Kelsey Whipple

Intorduction to Journalism, Radio and Podcasting, Arts and Culture Journalism

Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin

Kelsey Whipple is a journalism scholar and former journalist who studies news media depictions of gender and sexuality and how journalists respond to changing cultural values, technological adaptations and other industry challenges. Her research has been published in Journalism Studies, Digital Journalism, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly and Feminist Media Studies, among other peer-reviewed publications. Her work has received local and national grants and won Top Faculty Paper Awards from the Associational for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and the International Communication Association. At UMass, Dr. Whipple teaches courses including Arts & Culture Journalism, Reporting About Gender & Sexuality and Intro and Advanced Podcasting. In 2024, Whipple was awarded the College of Social & Behavioral Sciences’ Outstanding Teacher Award. She is currently a Research Fellow with UMass Advance, where she conducts research dedicated to equitable professional opportunities and practices for all faculty, regardless of rank, race/ethnicity, gender or sexuality. 

Whipple received her Ph.D. in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin and her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in journalism from the University of Missouri. Before returning to academia, Whipple worked for the alt-weekly newspaper company Voice Media Group, most recently as its Editorial Digital Director in Los Angeles. During her time at VMG, she oversaw audience development, social media, SEO, online publishing and other digital best practices for 11 alt-weeklies across the country. She has also worked for Westword magazine in Denver, where she wrote monthly long-form culture and entertainment cover stories before leading the paper’s digital strategy as its web editor. She loves animals, podcasts and music journalism and lives in Amherst with a friendly dog and a stubborn cat. She is proud to be a queer faculty member at UMass.
 

New & Selected Publications

Whipple, K.N. (2023). Contextualizing the art and the artist: How U.S. arts and culture journalists perceive the impact of cancel culture practices and discourses. Forthcoming in Journalism Practice.

Whipple, K., Ashe, I. & Cueva Chacon, L. (2022). Pod people: Examining listeners’ perceptions of the journalistic functions of podcasts. Electronic News. https://doi.org/10.1177/19312431221137650

Whipple, K.N., Graber, S. & Pena, V. (2022). “We f—ing got Osuna”: Examining the maintenance of patriarchy and journalistic routines in a Major League Baseball clubhouse. Journalism Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2022.2140447

Whipple, K.N. (2022). When everyone’s a critic: How U.S. arts and culture critics strategize to maintain their cultural authority. Journalism Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2021.2017794

Whipple, K.N. & Coleman, R. (2021). Facing the music: Analyzing the depiction and objectification of gender in American music journalism. Journalism. https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849211028770

Sturm, H., Riedl, M., & Whipple, K.N. (2021). Affective affordances: Exploring Facebook Reactions as emotional responses to hyperpartisan political news. Digital Journalism. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2021.1899011

Riedl, M.J., Whipple, K.N. & Wallace, R. (2021). Third-person perceptions and antecedents of support for social media content moderation and platform regulation. Computers in Human Behavior. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2021.1874040

Masullo, G.M., Curry, A., Whipple, K.N. & Murray, C. (2021). Behind the story: How transparency about the journalistic process boosts perceptions of news outlet credibility. Journalism Practice. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2020.1870529