Kelsey Whipple

Kelsey Whipple is a journalism scholar and former journalist who researches gender, gender identity, and race in the media and the influence of social media and other technologies on journalism. Her work has been published in Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Computers in Human Behavior, International Journal of Communication, Feminist Media Studies and the Howard Journal of Communications, among other publications. Her research has been covered by industry sites including Nieman Journalism Lab and received Top Faculty Paper Awards from the Associational for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and the International Communication Association. Whipple is also a podcast enthusiast and educator and creator of the University of Texas' Tiny Texas Podcast Festival.

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, where she graduated Kappa Tau Alpha. 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 taking on a lead role in the paper’s digital strategy as a web editor. She loves animals and music journalism and lives in Amherst with a friendly dog and a stubborn cat.

New & Selected Publications

• 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 regulations. 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
• Billard, T.J.; Abbott, T.; Haimson, O.L.; Whipple, K.N.; Whitestone, S.B.; & Zhang, E. (2020). Rethinking (and retheorizing) transgender media representation: A roundtable discussion. International Journal of Communication, 14, 4494-4507.
• Riedl, M., Chen, G.M. & Whipple, K.N. (2020.) The downsides of digital labor: Exploring the toll incivility takes on online comment moderators. Computers in Human Behavior, 107, 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2020.106262