He is a professor and chair of the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at the School of Communication, Information and Library Studies at Rutgers University. He is also chair of the editorial board for the journal of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences' Television Quarterly and a faculty associate at the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information.

Pavlik was formerly a professor and executive director of the Center for New Media at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.He also previously served as the founding director of the School of Communication at San Diego State University.

Pavlik writes about the impact of new technology on journalism, media and society. His most recent book is Converging Media, co-written with Shawn McIntosh (ISBN 9780205308033, Allyn & Bacon, 2004). Other works include Journalism and New Media (ISBN 0231114834, Columbia University Press, 2001) and New Media Technology: Cultural and Commercial Perspectives (ISBN 020527093X), now in its 2nd edition (Allyn & Bacon, 1998).

Pavlik has written more than a dozen computer software packages for education in journalism and communication. He holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in mass communication from the University of Minnesota and is graduate of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin—Madison.

He is married with two children and lives in New York City.

He came up with the idea of the Three Stages of Online News Content, a concept which explains the source of online news content.