This chapter situates Barbie as a cultural icon that has far exceeded her origins as an 11.5-inch blonde fashion doll. From her emergence in 1959 to the present day, Barbie has unfolded as a transmedia phenomenon, operating as a cultural artifact that both reflects and shapes societal notions of femininity, race, class, and power. Scholarship to date has largely focused on Barbie’s representation as a doll and her effects on body image, identity, and socialization. This chapter explains how Barbie in the Media expands on those discussions by foregrounding Barbie’s role in film, television, digital media, and beyond. It examines how Mattel’s branding has cultivated a global multimedia empire, and how audiences—including fans, critics, and artists—reinterpret and re-create Barbie in their own media works. This chapter outlines the evolution of Barbie scholarship, positioning the doll within debates on feminism, cultural representation, and globalization. It also highlights the methodologies of the volume’s 16 chapters—ranging from textual and cultural analysis to autoethnography and black feminist visual theory—that reveal how Barbie’s transmedia presence intersects with broader cultural, political, and economic currents. In so doing, the collection underscores Barbie’s status as a cultural palimpsest that is constantly negotiated, reimagined, and contested. Ultimately, this volume seeks to expand our understanding of how Barbie functions as a global cultural force and why the study of her mediated afterlives remains both urgent and illuminating.