Dr. Joel Penney is an Associate Professor of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. His first book, The Citizen Marketer: Promoting Political Opinion in the Social Media Age, won the 2018 Best Book Award from the American Political Science Association. His new book, Pop Culture, Politics, and the News: Entertainment Journalism in the Polarized Media Landscape, which was published in 2022, explores the role of cultural journalism in political discourse from both a historical and contemporary perspective, with a focus on discussions of race, gender, and sexuality and their representation in popular culture.