Kathryn Cramer Brownell is an author and assistant professor in American political history at Purdue University. Her first book, Showbiz Politics: Hollywood in American Political Life, examines the institutionalization of Hollywood styles and structures in American politics during the twentieth century. She is now working on a new book project, Republic of Entertainment: Cable Television and the Transformation of American Democracy, which examines the rise of cable television in the 1970s and 1980s and its influence in American politics. She has published articles in numerous scholarly journals, and also writes regularly on the intersection of politics and entertainment for Reuters.