Mary Beth Oliver, a professor in the Department of Film-Video and Media Studies in the College of Communications, has co-edited with Jennings Bryant the third edition of "Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research" (2008, Routledge).
The book serves as a comprehensive reference volume for media effects study. Covering the breadth of the media effects arena, the third edition provides updated material as well as new chapters focusing on effects of mobile media and other technologies.
Oliver, co-director of the Media Effects Research Laboratory at Penn State, specializes in media psychology, focusing on emotional and cognitive responses to media entertainment, and media portrayals of race/ethnicity and the effects of such portrayals on viewers' racial attitudes. Her work has appeared in such journals as the Journal of Communication, the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, Communication Research, Human Communication Research and Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, among others.
She was the recipient of a Fulbright research award in 2006 to study media stereotyping of Maori populations in New Zealand, and was co-editor of the journal Media Psychology and associate editor of the journals Communication Theory and Journal of Communication.