Carlo Byrd

Carlo J. Byrd is a Journalism and Media PhD student at UT Austin researching health mis- and disinformation on social media and the stakeholders of that contention: influencers spreading false information, experts rebutting on the same platforms, the platforms hosting this conflict, and the micro and macro level consequences that follow. With extensive interdisciplinary training across UT's Journalism, Advertising, and Nursing departments, Carlo integrates media sociology, consumer psychology, public health, and health communication to address contemporary issues of mis- and disinformation and their consequences on individual health behaviors and on broader health policy and infrastructure.

 

His work has been published in the US Latina & Latino Oral History Journal, and he has presented research to the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

Carlo earned his MA in the Journalism and Media Research and Theory program at UT Austin (2024), researching the same realm with a focus on food and nutrition. His master's thesis, Contending with Nutrition Quacks: Mapping Experts-Turned-Influencers and their Semiotic Resources on Instagram, used visual methods to analyze the audiovisual performance of health experts contending with misinformation directly on social media.

 

He holds a Bachelor of Journalism with a minor in media studies and a Bachelor of Arts in Government with a natural sciences certificate in Food and Society (2022). As a student journalist, he practiced photojournalism, short documentary production, and educational food science content creation.