Anna Sámelová

Anna Sámelová, PhD, Dr hab., is an associate professor in the Department of Journalism at the Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia as well as a member of the Faculty of Arts Ethics Council at the Comenius University. The Comenius University in Bratislava, the oldest, the biggest, and the best ranked university in the Slovak Republic, is her true Alma Mater – she acquired all degrees of academic education there. After completing her Master's studies in philosophy and history (1992, thesis: “Czechoslovakia and the Political Trials in the 1950s”), she worked as a reporter and commentator of presidential, parliamentary, and government events, anchor of political debates as well as a news editor for the nation-wide public service Slovak Radio (1992 – 1995); she was an anchor and later the editor-in-chief of independent news Radio Twist (1995 – 2004), director of the Slovak Radio News Center (2006 – 2010), and the first director of the News Centers (2011 – 2012) of newly established public service broadcasting institution – Radio and Television of Slovakia (RTVS was established in January 1, 2011 by the merger of the originally separate public service broadcasters the Slovak Radio, Est. 1926, and the Slovak Television, Est. 1956). In 2013, she was accepted for full-time doctoral studies in systematic philosophy focusing on the intersection of Foucauldian approach to power and nature of power within media public service. She conducted her dissertation research as a visiting PhD candidate in the Department of Media, Cognition and Communication at the University of Copenhagen in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2016. In 2017, she defended her dissertation “Power as a Problem of Philosophy: Foucauldian Analysis of Power in the Terms of Radio and Television of Slovakia” at her Alma Mater and became an assistant professor in its Department of Journalism. She completed her habilitation in theory and history of journalism (2021), i.e. she became an associate professor. Her research interest is generally focused on the issues of power and truth in the mass media, on the change of cognitive habits and skills of the media audience in the era of online media, and on editorial responsibility, especially in public service. In January 2023, she was reappointed as the director of the Section of News and Current Affairs of the Radio and Television of Slovakia.

Anna Sámelová is the author of the trilogy of monographs on Radio and Television of Slovakia (in Slovak language): (1) “The Normative Regulation of Public Service Media: The Ethos, Censorship, and Editing in the Radio and Television of Slovakia” (Comenius University, 2016), (2) “The Power and Truth in the Terms of the Radio and Television of Slovakia” (Comenius University, 2018), (3) “The History of Public Service. The Birth of the Radio and Television of Slovakia” (Comenius University, 2019); 2 university textbooks, more than 50 peer-reviewed journal/conference papers (the full list of her scholar publications is available at: https://alis.uniba.sk:8444/search/query?term_1=Anna+S%C3%A1melov%C3%A1&theme=EPC). She is a researcher in 1 ongoing and 5 completed grant-funded research projects focusing on the truth in media (including hoaxes, fake-news, disinformation, conspiracy narratives), editorial responsibility within “mediatization” of the world, the changes in human cognition and in media-mediated communication after the rise of online media. She currently participates in 2 international research projects: (1) “Mobile Journalism in Central-East European Countries” (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Moldova, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, North Macedonia, Ukraine); (2) “Corporate Social Responsibility in Media” (Finland, Germany, Latvia, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine).

Anna Sámelová is a member of the ECREA – European Communication Research and Education Association, the Slovak Philosophical Association at the Slovak Academy of Sciences, and a co-founder of the International Press Institute Slovakia. She was a member of the National Communication Committee for the Introduction of the Euro in the Slovak Republic (2006 – 2009), and a member of the juries of journalistic awards in Slovakia and the Czech Republic (2010 – 2021). She is the 1996 Laureate of the Slovak Literary Fund's Annual Award for the Best Journalistic Action for co-founding the radio news journal “Žurnál Rádia Twist”.

Since January 2024, Anna Sámelová has been a visiting researcher in the Department of Communication at the University of California, San Diego, pursuing her scholarship from the National Scholarship Program of the Slovak Republic which is funded by the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic. Her research is focused on editorial practices which are supposed to prevent the spread of misinformation, disinformation, hoaxes, and conspiracy narratives in the mainstream media.