Karen Sternheimer is the author of Connecting Popular Culture and Social Problems: Why The Media is not the Answer (Westview Press, 2009), a book debunking claims that media is to blame for American social problems. She is currently writing a book on celebrity culture.

She is also the author of Kids These Days: Facts and Fictions About Today’s Youth (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), It’s Not the Media: The Truth About Pop Culture’s Influence on Children (Westview Press, 2003), and is the editor and lead writer for everydaysociologyblog.com.

Dr. Sternheimer currently teaches in the sociology department at the University of Southern California, where she is also a faculty fellow at the USC Center for Excellence in Teaching. Her research has focused on issues related to popular culture and youth, particularly trends in youth behavior. Her current research examines how celebrity culture reflects American opportunities and changing views of the American Dream.

Her commentary has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Newsday, the San Jose Mercury News, and other newspapers around the country. In addition, she has provided commentary for CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, The History Channel, 20/20, The O’Reilly Factor, and many local news broadcasts, and has been a guest on numerous radio shows nationally and internationally, including NPR’s Marketplace, Bloomberg radio and Voice of America. Sternheimer has been interviewed for dozens of magazines and newspapers, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Variety, Child, and Ladies’ Home Journal, as well as for publications in China, Japan, and South America.
 
Professor Sternheimer holds a doctorate in sociology from the University of Southern California. She also earned a master’s degree in psychology from Pepperdine University and a bachelor of fine arts degree in drama from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She lives in Los Angeles.