Victoria E. Johnson

Picture of Victoria E. Johnson
Professor, Film & Media Studies
School of Humanities
Chair, 2013-2014 and 2009-2012, Film & Media Studies
School of Humanities
Professor, 0% Faculty, African American Studies
School of Humanities
President, Society for Cinema and Media Studies (2023-2025)
Ph.D., University of Southern California, Cinema-Television/School of Cinematic Arts
M.A., University of Southern California, Cinema-Television/School of Cinematic Arts
B.A., University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Humanities/Cinema Studies and Political Theory/Political Science
Fax: (949) 824-2464
Email: v.e.johnson@uci.edu
University of California, Irvine
2218 Humanities Gateway
Department of Film and Media Studies
Mail Code: 2435
Irvine, CA 92697
Research Interests
Critical History/Theory of U.S. Television and Film, Sports Media and Sports' Built-Environment, Cultural Studies, Cultural Geography, Critical Race Theory, Media Policy and Law, Communication Technology and Rural Access
Academic Distinctions
Heartland TV: Prime Time Television and the Struggle for U.S. Identity was awarded the Society for Cinema and Media Studies' field Book prize (2009), the Katherine Singer Kovacs Book Award

School of Humanities Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Education, 2011-2012

Ida Cordelia Beam Distinguished Visiting Professor, University of Iowa, September, 2023

Wolf Visiting Professor, University of Pennsylvania, 2009

Phi Beta Kappa
Appointments
Prior to her appointment at the University of California, Irvine, Dr. Johnson was a faculty member at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and visiting faculty at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She was Wolf Visiting Professor in Television Studies at the University of Pennsylvania Department of Cinema Studies in Spring, 2009. She is an Ida Cordelia Beam Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Iowa in September, 2023.

UCI Affiliations:
Professor, Department of African American Studies
Professor, Ph.D. Program in Film and Media Studies

Office Hours, Spring, 2023
By advance appointment in-person or by Zoom--please email for an appointment

Courses Frequently Taught
Undergraduate Courses
History of Broadcasting
Film and Media Theory
Critical Theory of TV
Race/Sport/Media Culture
Marketing and Brand Identity
HBO as "Auteur"
and, Special Topics in Film and Media Studies

Graduate Courses
Film and Media Studies: Theories and Methods
Critical Historiography and Theory of U.S. TV
Seminar in Cultural Studies
Research Abstract
Victoria E. Johnson teaches courses and conducts scholarly research on topics related to: Broadcast media theory, history and historiography; social and critical history of U.S. television and popular film; Sports media, culture, and sports' built-environment; cultural studies; race, geography and popular media; media policy, law, and rural access to communication technology.

She has published articles regarding the politics of place, race, and popular music in anthologies and journals including The Revolution Wasn’t Televised: Sixties Television and Social Conflict, Spike Lee’s 'Do the Right Thing', Film Quarterly, The Velvet Light Trap, Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, and online at In Media Res. Her work on sports and the media industries has appeared in collections and journals including How to Watch Television: Media Criticism in Practice, Media Industries: History, Theory, and Method, and Journal of Popular Film & Television. Heartland TV: Prime Time Television and the Struggle for U.S. Identity, examines the imagination of the American midwest as symbolic Heartland in critical moments in prime-time television and U.S. social history and was awarded the Katherine Singer Kovacs Book Prize by the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (2009). Sports TV(2021) offers a critical and historical examination of sports TV in the United States, focusing on business practices, formal properties, and social, cultural, and political meanings of the medium. Victoria is currently working on book projects and articles that examine the "videogame-graphic" aesthetics of contemporary sports TV, and on sports' built-environment as a key television-era driver of campaigns for urban "renewal" and redevelopment and "experience economy" tourism, particularly in the United States' "Rust Belt." With Travis Vogan she is co-editor of the University of Illinois Press book series, Studies in Sports Media
Publications
SELECT PUBLICATIONS

Books
The Football Film: A Cultural and Transmedia History New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press (under contract with the Screening Sports series, eds. Aaron Baker and Lester Friedman)

Sports TV (New York: Routledge, 2021)

Heartland TV: Prime Time Television and the Struggle for U.S. Identity(New York: New York University Press, 2008).


Select Book Chapters and Articles
"Sporting Community: Activism and Responsibility in Turbulent Times." Television & New Media 21, no. 6 (September 2020): 590-596.

"More Than A Game: LeBron James and the Affective Economy of Place." In Racism Postrace, eds. Sarah Banet-Weiser, Roopali Mukherjee, and Herman Gray. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2019, 154-177.

"The Classic Network Era in Television: 1950s-1970s."A Companion to the History of American Broadcasting (Wiley-Blackwell, 2018), 92-109.

"Cultural Geography." The Craft of Criticism: Critical Media Studies in Practice (New York: Routledge, 2018), 231-241.

"'Together, We Make Football': The NFL's 'Feminine' Discourses." Popular Communication: The International Journal of Media and Culture 14.1 (2016): 12-20.

"Monday Night Football: Brand Identity."
How To Watch Television: Media Criticism In Practice, eds. Jason Mittell and Ethan Thompson (NY: New York University Press, 2013), 262-270.

"Jennifer Aniston and Tina Fey: Girls With Glasses." Shining In Shadows: Movie Stars of the 2000s Ed. Murray Pomerance (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2011): 50-69.

"Valuing the Late Adopter." Critical Studies In Television: Scholarly Studies in Small Screen Fictions 6.1 (Spring 2011): 106-108.

"The Persistence of Geographic Myth in a Convergent Media Era." Journal of Popular Film & Television. 38.2 (July 2010): 58-65.

"Television, Historiography, and Cultural Power." Cinema Journal 49.1 (Fall 2009): 184-187.

"Everything New Is Old Again: Sport Television, Innovation, and Tradition for a Multi-Platform Era," Beyond Prime Time: Television Programming in the Post-Network Era, Ed. Amanda D. Lotz (New York: Routledge, 2009): 114-137.

"Historicizing TV Networking: Broadcasting, Cable, and the Case of ESPN." Media Industries: History, Theory, and Method, Eds. Jennifer Holt and Alisa Perren (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009): 57-68.

"Racism and Television," African Americans and Popular Culture Ed. Todd Boyd (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2008): 165-184.

"From Paradise Cove to the Precinct: Mapping The Rockford Files' Urban (Tele)Visions," Considering David Chase: Essays on The Sopranos, Northern Exposure, and The Rockford Files, ed. Thomas Fahy (Jefferson, NC: McFarland Press, 2007): 11-28.

"Broadcasting," The American Midwest, eds. Richard Sisson, Christian Zacher, and Andrew Cayton (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006): 939-942.

Anthologized Chapters
"Polyphony and Cultural Expression: Interpreting Musical Traditions in Do The Right Thing." Popular Music and Multimedia, ed. Julie McQuinn (London: Ashgate, 2011), 87-109.

"'Welcome Home'? CBS, PAX-TV, and 'Heartland' Values in a Neo-Network Era," The Television Studies Reader, eds. Robert Allen and Annette Hill (London: Routledge, 2004): 404-417.

"Polyphony and Cultural Expression: Interpreting Musical Traditions in 'Do The Right Thing,'" Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing, Ed. Mark A. Reid (NY: Cambridge University Press, 1997): 50-72.

Select Op-Eds and Media Appearances
UCI Podcast: A Lesson in Sports Television (March 14, 2023)

Streaming Community: How #QuarantineLife is Connecting Us Through Our Watchlist." COVID-19: The Humanities Respond, University of California, Irvine (April 23, 2020).

Air Talk with Larry Mantle KPCC Radio, FM 89.3 Los Angeles (October 17, 2017)

"A Chill In the Air," ACA-Media Podcast (November 2015)

"Viewers Still Have a Shared Conversation, It's Just on Multiple Platforms." The New York Times Opinion Pages, Room for Debate (28 September 2015).

The Think Tank With Garland Robinette WWL Radio AM 870/FM 105.3, New Orleans (April 7, 2014)

"Television Unites Viewers." The New York Times Opinion Pages, Room for Debate (3 April 2014)
Professional Societies
Society for Cinema and Media Studies
American Studies Association
North American Society for Sport History
International Communication Association
Other Experience
Board of Directors
Society for Cinema and Media Studies 2008—2011
Chair, Nominating Committee
Society for Cinema and Media Studies 2012—2014
Chair, Professional Development Committee
Society for Cinema and Media Studies 2007—2008
Faculty Fellow
Academy of Television Arts and Sciences 2001—2001
Editorial Board
Television and New Media 2014—2018
Editorial Board
MIP Research 2014—pres
Editorial Board
E-Media Studies 2011—pres
Editorial Board
The Journal of Film and Video 2003—pres
Editorial Board
Communication, Culture and Critique 2017—pres
Associate Editor
Television & New Media 2018—pres
President-Elect
Society for Cinema and Media Studies 2021—2023
Graduate Programs
Culture and Theory
Film and Media studies
Last updated
07/01/2023