Heather Hendershot

Hendershot attended Yale University, where she obtained her BA in French and Film Studies,^[1] and was part of Berkeley College.^[2] She later did her graduate studies at the University of Rochester, where she obtained an MA and PhD, both in English and part of the film program.^[1] Her doctoral dissertation was titled Endangering the dangerous: the regulation and censorship of children's television programming, 1968-1990.^[3]

Hendershot originally worked at Queens College as an associate professor within the Department of Media Studies, as well as at CUNY Graduate Center's Film Studies Certificate Program, where she was coordinator.^[4] She was Wolf Visiting Professor of Television Studies at University of Pennsylvania in late-2009.^[4] Following her time at Queens College, she became a professor of film and media at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.^[5] She later moved to the Northwestern University School of Communication, where she held a full professorship.^[6] In 2025, she was appointed Cardiss Collins Professor of Communication Studies and Journalism.^[6]

Hendershot specializes in television studies, as well as mid-20th-century Hollywood cinema.^[1] She released two books in 2004: an edited volume about the cable channel Nickelodeon titled Nickelodeon Nation^[7] and a monograph about evangelical Christianity product marketing called Shaking the World for Jesus.^[8] In 2009, Hendershot was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.^[9] She later published two more monographs: What’s Fair on the Air? (2011), centered on the era of Cold War right-wing broadcasters Billy James Hargis, H. L. Hunt, Carl McIntire, and Dan Smoot;^[10] and Open to Debate (2016), centered on the conservative talk show Firing Line.^[11] She served as the editor of Journal of Cinema and Media Studies for five years.^[1]

In 2022, Hendershot released When the News Broke, a book on the impact of the 1968 Democratic National Convention on accusations of media bias in the United States,^[12] it was shortlisted for the Newberry Library's 2023 Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award.^[13]

• (ed.) Nickelodeon Nation (2004)^[14][15]
• Shaking the World for Jesus (2004)^{[16][17][18][19]}
• What's Fair on the Air? (2011)^[20][21]
• Open to Debate (2016)^[22][23][24]
• When the News Broke (2022)^[25][26][27]