Tom Felle

Tom Felle is an international expert on media regulation, platform governance, information disorder and democratic resilience. He works as an Associate Professor of Journalism at the University of Galway. He spent more than 12 years as a reporter and foreign correspondent in Dublin, Sydney and Beirut before moving into academia in 2009. He later taught at City, University of London and served for six years as Head of the Department of Media at Galway. He completed a Fulbright Scholarship in Los Angeles in 2023.

His research has shaped policy in Ireland, the United Kingdom and the European Union. He has given evidence to the House of Commons, the European Parliament and an Irish parliamentary task force on cyber violence against women in politics whose recommendations were adopted. He served on the 2013 national review of Freedom of Information and works as an expert evaluator for Horizon Europe on media, democracy and platform regulation. He has led major international collaborations, including the Global Migration Media Academy with the United Nations migration agency. In December 2025 Galway joined the Global Coalition of Ukrainian Studies and Felle led the university’s entry into the initiative. He now oversees Galway’s contribution to the coalition which supports Ukrainian democratic and media resilience and expands academic cooperation with Ukrainian partners.

• Trust, transparency and the role of journalism in democratic life
• Information disorder, verification, and the manipulation of online information
• Platform governance, regulatory design and democratic resilience
• Data-driven journalism and the ethics of data use in newsrooms
• Social media dynamics, digital newsgathering and audience behaviour

• Journalism practice and contemporary news production
• Social and digital newsgathering; data and verification; and strategic communication
• Platform governance and international media regulation