Faculty
Rachel E. Dubrofsky
Professor & Chair of Equity, Social Justice, and Accountability
Affiliated Department(s)
Professor, Departments of Humanities & Cultural Studies and Women's & Gender Studies
contact information
Email
Office: CIS 3040
Pronouns: She/Her/Hers
Biography
Dr. Dubrofsky's research is rooted in a critical/cultural studies tradition, with a focus on popular culture (reality TV, television, social media, film, selfies, music videos, news), with an emphasis on issues of race and gender and a focus on surveillance, whiteness, and authenticity. Some of her work has appeared in the journals Critical Studies in Media Communication, Communication Theory, Communication, Culture and Critique, Feminist Media Studies, and Television and New Media. She is the author of The Surveillance of Women on Reality Television: Watching The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, the co-editor of the collection Feminist Surveillance Studies, and the author of Authenticating Whiteness: Karens, Selfies, and Pop Stars.
RESEARCH AREAS
Critical/Cultural Studies, media studies, gender, race, digital media, reality TV, surveillance
MEDIA INTERVIEWS
- 'I Didn't Realize How Much of a Machine It Is' (The Atlantic)
- Love and Surveillance, Dating Shows Channel More Than Reality (Bitch Media)
- "Matt James Is the First Black Bachelor. But He Alone Can’t Solve the Franchise’s Issues With Race" (Time)
- '90 Day Fiancé': A look at the soft xenophobia of TLC's hit reality show (Yahoo Entertainment)
- Racism is rampant on reality tv and Netflix’s Million Dollar Beach House is just the tip of the iceberg (Glamour Magazine)
- Why No Sex Is the New Sex on Reality TV (Rolling Stone)
- There’s a dark side to women’s health apps: ‘Menstrual surveillance’ (The Guardian)
- Formal and casual White House photos show distance between Trump and increasingly diverse nation (The Washington Post)
- Is Lena Dunham's 'hipster racism' just Old-fashioned prejudice (The Guardian)
- Why are 'The Bachelor' and 'The Bachelorette' so white? Lifetime's 'UnREAL' explores the issue (The Los Angeles Times)
- What Would It Mean To Have A 'Hapa' Bachelorette? (NPR)
- How Hate-Watching "The Bachelor" Became A Competitive Sport (The Washington Post)
- The Hipster Racism of Reality TV (Salon.com)
- Audio interview with Dr. Dubrofsky (Fembot collective, Books Aren't Dead--BAD)
- Audio interview with Dr. Dubrofsky (The Critical Lede)
- On Facebook and reality TV (Montreal Gazette)
- On Polk County Sheriff being offered reality show (The Ledger)
- On The Bachelor (The Daily Beast)
- On Reality TV (USA Today)
- On Madonna (Montreal Gazette)
- "Freefall tackles dark side of reality TV with 'American Monkey'" (Tampa Bay Times)
- "Gendered and Racialized Identities in Social Media," Talk at Frontiers of New Media Symposium at the University of Utah (2013)