Robert V. Kozinets is the Jayne and Hans Hufschmid Chair of Strategic Public Relations and Business Communication at USC Annenberg and the USC Marshall School of Business. Over thirty years ago, he developed netnography, the qualitative research methodology now widely used to study digital culture, communities, platforms, and technologically mediated social life. He is the founder and president of the Association for Netnographic Research and an internationally recognized scholar of consumer culture, fandom, social media, influencer and creator culture, digital activism, and the cultural consequences of technology. His books include Netnography: The Essential Guide to Qualitative Social Media Research, Netnography Unlimited, Consumer Tribes, Fandom as Co-Creation, and Influencers and Creators: Business, Culture and Practice. His fourth edition of the netnography text, Netnography: Qualitative Digital Inquiry for the Age of AI, updates and extends the methodology for contemporary research environments. He is also co-authoring the 15-book Frames of Fandom series with Henry Jenkins. Kozinets received the EM Normandie Lifetime Research Award in 2022 and was named a Fellow of the Association for Consumer Research in 2024.