Her previous career was spent primarily in local television news. She completed her PhD at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. She has published articles in publications such as Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly; Journalism; Visual Communication Quarterly; The International Journal of Press and Politics; and New Media and Society. She also co-edited The Content Analysis Reader with Klaus Krippendorff. Bock has taught at Kutztown University in Pennsylvania and joined the faculty of the University of Texas at Austin in 2012.