I’m Krysten Stein, Ph.D. (she/her), an Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Cincinnati Blue Ash College. I am also a 2026 Research Fellow at the Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS), a Research Affiliate with the Center on Digital Culture and Society at the University of Pennsylvania and the Intersectional Technology Lab at the University of Michigan.
Drawing on television studies, feminist media studies, digital media studies, and critical media industry studies, my research asks a central question: How do digital technologies transform media industries, culture, and everyday life? I examine how creators, platforms, and emerging technologies reshape media production, labor, governance, expertise, identity, commercialization, and power across television, social media, and artificial intelligence. My research is organized around three interconnected areas: creator economies and platform governance, digital mental health and the platformization of care, and artificial intelligence and media industries. Rather than treating digital platforms and artificial intelligence as entirely new phenomena, I situate them within longer histories of television and entertainment to demonstrate how emerging technologies extend and reorganize longstanding media-industrial logics.
A central strand of my research examines digital mental health as an emerging media industry. My first book, And How Does That Make You Feel? Theratainment and the Digital Commodification of Mental Health (under contract with the University of California Press), develops the concept of theratainment to explain the convergence of therapeutic discourse and entertainment logics, in which emotional disclosure, self-work, healing, and mental health expertise become reorganized through platform economies, creator culture, algorithmic visibility, and audience engagement. Tracing the evolution of therapeutic entertainment from daytime talk shows and reality television to social media creators, the book argues that digital platforms transform care into a site of media production, labor, commercialization, and governance. Building on this work, my second book project examines AI therapy chatbots and digital mental health technologies, investigating how AI-mediated care is designed, commercialized, governed, and experienced as an emerging media industry.
Across these projects, I draw on critical-cultural and qualitative methods, including in-depth interviews, digital ethnography, discourse analysis, and feminist media methodologies, to examine how media industries organize labor, expertise, governance, visibility, identity, commercialization, and power. My research has appeared in Gender & Society, International Journal of Communication, Feminist Media Studies, European Journal of Cultural Studies, and Convergence. Beyond academia, I contribute to public conversations through interviews and commentary for CNN, NBC News, Business Insider, The Guardian, and The Telegraph.
I also contribute to the field through editorial leadership and professional service as Social Media Editor for Feminist Media Studies, an Editorial Board Member for Creator & Influencer Studies, a member of the Academic Advisory Circle of the American Influencer Council, and co-founder of the Content Creator Scholars Network.
Thank you for visiting. Please explore the site to learn more about my research, publications, teaching, media work, and current projects!
media industries in a digital age 