Ron Becker, Ph.D.

Ron Becker regularly teaches the department’s introductory course, Media Culture and You, and leads a rigorous Undergraduate Assistant program linked to that class.

He has also taught a senior seminar in Gender, Sexuality and the Media and Media, Representation and Society. He has been program coordinator for the Media and Communication program and is an affiliate in American Studies and Women’s Gender & Sexuality Studies.

His research and teaching interests include: TV studies, media criticism and analysis, queer theory, media history, and cultural theory. His first book, Gay TV and Straight America (2006) focuses on the cultural politics and industry dynamics behind the increase of gay material on U.S. network television in the 1990s.

He is also co-author of Media and Culture: Mass Communication in a Digital Age (2022) and co-edited Saturday Night Live and American TV (2013). His work has also appeared in numerous journals and edited collections, including TV Studies in Queer Times, Very Special Episodes: Televising Industrial and Social Change, The Craft of Media Criticism, The Television Studies Reader; Queer TV: Theories, Histories, Politics; The Great American Makeover: Television, History and Nation; and Television and New Media.

 

PhD in Media and Cultural Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison; MA Scandinavian Languages and Literature, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Publications: 

Gay TV and Straight America: https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/gay-tv-and-straight-america/9780813536897

Media and Culture: Mass Communication in a Digital Age: https://store.macmillanlearning.com/us/product/Media--Culture/p/1319244939?gad=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwu4WoBhBkEiwAojNdXik57j0MgfhI5krRX0FdOHqmOkRATPulWQhWbMK3MI1Sia99PBlK3RoCR1QQAvD_BwE;

Saturday Night Live and American Television: https://iupress.org/9780253010827/isaturday-night-livei-and-american-tv