Mary Beth OliverMary Beth Oliver (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1991) is a professor in and co-director of the Media Effects Research Lab in the College of Communications at Penn State University. Her research and teaching focus on media effects, with an mphasis on media entertainment, media and emotion, and media and social cognition. She was a Fulbright Research Scholar in New Zealand and served as Chair of the Mass Communication Division of the National Communication Association. She is co-editor with Jennings Bryant on Media Effects, Advances in Theory and Research (3^rd ed.), and is former co-editor of Media Psychology, former associate editor of the Journal of Communication and Communication Theory, and former book-review editor for the Journal of Communication.