Amber Hardiman

Dr. Amber Hardiman is a Howard R. Marsh Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer in the Department of Communication and Media at the University of Michigan, where she received her Ph.D. in Film, Television, and Media in August 2026. Her research examines issues of truth and legitimacy in media, with a focus on how gendered violence is perpetuated by the normative operations of media industries and social institutions. Her book project, Giving Voice, Selling Impact: Feminist Advocacy and the Streaming Documentary Boom, examines how high-profile sexual misconduct cases are repackaged as consumable forms of documentary entertainment on digital streaming platforms in the aftermath of #MeToo.

She has published in Docalogue, In Media Res, and Feminist Media Studies. She also has published and forthcoming work in other academic journals and edited collections about true crime, sports media, populist masculinities, and the political economy of media in the digital age. Her work has been supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at the University of Michigan. She is a UROP Faculty Mentor and has experience collaborating with the University of Michigan Press, U-M's Institute for Social Change, the Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center, and the Michigan Collaborative to End Mass Incarceration (MI-CEMI).