Robert X. Browning


Robert Xavier Browning is a professor at Purdue University and head of the C-SPAN Archives in West Lafayette, Indiana.

Education and academic career

Browning graduated from Marquette University with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1972. He received a master's degree in public administration in 1977 and a master's degree in political science in 1978, both from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In 1981, he was awarded his Ph.D., also from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, under the direction of Ira Sharkansky with the thesis "Political and economic predictors of policy outcomes: U.S. social welfare expenditures, 1947-1977".
In 1981, he became an assistant professor at Purdue University, where he is currently professor of communication/political science. At Purdue, Browning teaches courses related to American politics and the United States Congress.

C-SPAN Archives

Browning is the founding director of the C-SPAN Archives. In 1986, with other Purdue professors, he developed the idea for an educational C-SPAN archive, which was approved in 1987 by David Caputo, then dean of Purdue's School of Humanities, Social Science and Education. In September 1987, the archive began cataloguing recordings of C-SPAN's coverage of Congress and other public affairs programming.
Browning assumed the title of Director of C-SPAN Archives in 1998, when the archives were transferred to C-SPAN's management. He facilitates educational access to C-SPAN's collection and oversees the archives, which are located in Purdue Research Park in West Lafayette, Indiana. By the time of the launch of the C-SPAN Video Library in 2010, Browning's team converted over 120,000 hours of recordings of C-SPAN programming from analog to digital. In 2011, the C-SPAN Video Library was awarded a Peabody Award.

Publications

Browning has also published several peer-reviewed articles: