Rate My Professor Ralph Beliveau

Ralph J. Beliveau is the Gaylord Professor and Area Head of Media Arts, encompassing Creative Media Production and Professional Writing, in the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Oklahoma. He has held the rank of professor since 2023, following service as associate professor from 2011 to 2023 and assistant professor from 2004 to 2011. Previously, he served as assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh from 1999 to 2004 and as an online instructor at the University of Iowa from 1995 to 2005. Beliveau earned his Ph.D. in Mass Communication from the University of Iowa in 2000, with a dissertation titled "Constructing Communication: A Study of Mass Communication Pedagogy," along with an Interdisciplinary Certificate in the Project on Rhetoric of Inquiry from the same institution. He holds a B.S. in Communication, specializing in Radio/TV/Film, from Northwestern University in 1983. Early in his career, he ran an FM radio and cable television program while teaching at a high school on Chicago's Southwest side and worked in independent film and television production in Los Angeles. He is an affiliate faculty member in Film and Media Studies, core affiliate in Women’s and Gender Studies, and affiliated with the Center for Social Justice.

Beliveau's scholarship centers on media literacy, horror media, documentary production, cultural studies, critical pedagogy, folk horror, and representations of identity and #MeToo in media. He has authored and co-authored books including Catholic Horror on Television: Haunting Faith (2024, with Laura Bolf-Beliveau), Digital Literacy: A Primer on Media, Identity, and the Evolution of Technology, second edition (2023, with Susan Wiesinger), Gramsci and Media Literacy: Critically Thinking About TV and the Movies (2021, with Erika Engstrom), and Screening #MeToo: Rape Culture in Hollywood (2022, co-edited with Lisa Funnell), which earned the 2023 Choice Outstanding Academic Title. Forthcoming works include #MeToo TV: Essays on Streaming Rape Culture (2025, co-edited with Lisa Funnell). His contributions appear in chapters such as “Shirley Jackson and American Folk Horror” (2021) and editorial boards for the Journal of Communication Inquiry, Journal of American Culture, and Journal of Entertainment and Media Studies; he previously edited the Journal of Communication Inquiry. Awards include the 2021 OU Regents’ Award for Superior Teaching, 2018 Gaylord College Diversity Fellowship, and 1998 John F. Murray Outstanding Doctoral Student Award. Beliveau chairs doctoral and master’s committees, co-directs the British Media Study Abroad Program, and teaches courses in podcasting, documentary producing and directing, media literacy, race and gender in media, and qualitative research methods. He has chaired divisions in the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and Broadcast Education Association.