Press

Andrea Press is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Media Studies and Sociology at the University of Virginia, where she also served as Executive Director of the Virginia Film Festival, a College Fellow, and is currently Chair of the Department of Media Studies. Press is a Fellow of the International Communication Association. She came to the University of Virginia in 2006 to shepherd the Media Studies Program to departmental status and to begin its M.A. and Ph.D. graduate programs. Her last appointment was at the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign, where she directed the Media Studies Program for nine years, was one of the producers of the Roger Ebert Festival of Overlooked Films, received the Arnold O. Beckman award for excellence in research, and was the recipient of a faculty fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the year before she left. Her M.A. and Ph.D. are in Sociology from the University of California at Berkeley and her B.A. is in Sociology and Anthropology from Bryn Mawr College. She has a wide range of interdisciplinary interests spanning the social sciences and the humanities which comprise Media Studies. Prior to coming to the University of Virginia, Professor Press held faculty positions at the University of California at Davis, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign, the London School of Economics, and Hebrew University in departments as diverse as communications, sociology, writing studies, social psychology, film, and women’s studies. She held an NIMH Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Medical College of the University of Kentucky, was scholar-in-residence at the Stanhope Center for Communications Policy Research, and has served as Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics and at Hebrew University. Press is the recipient of several grants and fellowships from the National Science Foundation, the Danforth Foundation, and Soroptimist International.

Professor Press is internationally known for her interdisciplinary scholarship on the media audience, on feminist media issues, and on media and social class in the U.S. She has authored or edited Cinema and Feminism: A Quick Immersion, Media-Ready Feminism and Everyday Sexism, The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Feminism, Feminist Reception Studies in a Post-Audience Age, The New Feminist Television Studies, Media and Class, The New Media Environment, Speaking of Abortion: Television and Authority in the Lives of Women, and Women Watching Television: Gender, Class And Generation In The American Television Experience. For the past twenty years she has co-edited the journal The Communication Review, and has also edited book series in feminist media studies for the University of Pennsylvania Press and the University of Illinois Press. Professor Press’ work has been translated into Egyptian Arabic and Chinese. Professor Press is known for pioneering the use of qualitative research methods to study the cultural impact of the media in the U.S., and for her innovative work on media “impact” vis-a-vis members of different genders and social classes. Professor Press has published numerous essays, articles, and chapters on feminist media theory, social class and the media, and media audiences. Her forthcoming book Cinema and Feminism: A Quick Immersion offers an analysis of the way feminist representations in past and current Hollywood cinema represents and impacts men and women of different ages, races, and social class backgrounds, and culminates with an analysis of the Barbie phenomenon. Press is Past Chair of the Feminist Scholarship Division of the International Communication Association. Her current work addresses the reception of dating advice for women in the current online environment, contrasted with the representation of dating in nineteenth century novels.

Selected Publications

CINEMA AND FEMINISM: A QUICK IMMERSION

Tibidabo Press, 2024

MEDIA-READY FEMINISM AND EVERYDAY SEXISM

SUNY Press, 2021

THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF CONTEMPORARY FEMINISM

Routledge, 2019

THE NEW FEMINIST TELEVISION STUDIES

Lambert Academic Publishing, Jan 2019

FEMINIST RECEPTION STUDIES IN A POST-AUDIENCE AGE

Routledge, Feb 2018

MEDIA AND CLASS: TV, FILM, AND DIGITAL CULTURE