Bernadette Wegenstein (born 1969) is an Austrian mediat theorist who is a research professor and director of the Center for Advanced Media Studies at Johns Hopkins University. She has written books on media theory including Getting Under the Skin: Body and Media Theory, The Cosmetic Gaze: Body Modification and the Construction of Beauty.
She received a doctorate from University of Vienna in 1998 with a thesis "Die Darstellung von Aids in den Medien : semio-linguistische Analyse und Interpretation" ("The portrayal of AIDS in the media: linguistic semiotic analysis and interpretation") Copies of the thesis are held in WorldCat libraries. she subsequently became an assistant professor at the University of Buffalo.
Wegenstein is a Research Professor at the Johns Hopkins University, where she also directs the Center for Advanced Media Studies.
She produced and directed her first documentary Made Over in America (Icarusfilms) about a television makeover show The Swan (TV series) in 2007. Her second film, See You Soon Again, which she co-directed with Austrian director and producer Lukas Stepanik (The Cinema Guild, 2012) is a portrait of Viennese Holocaust survivor Leo Bretholz in his efforts to pass on his story of survival to the Baltimore youth. The Good Breast (2016) is a feature documentary that interweaves the intimate stories of three breast cancer patients with the history and mythology of the breast. The Conductor (2021) is a documentary about Marin Alsop, the first woman appointed to lead a major American orchestra. Devoti Tutti (2023) is a neo-realist exploration of Saint Agatha of Sicily who was martyrized by her breast sacrifice in 251 AD.
In her book The Cosmetic Gaze she analyzes the body as a medium of the gaze. This medium is best exemplified in Reality TV makeover shows, such as The Swan where contestants are made over and revealed with drastic changes.