Bloggers have been my subject for over a decade, but only at the insistence of my family did I reluctantly agree to join their ranks. I write about politics and the media, and have been doing so since leaving behind a brief career in radio and television news to become a student of the political process. During the day – and on many evenings – I am a professor of political science at Villanova University, where until the summer of 2021, I also held the absurdly long title of Interim Associate Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning. In my academic career, I have written or edited nine books about American politics, initially on the detrimental effects of television on political engagement, more recently about the emergence of movement politics in the blogosphere and on social media. My most recent book, Next Generation Netroots: Realignment and the Rise of the Internet Left, treats our unstable politics as symptomatic of a political realignment in which Internet activism is playing a critical role. I learned how to write as an English Lit major at Binghamton University back when it was still called SUNY-Binghamton, and was trained in political science at the University of Michigan.
Books by Matt Kerbel
- Next Generation Netroots: Realignment and the Rise of the Internet Left (with Christopher J. Bowers). Routledge, 2016.
- Netroots: Online Progressives and the Transformation of American Politics. Paradigm Publishers, 2009.
- Get This Party Started: How Progressives Can Fight Back and Win (editor). Rowman and Littlefield, 2005.
- If It Bleeds, It Leads: An Anatomy of Television News. Westview Press, 2000.
- Remote and Controlled: Media Politics in a Cynical Age. Westview Press, 1999.
- Edited for Television: CNN, ABC, and American Presidential Elections. Westview Press, 1998.
- Beyond Persuasion: Organizational Efficiency and Presidential Power. SUNY Press, 1991.
Textbooks
- American Government: Your Voice, Your Future (7th Edition). Textbook Media, 2022.
- Party On! Political Parties from Hamilton to Jefferson to Today’s Networked Age (with John Kenneth White). University Press of Kansas, 2022.