Join us for the Culture Section's inaugural Stuart Hall Award lecture by Dr. Ben Carrington, “‘The University is a Critical Institution, or it is Nothing’ - Stuart Hall, The Elephants’ Graveyard and the Sociology of Race.” Register here: emory.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

Producing shifting personhood: How designers anthropomorphize artificial intelligence - Margot Hanley, Hannah Wohl, 2025 Anthropomorphized artificial intelligence has become increasingly ingrained in the fabric of everyday life, yet sociologists know little about how it is produce...

New pub! @MargotHanley and I coauthored this article on anthropomorphized artificial intelligence in @BigDataSoc. We show how engineers make technology that conveys what we call "shifting personhood" by selectively designing anthropomorphic qualities. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

The Market’s Judgment on OnlyFans Has Nothing to Do With Money Any other company with these eye-popping revenue numbers would spark a bidding war, Hannah Wohl writes in a guest commentary.

My latest op-ed, "The Market’s Judgment on OnlyFans Has Nothing to Do With Money," was just published in @barronsonline. I argue that the stigmatization of porn and other "sin stocks" has led investors to undervalue economically profitable assets. www.barrons.com/articles/onl...

Court Rules for Public Schools and Educators, Rejects Trump-Vance Administration’s Unprecedented Assault on Public Education - Democracy Forward

I'm proud to be a member of ASA and grateful for Adia Harvey-Wingfield's leadership. A huge win for free speech and higher education. democracyforward.org/updates/foia...

Crucial read: eliminating tip taxes while requiring cross-platform reporting creates new vulnerabilities for the very workers it claims to help. Data flows from Venmo to IRS to ICE surveillance is disguised as worker protection. The often invisible power of platforms is profound and multiplicative.

The Hidden Dangers of Eliminating Taxes on Tips | Opinion Instead of holding consumers accountable for sharing their data responsibly as privacy laws currently do, we must hold platform companies and our government accountable for the responsible stewardship...

"No taxes on tips" was supposed to help low-wage workers, but because of the platforms used for tipping and Trump's steamrolling of data protections, it may instead
have dire consequences for them.

@hannahwohl.bsky.social, Lindsey Cameron, & I in Newsweek today. tinyurl.com/yc27dah7

The Hidden Dangers of Eliminating Taxes on Tips | Opinion Instead of holding consumers accountable for sharing their data responsibly as privacy laws currently do, we must hold platform companies and our government accountable for the responsible stewardship...

New op-ed! I coauthored this in @Newsweek.com with Lindsey Cameron and @jticona.bsky.social on how the "no taxes on tips" provision actually increases surveillance over precarious workers and the dangers of sharing data across platforms. www.newsweek.com/hidden-dange...

Americans have been dangerously misled about porn age-verification laws Porn has long been the canary in the coal mine for other restrictions against free speech.

I'm delighted to share that my op-ed on the dangers of requiring age verification for porn sites--as the Supreme Court will soon be deciding on--was just published in @thehill: thehill.com/opinion/tech...

Methods question: Are there ethical concerns with interviewing people who are under company NDA policies (assuming they are voluntarily sharing this info and the data is fully non-identifiable)?

Relational Brokerage: Interaction and Valuation in Two Markets - Qualitative Sociology Across various markets, consumers rely on brokers to help them select goods. How do brokers shape consumers’ valuation? We address this question by drawing from two independent but analogous ethnograp...

I'm delighted to share that Max Besbris and I won the 2025 Distinguished Scholarly Publication Award from the ASA Consumers and Consumption Section for our article, "Relational Brokerage: Interaction and Valuation in Two Markets," published in Qualitative Sociology. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Deepfake porn is a labor issue AI-generated porn could put hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Americans out of work.

My op-ed on how deepfake porn is a labor issue: www.fastcompany.com/91313293/dee...

Northwestern Sociology is the best! Who else would invite me to colloquium on prospective student visiting day to talk about my porn research AND make me a book cake?! 🍰 ☺️

Check out our new article in @us.theconversation.com!

Unlikely bedfellows: How platform companies shortchange porn performers and ride-hailing drivers alike The porn and ride-hailing industries both attract workers seeking autonomy. Neither fully delivers.

I convened a group of scholars around the theme "platform" last year. A goal was to think beyond and across individual platforms to better understand their power. In this smart piece, members of the group write about the vulnerability of gig workers across sectors theconversation.com/unlikely-bed...