photo of Katherine BellKatherine M. Bell is an Assistant Professor of Communication at California State University, East Bay.

She worked as a journalist for more than 20 years, mainly with The Canadian Press news agency. As a reporter she focused on issues involving the environment, industrial development and First Nations.

Her research explores celebrity as a form of cultural authority, as a mode of identity construction in digital life, and as a production and reflection of social categories and consumer culture.