About Andrew

I am an Assistant Professor of Media Studies in the Department of Communication and Media at SUNY Oneonta (The State University of New York College at Oneonta). I teach and research a broad range of topics spanning visual media (television and film), sound media (radio, podcasting, popular music), and digital media (the internet, social media, mobile media, multimedia journalism). Sound studies is my main area of specialty, especially the cultural history of radio broadcasting, the history of podcasting and streaming audio, and contemporary trends in podcasting and audio storytelling. I apply an interdisciplinary, humanities-based approach to the study of media and popular culture, rooted in critical-cultural media studies.

My first book is Sound Streams: A Cultural History of Radio-Internet Convergence, published by University of Michigan Press in June 2020. The book traces the cultural history of internet radio, streaming audio, and podcasting from the 1990s through the 2010s. I am currently in the process of co-editing (with Michele Hilmes) the Oxford Handbook of Radio Studies for Oxford University Press. Elsewhere, my research in the areas of sound studies, media history, and the cultural industries has been published in journals including JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, Journal of Radio & Audio Media, Popular Music and Society, and Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. As an editor, I was a co-founder and managing editor of the collaborative media studies blog Antenna: Responses to Media & Culture. I co-edited the 12-part online essay series “From Mercury to Mars: Orson Welles on Radio After 75 Years,” jointly published by Antenna and Sounding Out! (2013-14). I also co-edited The Velvet Light Trap’s sound studies special issue (issue 74, 2014). And I guest edited a seven-article symposium on podcasting for Journal of Radio & Audio Media (issue 22.2, 2015), which was the first-ever journal special issue on the subject of podcasting within the media studies field.

The Sound Streams monograph is based on my dissertation from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, titled “Internet Radio: A History of a Medium in Transition,” which won the 2018 Dissertation Award from the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS). Additional honors and distinctions for my scholarship include the International Communication Association (ICA) award for Top Paper in Popular Communication, the Broadcast Education Association (BEA) award for Outstanding Article Published in Journal of Radio & Audio Media, and a summer fellowship from the A.W. Mellon Foundation and the UW-Madison Graduate School. In 2018, I was the recipient of SUNY Oneonta’s Richard Siegfried Junior Faculty Prize for Academic Excellence.

I proudly serve the media studies academic community in a variety of ways. Currently, I am a research associate on the Library of Congress’ Radio Preservation Task Force (RPTF). I recently ended an appointment as co-chair of the Radio Studies Scholarly Internet Group of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS). In 2015-16, I led an interdisciplinary team at UW-Madison that won a competitive grant, sponsored by the A.W. Mellon Foundation, to organize a year-long workshop series, SoundStudies@UW, hosting monthly public events on the theme of sound studies. I served on the Program Committee of the SCMS 2019 Seattle Conference and the Organizing Committee of the Sound Education 2019 conference in Boston. For the past two years, I have served as a Faculty Judge and Screening Committee Head in the radio/podcast category for the Peabody Awards.

Prior to entering academia, I pursued a multifaceted career in the professional media industries. A “non-traditional student,” I worked in the music, film, and television industries for a decade before returning to school to complete my B.A. in my late twenties. I was a music journalist and the founder, publisher, and editor-in-chief of Skyscraper, one of the more widely distributed indie/punk music “zines” of the late 1990s and 2000s. I worked in motion picture film preservation and media literacy education as project coordinator for the non-profit organization The Film Foundation. As a production coordinator for Martin Scorsese’s Sikelia Productions, my film and television credits include the documentary No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (2005) and the seven-part PBS series Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues (2003). Today, I continue to be involved with the production of soundwork for radio and podcast, as the executive producer of the student-run podcast series Oneonta Voices and as the faculty advisor to SUNY Oneonta’s student radio station, WONY 90.9 FM. Under my supervision, Oneonta Voices was awarded The Amy Goodman Ally Award during SUNY Oneonta’s Kente Graduation Ceremony (2018), which honors multicultural student achievement. In the past few years, the SUNY Oneonta Student Association (SA) has voted WONY as the Club of the Year (2017-18) and the Student Media Award (2019-20 ) out of the 110+ student clubs on campus, and I have twice been honored as the SA’s Advisor of the Year for my work with WONY (2017-18, 2019-20).

Here is a web version of my full CV

Short (Third Person) Bio

Andrew J. Bottomley is Assistant Professor of Media Studies at SUNY Oneonta. He is author of Sound Streams: A Cultural History of Radio-Internet Convergence (University of Michigan Press, 2020) and co-editor (with Michele Hilmes) of the Oxford Handbook of Radio Studies (Oxford University Press, anticipated release in 2022). He is recipient of the 2018 Dissertation Award from the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS). His research has been published in various academic journals including Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, Journal of Radio & Audio Media, Popular Music & Society, and Historical Journal of Film, Radio & Television. He is a Research Associate on the Library of Congress Radio Preservation Task Force. Visit his website at https://www.andrewjohnbottomley.com/

Teaching and Research

Please visit my Teaching page to browse through my teaching interests and view samples of my course syllabi.

Learn about my book and access some of my published writing over on my Research page.

Affiliations and Links

SUNY Oneonta Department of Communication and Media
WONY 90.9 FM – SUNY Oneonta Student Radio
Radio Preservation Task Force (RPTF) of the Library of Congress National Recording Preservation Board
PodcastRE
Antenna: Responses to Media & Culture (RIP)
The Film Foundation

Need to get in touch? Head over to my Contact page.