2002), Reporting of suicide in the Australian media, Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry. 36(2): 190-197.