Queens College of the City University of New York

Faculty Member, Media Studies

Associate Professor

About

Mara Einstein is the author of Brands of Faith: Marketing Religion in a Commercial Age (Routledge, 2008), named a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Text for 2008.

Dr. Einstein has been working in or writing about the media industry for the past 20 years. She has enjoyed stints as an executive at NBC, MTV Networks, and at major advertising agencies working on such accounts as Miller Lite, Uncle Ben’s and Dole Foods. Her first book, Media Diversity: Economics, Ownership and the FCC (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004), was the cause for much debate when research from this work was used by the FCC as the basis for redefining the media ownership rules. In addition, Dr. Einstein has written for Newsday and Broadcasting & Cable as well as having her work appear in academic journals.

Mara Einstein is an Associate Professor of media studies at Queens College. She has a doctorate in media ecology from New York University, she holds an MBA from the Kellogg School at Northwestern and a BFA from Boston University.

She has just completed a new book for the University of California Press--Compassion, Inc.: How corporate America blurs the line between what we buy, who we are and those we help. This work is a critique of cause marketing and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)that advocates for social innovation and effective social change outside consumer mechanisms.

In the fall of 2011, she will begin a Mellon fellowship to study faith-based weight loss and fitness programs, research that builds on her work in media and religion.