Kristy Hess is Professor of Communication at Deakin University Australia. Her research largely focuses on the media practices and the sustainability of local news as well as the relationship between journalism, placemaking and social order in digital settings. 

Kristy is currently a chief investigator on two Australian Research Council projects: lead CI on an ARC Linkage examining the future of local newspapers in Australia in partnership with Country Press Australia and CI on an ARC Discovery project examining media and the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. She regularly consults stakeholders on media policy and local news, including start-ups, industry and government.

She is co-author of two books, Local Journalism in a Digital World (with Lisa Waller, RMIT) and Geographies of Journalism: The imaginative power of place in making digital news (with Robert Gutsche Jnr, Lancaster University), co-editor of two international edited collections on journalism (Routledge) and serves as associate editor of Digital Journalism.