Richard Butsch
- Email Address: butsch@rider.edu
- Phone: 609-895-5450
- Office: Fine Arts 220
- Mailing Address: 2083 Lawrence Road, Lawrenceville, NJ 08648
Professor Butsch (Ph.D. Rutgers University)teaches in the areas of Media, Culture and Society, and Social Psychology. He has served as chairperson of the Department of Sociology and president of the Rider AAUP. He is a Fulbright Scholar and a recipient of the Iorio Scholarly Achievement Award. He is author of The Citizen Audience: Crowds, Publics and Individuals (Routledge, 2008) and of The Making of American Audiences from Stage to Television, 1750-1990 (Cambridge University Press, 2000), which received the American Culture Association Cawelti Prize and the International Communication Association’s Best Book Award for 2000-2001. He is editor of Media and Public Spheres (Palgrave, 2007), and For Fun and Profit: The Transformation of Leisure into Consumption (Temple University Press, 1990); and has published numerous articles in American studies, sociology, history and communication journals. He is a member of the advisory boards of Popular Communication, a journal of the International Communication Association; Particip@tions, an on-line journal of audience research; and the North American Radio Studies Network.
Educational Background
- B.S., M.S. Civil Engineering, University of Cincinnati
- M.S., Ph.D. Social Psychology, Rutgers University
- AMS259 – American Popular Culture
- SOC101 – Sociological Imagination
- SOC252 – Media, Culture and Society
- SOC355 – Interpersonal Relations
Notable Scholarly Publications
- The Citizen Audience: Crowds, Publics and Individuals (Routledge, 2008)
- Media and Public Spheres (Palgrave, 2007)
- "Five decades and three hundred sitcoms about class and gender” in Gary Edgerton and Brian Rose, eds., Thinking Outside the Box: A Contemporary Television Genre Reader (University of Kentucky Press, 2005)
- “Ralph, Fred, Archie and Homer: Why television keeps re-creating the white male working class buffoon” in Gail Dines and Jean Humez, eds., Gender, Race and Class in Media (Sage Publications, 2003)
- The Making of American Audiences from Stage to Television, 1750-1990 (Cambridge University Press, 2000)
- "Crystal Sets and Scarf-Pin Radios: Gender, Technology and the Construction of American Radio Listening in the 1920s" Media, Culture and Society October, 1998
- "Bowery B'hoys and Matinee Ladies: The Re-Gendering of 19th Century American Theatre Audiences", American Quarterly , September, 1994
- For Fun and Profit: The Transformation of Leisure into Consumption (Temple University Press, 1990)
Awards, Fellowships, Etc.
- Fulbright Distinguished Chair, Vercelli Italy, Spring 2008
- Best Book Award from the International Communication Association, 2002
- Iorio Award for Scholarly Achievement at Rider University, 2002
- Cawelti Book Prize from the American Culture Association, 2001
- National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for College Teachers, 1994
- National Science Foundation grant, 1991
- Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis Fellow, 1991-93
- NJIT Center for Technology Studies Fellow, 1989
- Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham, England, Visiting Scholar, 1987
- NJ Dept. of Higher Education grant, 1984
My Former Life as an Engineer
I received a BS and an MS in civil engineering from the University of Cincinnati, College of Engineering, the nation's oldest cooperative education program. For my "coop work" as an undergraduate engineering student , I designed prefabricated steel buildings for Armco Steel Corporation, and worked on Ohio River basin planning for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. As a graduated engineer I conducted pollution control research for Exxon.
