About

Kama Kosenko is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at NC State University, having joined the institution in 2008. She holds a PhD in Communication from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research focuses on the role of communication in the management of stigmatized conditions and identities, with particular interest in sexual communication and its impact on HIV/STI primary and secondary prevention. Dr. Kosenko's work explores concepts such as stigma, disclosure, social support, safer sex communication, attribution, uncertainty, and information management, especially within health and marginalized communities. Her research has been published in top communication journals and biomedical journals, and she has received awards and funding, including a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, to support her projects.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Psychology
• Social psychology
• Developmental psychology
• Medicine
• Gender studies
• Philosophy
• Epistemology
• Gynecology
• Clinical psychology
• Demography

Selected publications

• Infertility and Memorable Message Mishaps, or What Not to Say to a Person Facing Fertility Issues

  Women s Reproductive Health · 2026-02-16

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• A heartbreaking choice: The integrative dilemmas of ending a wanted pregnancy

  Communication Monographs · 2025-11-13

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Meanings and dilemmas of consent communication for sexual minorities

  Communication Monographs · 2024 · 6 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Psychology
  • Social psychology

  Research on consent communication focused on the experiences and perspectives of heterosexual individuals, leaving sexual minority individuals potentially vulnerable in their communication with partners. The current study relied on normative rhetorical theory and semi-structured interviews with individuals who self-identified as lesbian, gay, and bisexual. To participants, consent communication meant engaging in a clear, verbal discussion; showing enthusiasm; coming to an agreement; and, consulting with oneself and one's partner throughout a sexual encounter. Participants also shared consent communication dilemmas that were related to the difficulties of defining "sex" in same-sex sexual encounters, heteronormative consent standards, discomfort voicing one's sexual needs, partners who were resistant to sexual communication, and past sexual assault. The discussion reviews key findings, offers possible explanations with directions for future research.

  PublisherDOI

• “How Will That Consent Play Out?”: Factors Involved in Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Individuals’ Understandings of Sexual Consent

  American Journal of Sexuality Education · 2023 · 2 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Psychology
  • Social psychology

  Due to a lack of research on sexual consent in sexual minority communities, we know little about how and what individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) learn about consent. To this end, a convenience sample of 25 LGB adults (N = 25) was interviewed about the factors that have shaped their perceptions and approaches to sexual consent. Data was analyzed using a constant comparative approach wherein data was collected and analyzed simultaneously. Participants identified interpersonal resources, such as past partners, friends, and family, as influential in their views of consent. They also described the lack of inclusive sexual health resources and inadequacies in school-based sexual education as obstacles in the learning process.

  PublisherDOI

• Queer Safer Sex Communication

  Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication · 2021-05-25 · 1 citations

  reference-entry1st authorCorresponding

  Although communication scholars have been exploring the role of partner communication in sexual health promotion since the 1960s, the term <italic>safer sex</italic>, and its corollary <italic>safer sex communication</italic>, emerged in the late 1980s in the wake of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which was and still is disproportionately affecting queer individuals. Numerous studies, along with some meta-analyses, point to the protective potential of safer sex discussions, defined here as the communicative management of health concerns with sex partners. Despite scholarly agreement regarding its importance, the term safer sex communication has received little explication, and much of what is known about it comes from studies with predominantly heterosexual samples. A review of the literature on queer safer sex communication points to some key issues related to age, race, trauma history, place, and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), and suggests important considerations for future research efforts.

  PublisherDOI

• Stigmatizing Responses to Chrissy Teigen’s Pregnancy Loss Disclosure on Twitter

  Health & New Media Research · 2021-12-31 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  When celebrity Chrissy Teigen shared on social media that she had experienced a pregnancy loss, she received support and heavy criticism from those who questioned her decision to disclose and grieve in public. This study examined these critiques and framed these messages as constitutive of pregnancy loss stigma. A thematic analysis of 300 stigmatizing tweets revealed that these messages were marked by one or more of six features, including accusations of over-sharing, blame, questions about the photos that were shared, expressions of disgust, denunciations of the disclosure as attention-seeking behavior, and tu quoque arguments. These findings suggest the need for further research on topics such as strategic topic avoidance, grief gaslighting, and bereavement photography.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Foci and Forms of Problematic Integration in the Context of Infertility

  Communication Theory · 2020 · 4 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Psychology
  • Social psychology
  • Developmental psychology

  Abstract Individuals struggling to conceive or maintain a pregnancy experience considerable stress; however, little is known about its sources. An analysis of 160 infertility narratives, guided by problematic integration (PI) theory, revealed three forms and eight foci of PI or sources of stress specific to the infertility experience. Participant accounts of diverging expectations and desires regarding pregnancy testing and prenatal loss, ambivalence about finances and treatment decisions, and uncertainty about the causes of their infertility and the likelihood of treatment success fit nicely within the PI framework; however, the narrators’ descriptions of relational uncertainty and the various uncertainties involved in adoption did not fit as well, suggesting the need for further theoretical development and refinement.

  PublisherDOI

• The Hijacked Hashtag: The Constitutive Features of Abortion Stigma in the #ShoutYourAbortion Twitter Campaign

  DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · 2019-01-02 · 25 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Although originally intended to destigmatize abortion, the #ShoutYourAbortion Twitter campaign was hijacked by anti-abortionists who linked the hashtag to hundreds of stigmatizing, anti-abortion messages. Using a Twitter Search API, we collected these messages (N = 1,990 tweets) to identify the discursive features of abortion stigma, which we defined as messages that other and label something related to abortion as physically, behaviorally, socially, and/or morally deficient. These messages bore six features: religious references, disgust cues, infamous allusions, imputations, mentions of medical maleficence, and stigma affirmations. The discussion section details the implications of these findings.

  PublisherOA PDF

• The Role of Stigma Management in HIV Treatment Adherence

  International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · 2019-12-09 · 36 citations

  articleOpen access

  Social stigma is linked to improper HIV treatment adherence, but how stigma impairs adherence outcomes is poorly understood. This study included 93 people living with HIV in the United States who participated in focus groups or one-on-one interviews regarding how stigma might affect medication management. Latent content analysis and constant comparative techniques of participant responses that were produced three thematic groupings that described how participants (a) orient to HIV stigma, (b) manage HIV stigma in ways that directly impair treatment adherence, and (c) manage HIV stigma in ways that may indirectly impair adherence. These findings illustrate the need to understand how patients orient to HIV stigma when prescribing medications and the complications that are inherent to such assessments. In addition, these findings provide a simple framework for organizing the different ways in which stigma management strategies may disrupt treatment adherence. Conceptually, these findings also offer a paradigm shift to extent theories on disclosure and concealment, in which only disclosure has been cast as an active process. These findings demonstrate how concealment is far from a passive default, often requiring enormous effort. Ultimately, these findings may guide intervention programs that help to entirely eliminate HIV by promoting optimized counseling and subsequent treatment adherence.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Instructional Capacity of Reality Television: Learning Survival Strategies from Survival Shows

  Athens Journal of Mass Media and Communications · 2018-06-30 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  One of the broadcast industry's early forays into reality television, Rescue 911, was credited with teaching viewers life-saving techniques; however, this notion was never empirically tested. A new spate of reality shows, such as I Survived, presents another opportunity to assess the teaching potential of these programs. To this end, this study, guided by social learning theory, explored whether media exposure influenced the type or number of survival strategies that individuals intended to use in a life-threatening situation. We conducted two experiments in which participants were randomly assigned to view a video of an individual describing his or her escape from a perilous situation and then asked what they would do to survive a similar threat. In comparison to participants who did not view the videos, viewers were more likely to mention using survival strategies depicted in the show, thus supporting assertions about the instructional capacity of some reality shows.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant F31MH078787

  NIH · $46k · 2009

Frequent coauthors

• Jacquelyn Harvey

  6 shared

• Ryan J. Hurley

  5 shared

• Dale E. Brashers

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  5 shared

• Erin Donovan-Kicken

  3 shared

• Lance S. Rintamaki

  3 shared

• Jennifer J. Bute

  Indiana University

  3 shared

• Johanne Laboy

  3 shared

• John P. Caughlin

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  3 shared

Labs

• Research and EngagementPI

Awards & honors

• Top paper awards at national and international conferences