Professor Stabile’s first book, Feminism and the Technological Fix, was published in 1994 by Manchester University Press and St. Martin’s Press. Her most recent book is White Victims, Black Villains: Gender and Race in U.S. Crime News, published by Routledge in 2006. She also has edited two volumes on media studies including Turning the Century: Essays in Media and Cultural Studies, published in 2000 with Westview Press, and Prime Time Animation: Television Animation and American Culture, published in 2003 with Routledge. Her newest article, “No Shelter from the Storm,” analyzes the interplay of race, gender, and class in the national news coverage of Hurricane Katrina, which just appeared in the South Atlantic Quarterly.

Prior to the University of Oregon, Stabile was professor of journalism and mass communication at the University of Wisconsin and has served as director of the women’s studies program at the University of Pittsburgh. Her work is highly interdisciplinary and focused at the intersections of gender, race, and class in the media. She received her PhD. in English from Brown University in 1992.

What attracted you to the SOJC?

I was familiar with the research of several faculty members in the SOJC before I came here and had a great session with some of the graduate students when I interviewed. In addition, my research in media studies has long overlapped with several areas within communications research -- journalism and broadcast history, gender and media, political economy of media -- so it made sense that I would be affiliated with SOJC.

What attracted you to the UO? 

I had no intention of applying for jobs last fall when I received the information about this position, but the job itself -- director of a Center dedicated to research on women and gender -- persuaded me to change my mind. I was also really impressed by the faculty members and graduate students I met when I interviewed here last November, as well as the many opportunities for interdisciplinary work on campus.

What collaborations between the SOJC and CSWS have been happening?

I am presently organizing a Research Interest Group (RIG) in CSWS on gender, media, and technology and a number of faculty members from SOJC are involved in that project. I am very interested in building a research agenda in that area here at the University of Oregon. In addition, collaborations between SOJC and CSWS predate my arrival here --  faculty members from SOJC have long been involved with work at CSWS.

What kind of collaborations do you envision?

There are many faculty members and graduate students doing research on gender, media, technology, and communication on campus. Right now, I've only just begun to get a sense of those wellsprings of energy and activity.

Where did your passion for studying gender, race and class in the media come from?

I'd have to say that the main impetus for my research -- particularly my last book -- emerged from participation in social movements while I was a new faculty member at the University of Pittsburgh. As someone participating in the coalitions that emerged around police brutality in particular, I was constantly struck by the disparity between how we were represented and what was happening on the ground. It seemed to me that the stories that were being told about us had very little relationship to lived realities and I set out to think about this history of storytelling in my book on gender, race, and crime narratives.

How do you think the role of women in journalism is changing or evolving?

It's hard to say right now, given the fact that journalism itself is undergoing such massive changes. On one hand, given the gender disparities in the blogosphere, I'm less than optimistic (particularly if you look at the last election). On the other hand, I think that the changes in journalistic institutions and practices may open up spaces for women's participation.

Are there classes that do not exist that you would like to develop?

Given my interests in gender and the media, I'd very much like to develop courses at the graduate and undergraduate level in that area. In addition, my new research is on online gaming and I think that a course on digital culture would be a great addition as well.