About
I am a feminist popular music scholar and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Journalism and Creative Media in the College of Communication and Information Sciences at the University of Alabama.
I examine the gendered dynamics of contemporary musicians’ work across a range of industries in an era shaped by convergence, consolidation, and digital distribution. I investigate how these individuals transfer or modify their musical skills into work that is often dismissed as tangentially related to production and performance. I am particularly interested in how female-identified musicians present themselves as entrepreneurial subjects by supplementing their primary careers as recording and touring artists with secondary careers in film, television, and branding in order to negotiate the music business’s persistent sexism and ageism with the digital economy’s new expectations toward artists’ relational labor through streaming and social media.
My first book, Extending Play: The Feminization of Collaborative Music Merchandise in the Early Twenty-First Century (Oxford, 2023), examines how artists like M.I.A., Rihanna, Patti Labelle, and St. Vincent use brand partnerships to express creative authority and to articulate their value to industry professionals and fans. I am currently working on two book projects about feminist electropunk band Le Tigre and VH1’s historical programming and promotional strategies during the 1990s. My work has been published in several academic journals, including Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, Journal of Popular Music Studies, Feminist Media Studies, Television and New Media, New Review of Film and Television Studies, Popular Music and Society, Camera Obscura, and Velvet Light Trap. I also serve as the book reviews editor for Journal of Popular Music Studies and as an editorial board member for Velvet Light Trap.
I also teach a range of university courses across media studies, communication, and popular music studies curricula. I work to develop undergraduate students’ skills with media literacy, formal analysis, close listening, and critical thinking through written, verbal, and interpersonal communication. I specialize in teaching about gender’s role in shaping popular music and convergent media. At the graduate level, I primarily work with students who are interested in conducting humanistic, qualitative, and/or historical research in media and cultural studies, popular music studies, race and gender studies, and sexuality studies.
Education
Ph.D. Communication Arts, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2016
M.A. Radio-Television-Film, University of Texas at Austin, 2008
B.J./B.A. Journalism and History, University of Texas at Austin, 2005
Primary Research Interests
- feminist media studies
- popular music studies
- media industry studies
- creative labor
- convergent media histories
Contact Information
Office: PH 486B
Email: amvesey@ua.edu
Course List
JCM 100 Introduction to Storytelling
JCM 112 Film History and Criticism
JCM 212 Film and Media Theory
JCM 413 Gender, Media Culture, and Popular Music
CIS 605 Cultural and Critical Theory in Communication