Karen E. Dill-Shackleford is a social psychologist who studies the role of media in everyday life. Some of her special areas of interest are the psychology of engagement with narrative, violence and violence prevention, portrayals of race and gender, and fandom.

"Our media saturated environment is cluttered with opinions about how the media affects us--or doesn't affect us--in all sorts of ways. It's hard to find a book by someone who really understands the findings in the large and technical media effects literature and can communicate that knowledge to a general audience in a credible and highly engaging manner. Karen Dill-Shackleford accomplished that rare feat in 2009 with How Fantasy Becomes Reality. Now with the media effects literature even larger, Professor Dill-Shackleford has written a second edition of this book which is even more interesting and engaging. This new edition of How Fantasy Becomes Reality is a must read for anyone who wants to learn what is really going on with media effects." --W. James Potter, Professor of Communication, University of California at Santa Barbara; Author of The Eleven Myths of Media Violence

"Reading Karen Dill-Shackleford's revised and expanded How Fantasy Becomes Reality is like thinking through the most pressing, most enduring, and most interesting questions about the role of media in individuals' lives in the company of a really smart and engaging friend. With a humorous and easy-going style, she traces through the perils and pleasures of our media-saturated existence by providing thoughtful, fair, and clear-eyed analysis of oodles of social science data and an uncanny ability to zero directly in on its importance for our daily lives. I'd recommend this book to students, scholars, and engaged citizens alike." --Erica Scharrer, Professor and Chair, Department of Communication, University of Massachusetts Amherst