Katherine Sender

Katherine Sender is a professor in the Department of Communication and the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at Cornell University. Her research and teaching focus on gender, sexuality, and gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer media. Her research areas span television, audiences, cultural production, consumer culture, and globalization. Katherine is the author of Business not Politics: The Making of the Gay Market (2004) and The Makeover: Reality Television and Reflexive Audiences (2012). She has also produced documentaries about media representation, including Off the Straight and Narrow: Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, and Transgender People on US Television (1998, 2006, and in post-production), and Brand New You: Makeover Television and the American Dream (2012). She is currently editing a documentary on Indian traditional textile techniques in the context of a globalizing fashion industry.

Her current research project focuses on sexual mobilities across a range of media and locations.

Selected peer-reviewed journal articles

Humphreys, L., Lewis Jr, N. A., Sender, K., & Won, A. S. (2021). Integrating qualitative methods and open science: Five principles for more trustworthy research. Journal of Communication, 71(5), 855-874.

Sender, K. (2020). Selling Cosmopolitanism: Same-Sex Materials in Museums in Asia, Europe, and the United States. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 26(1), 35-61.

Homant, E., & Sender, K. (2019). Queer Immaterial Labor in Beauty Videos by LGBTQ-Identified YouTubers. International Journal of Communication, 13, 5386-5404.

Sender, K. (2018). The gay market is dead, long live the gay market: From identity to algorithm in predicting consumer behavior. Advertising & Society Quarterly, 18(4).

Sender, K. (2015). Reconsidering reflexivity: Audience research and reality television. The Communication Review, 18(1), 37-52.

Duffy, B. E., Liss-Mariño, T., & Sender, K. (2011). Reflexivity in television depictions of media industries: Peeking behind the gilt curtain. Communication, Culture & Critique, 4(3), 296-313.

Sender, K. (2006). Queens for a day: Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and the neoliberal project. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 23(2), 131-151.

Sender, K. (2004). Neither fish nor fowl: Feminism, desire, and the lesbian consumer market. The Communication Review, 7(4), 407-432.

Sender, K. (2003). Sex sells: Sex, taste, and class in commercial gay and lesbian media. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 9(3), 331-365.

Sender, K. (2001). Gay readers, consumers, and a dominant gay habitus: 25 years of the Advocate magazine. Journal of communication, 51(1), 73-99.

Sender, K. (1999). Selling sexual subjectivities: Audiences respond to gay window advertising. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 16(2), 172-196.

Selected book chapters

Sender, K. (2019). Creative Practice as Queer Media Pedagogy. In A. Atay and S. Pensoneau-Conway (Eds.). Queer Communication Pedagogy. New York: Routledge.

Sender, K. (2014). Transgender, Transmedia, Transnationality: Chaz Bono in Documentary and “Dancing with the Stars.” In C. Carter, L. Steiner, and L. McLaughlin (Eds.) Routledge Companion to Media and Gender. New York: Routledge.

Sender, K. (2012). No Hard Feelings: Reflexivity and Queer Affect in the New Media Landscape. In K. Ross (Ed.) The Handbook of Gender, Sex, and Media. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Sender, K. (2007). Dualcasting: Bravo’s Gay Programming and the Quest for Women Audiences. In S. Banet-Weiser, C. Chris, and A. Freitas (Eds.) Cable Visions: Television Beyond Broadcasting. New York: New York University Press.

Documentary films (selected)

Sender, K. (In post-production). Beyond the Straight and Narrow: Queer and Transgender Television in a Digital Age.Producer, director, editor. Northampton, MA: Media Education Foundation.

Sender, K. (2021). Threads: Sustaining India’s Textile Traditions. Co-producer and co-director and editor, with Shuchi Kothari (co-producer and co-director). Boston, MA: Documentary Educational Resources. 58 minutes.

Sender, K. (2014). Brand New You: Makeover Television and the American Dream. Producer, director, editor. Northampton, MA: Media Education Foundation. 52 minutes.

Sender, K. (2006). Further Off the Straight and Narrow: New Gay Visibility on Television. Producer, director, editor. Northampton, MA: Media Education Foundation. 61 minutes.

Sender, K. (1998). Off the Straight and Narrow: Lesbians, Gay Men and Television. Producer, director, writer, editor. Northampton, MA: Media Education Foundation. 63 minutes.