Department of Communication Arts
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Lori Lopez

Media and Cultural Studies

Professor of Communication Arts

she/her/hers

 

lklopez@wisc.edu

Email only

6134 Vilas Hall

Professor Lori Kido-Lopez

Current and Future Projects

  • Asian American television and audiences
  • Critical race and digital media
  • Engaged media studies scholarship and scholar-activism

Expertise and Activities

Dr. Lopez’s research examines the way that minority groups such as women, people of color, and queer communities use media in the fight for social justice. Dr. Lopez is the author of Asian American Media Activism: Fighting for Cultural Citizenship, Micro Media Industries: Hmong American Media Innovation in the Diaspora, and Race and Digital Media: An Introduction. She is also editor of Race and Media: Critical Approaches, and co-editor of the Routledge Companion to Asian American Media. She is the recipient of many awards for her research, teaching, and service, including the Board of Regents’ Diversity Award from the University of Wisconsin System, the Chancellor’s Inclusive Excellence Distinguished Teaching Award, the Early Career Achievement Award from the Association for Asian American Studies, and the Outstanding Women of Color Award from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

Outside of the Communication Arts department, Dr. Lopez is the Associate Dean for Social Sciences in the College of Letters & Science. She is also affiliate faculty in the Asian American Studies Program, the Gender and Women’s Studies department and at the Institute for Diversity Science.  Since 2015, she has organized a local Asian American film festival called Madison’s Asian American Media Spotlight. She is also on the advisory board of the Center for Critical Race and Digital Studies, a national collective of scholars of color supporting cutting edge research that investigates how race and inequality structurally organize digital architectures, identities, communities, cultural practices, and power relations.

Prospective Graduate Students

While Dr. Lopez is serving as Associate Dean for Social Sciences, she will not be able to respond to any email inquiries from potential graduate student applicants. She is accepting graduate students as advisees this year, but the best way to be considered is to submit an application, after which she will make contact.

Education

  • Ph.D. University of Southern California, 2012
  • M.A. Indiana University, 2008
  • B.A. Pomona College, 2006

Honors/Awards

  • Board of Regents’ Diversity Award, University of Wisconsin System, 2023
  • H.I. Romnes Faculty Fellowship, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2022
  • Robert Buono and Elizabeth Cicchelli Faculty Fellowship, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2021
  • Chancellor’s Inclusive Excellence Award, University of Wisconsin-Madison Distinguished Teaching Awards, 2020
  • Research-Service Grant, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2017
  • Early Career Achievement Award, Association for Asian American Studies, 2017
  • Race, Ethnicity, and Indigeneity Fellowship, University of Wisconsin-Madison Institute for Research in the Humanities, 2016
  • Outstanding Women of Color Award, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2015

Articles

Books

  • 2023. Race and Digital Media: An Introduction. London: Polity Press.
  • 2021.  Micro Media Industries: Hmong American Media Innovation in the Diaspora. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
  • 2020. Race and Media: Critical Approaches.  New York: NYU Press.
  • 2017. Routledge Companion to Asian American Media. New York: Routledge.
  • 2016. Asian American Media Activism: Fighting for Cultural Citizenship. New York: NYU Press.

Chapters

  • 2019. “Uniting Hapas: The Global Communities of Mixed Race Nikkei on YouTube,” in Japanese American Millennials: Rethinking Generation, Community, and Diversity. Michael Omi, Dana Y. Nakano and Jeffrey T. Yamashita, eds. Temple University Press.
  • 2018. “Bringing Race into Feminist Digital Media Studies,” in Feminist Approaches to Media Theory and Research, Dustin Harp, Jaime Loke, and Ingrid Bachmann Palgrave Macmillan.
  • 2018. “ISAtv: YouTube and the Branding of Asian America,” in From Networks to Netflix: A Guide to Changing Channels, Derek Johnson Routledge.
  • 2017. “Deploying Oppositional Fandoms: Activists’ Use of Sports Fandom in the Redskins Controversy (with Jason Lopez),” in Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World, Jonathan Gray, Cornel Sandvoss, and C. Lee Harrington NYU Press.
  • 2017. “Asian America Gone Viral: A Genealogy of Asian American YouTubers and Memes,” in The Routledge Companion to Asian American Media, Lori Kido Lopez and Vincent N. Pham New York: Routledge, 157-169.
  • 2017. “The Ethics of Visibility: Disability, Race, and the Challenge of Mediated Empowerment,” in Disability Media Studies: Media, Popular Culture, and the Meanings of Disability, Elizabeth Ellcessor and Bill Kirkpatrick NYU Press.
  • 2016. “Asian American Food Blogging as Racial Branding: Rewriting the Search for Authenticity,” in Global Asian American Popular Cultures, Shilpa Dave, Tasha Oren, and LeiLani Nishime NYU Press.
  • 2016. “Building Digital Bridges: Digital Humanities and the Transformation of Asian American Studies (with Konrad Ng),” in The Routledge Handbook of Asian American Studies, Cindy I-Fen Chen Routledge.

News

Courses

  • CA 250 – Survey of Contemporary Media
  • CA 347 – Race and Ethnicity in the Media
  • CA 420 – Asian Americans in the Media
  • CA 421 – Gender and Sexuality in the Media
  • CA 950 – Qualitative Research Methods (grad seminar)
  • CA 950 – Race, Racism and Media (grad seminar)
  • CA 950 – Feminist Media Studies (grad seminar)
  • CA 950 – Fan Studies (grad seminar)