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Jenna Drenten

Senior Associate Dean for Graduate Programs and Faculty Affairs; Associate Professor, Marketing

Dr. Jenna Drenten is associate professor of marketing in the Quinlan School of Business where she studies digital consumer culture: the sociocultural role of social media platforms in everyday consumer life. Her research explains how digital culture—from social media algorithms to the influencer attention economy—structures social and cultural consumption ideologies and how consumers’ lived experiences are mediated, translated, and commodified through digital culture. This includes multiple facets of digital consumer culture—from individual consumer behavior to systemic macro-level structures—across a range of social media platforms. Jenna is an expert in the field of marketing on qualitative social media research methods.

Jenna’s work has been published in leading academic journals such as Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Advertising, and New Media & Society, and her expertise has been featured extensively in media outlets including The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and The Washington Post. For more information, go to www.jennadrenten.com.

Jenna serves as an associate editor for the Journal of Advertising Research, as the communications chair for GENMAC: Gender, Markets, and Consumers, and as an associate board member for the Chicago Public Library Foundation. In the Quinlan School of Business, she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in marketing, integrated marketing communications, social media marketing, and brand storytelling.

Before pursuing her Ph.D., Jenna worked in corporate communications at BMW Manufacturing Co. in Greer, SC and worked in special events and marketing at Minyanville Media, Inc., an Emmy-Award winning online financial publishing company in New York City.

Education

  • PhD, Marketing, University of Georgia
  • BS, Integrated Marketing Communication, Winthrop University

Research Interests

  • Identity Development
  • Digital Consumer Culture
  • Influencer Marketing
  • Gender
  • Social Media Marketing

Professional/Community Affiliations

Academic Leadership

  • Journal of Advertising Research, Associate Editor (2022–present)
  • Journal of Macromarketing Manuscript Review Board (2019–present)
  • GENMAC: Gender, Markets, and Consumers, Leadership Council (2019–present)
  • Center for Textual Studies and Digital Humanities (CTSDH), Steering Committee (2018-present)
  • Marketing Education Review, Editorial Review Board (2014–23)

Community Leadership

  • Chicago Public Library Foundation, Associate Board (2023–present)
  • Junior League of Chicago, Marketing Design Chair (2016–18)

Professional Membership

  • Association for Consumer Research (ACR)
  • Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR)
  • American Marketing Association (AMA)
  • Consumer Culture Theory Consortium (CCTC)
  • Chicago Consumer Culture Consortium (C4)
  • Gender, Markets, and Consumers (GENMAC)

Courses Taught

  • Fundamentals of Marketing (Undergraduate)
  • Integrated Marketing Communications (Undergraduate and Graduate)
  • Social Media Marketing and Brand Storytelling (Graduate)
  • Consumer Behavior (Undergraduate and Graduate)

Publications/Research Listings

Drenten, Jenna, Robert Harrison, and Nicholas Pendarvis (2022), “More Gamer, Less Girl: Gendered Boundaries, Tokenism, and the Cultural Persistence of Masculine Dominance,” Journal of Consumer Research, https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucac046.

Brooks, Gillian, Jenna Drenten, and Mikolaj Jan Piskorski (2021), “Influencer Celebrification: How Social Media Influencers Acquire Celebrity Capital,” Journal of Advertising, 50(5), 528-547.

Drenten, Jenna and Evie Psarras (2021), “Digital Ventriloquism and Celebrity Access: Cameo and the Emergence of Paid Puppeteering on Digital Platforms,” New Media & Society, 1-20.

Drenten, Jenna and Gillian Brooks (2020), “Celebrity 2.0: Lil Miquela and the Rise of a Virtual Star System,” Feminist Media Studies, 20(8), 1319-1323.

Drenten, Jenna, Lauren Gurrieri, and Meagan Tyler (2020), “Sexualized Labour in Digital Culture: Instagram Influencers, Porn Chic and the Monetization of Attention,” Gender, Work and Organization, 1-26.

Gurrieri, Lauren and Jenna Drenten (2019), “Visual Storytelling and Vulnerable Healthcare Consumers: Normalizing Practices and Social Support through Instagram,” Journal of Services Marketing.

Gurrieri, Lauren, and Jenna Drenten (2019), “The feminist politics of choice: Lipstick as a marketplace icon” Consumption Markets & Culture, DOI: 10.1080/10253866.2019.1670649.

Gurrieri, Lauren and Jenna Drenten (2019), “The hashtaggable body: Negotiating gender performance in social media,” Handbook of Research on Gender and Marketing, Susan Dobscha (ed.), Edward Elgar Publishing, 101-116.

Drenten, Jenna, Robert Harrison, and Nicholas Pendarvis (2019), “Video Gaming as a Gendered Pursuit,” Handbook of Research on Gender and Marketing, Susan Dobscha (ed.), Edward Elgar Publishing, 28-44.

Drenten, Jenna (2018), “When Kids are the Last to Know: Embodied Tensions in Surprising Children with Family Vacations,” Young Consumers, 19(2), 199-217.

Drenten, Jenna and Linda Tuncay Zayer (2018), “The Role of Digital Virtual Consumption in Navigating Risk-laden Life Events,” Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 3(1), 46-62.

Drenten, Jenna and Linda Tuncay Zayer (2018), “Consumers' Management of Risk in Daily Life through Digital Virtual Consumption,” Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 3(1), forthcoming.

Drenten, Jenna and Lauren Gurrieri (2018), “Crossing the #Bikinibridge:  Exploring the Role of Social Media in Propagating Body Image Trends,” in Angeline G. Close (Ed.), The Dark Side of Social Media: A Consumer Psychology Perspective, New York, NY:  Routledge, 49-70. 

Drenten, Jenna (2012), “Snapshots of the Self: Exploring the Role of Online Mobile Photo Sharing in Identity Development among Adolescent Girls,” in Angeline G. Close (Ed.), Online Consumer Behavior: Theory and Research in Social Media, Advertising, and E-Tail, New York, NY: Routledge, 3-34.

Awards

  • Faculty Member of the Year, Loyola University Chicago, 2023
  • Researcher of the Year, Quinlan School of Business, Loyola University Chicago, 2023
  • Faculty Fellow, Gannon Center for Women and Leadership, Loyola University Chicago, 2020
  • Outstanding Reviewer of the Year, Young Consumers, 2019
  • Langerbeck Award for Undergraduate Research Mentoring, Loyola University Chicago, 2019
  • Distinguished Alum, Department of Mass Communication, Winthrop University, 2018
  • Outstanding Teacher of the Year - Undergraduate Programs Quinlan School of Business, Loyola University Chicago, 2018
  • Reviewer of the Year, Marketing Education Review, 2016
  • Faculty Fellow, Advertising Educational Foundation’s (AEF) Visiting Professor Program, 2015