Laura Grindstaff is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Davis, and a faculty affiliate in Gender Studies, Performance Studies, and Cultural Studies. Her research and teaching focus on the cultural dimensions of sex/gender, race, and class inequality, with a particular emphasis on American media and popular culture. She is the author of The Money Shot: Trash, Class, and the Making of TV Talk Shows as well as numerous articles and essays on aspects of popular culture ranging from sports and cheerleading to reality TV and social media.

Ming-Cheng M. Lo is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Davis. Lo's research focuses on culture, illness experiences, and civic engagement. She is the author of Doctors within Borders: Profession, Ethnicity, and Modernity in Colonial Taiwan (University of California Press, 2002; Japanese edition, 2014). A recent series of articles addresses the roles of cultural capital and non-dominant cultural resources in health, healthcare, and environmental activism.

John R. Hall is Research Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz and Davis. His published works include Apocalypse: From Antiquity to the Empire of Modernity (Polity, 2009), Visual Worlds (Routledge, 2005, with co-editors), Sociology on Culture (Routledge, 2003, with co-authors), and Cultures of Inquiry (Cambridge University Press, 1999).