These findings take on a new relevance for me as we're starting to see a new round of layoffs related to intense corporate focuses on AI. Feel free to DM if you'd like a copy!

We found that reporting upheld these layoffs as inevitable and necessary for the health of Big Tech and the U.S. economy; that AI played a sizable, "existential" role; and that there was a stunning lack of emphasis on how these layoffs disproportionately affected women and workers of color.

Mapping the relationship between journalistic discourse, tech industry layoffs, and artificial intelligence - Anne Herfurth, Jessica Maddox, 2026 The tech industry’s 2023–2024 mass layoffs represented a critical moment in which an infallible industry seemed to suddenly lay bare its weak spots. Historicall...

New publication! Anne Herfurth, a University of Alabama Management Information Systems PhD student, and I conducted a textual analysis of news coverage of the 2023-2024 mass layoffs in the Tech industry.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Meet Jessica Maddox, the first editor of a creator research journal - News Creator Corps Creator and Influencer Studies is currently soliciting research for three special issues.

Thank you, News Creator Corps, for highlighting our journal, Creator and Influencer Studies! We had a great conversation about avoiding monolithic, white-focused/American-centric research, research privacy concerns, the slow speed of academic research, and more

newscreatorcorps.org/2026/04/jess...

Starting on the academic equivalent of 3rd and making it to home plate is not, in fact, as impressive as the people who start in a rec league and somehome still make it into the majors.

Congrats!!!

I kind of can’t believe Gangnam Style hasn’t had its TikTok moment yet.

*waves* eff social media bans for minors - I’ve talked about them a lot more on my TikTok (drjess21)

This is top tier advice

Please do I need it 😭😭

I’m apparently cursed Jamie

I got such a lovely hotel room!!

I finally made it to Chicago after circling for two hours because of weather + a surprise diversion to Milwaukee to refuel.

I’ll be presenting research at be annual Society of Cinema and Media Studies conference on people who livestream their jobs.

Spoke to Wired for this piece. In a world where AI can only mimic its prompt, it’s not surprise this reflects the inherent violence of reality TV dating shows.

Also everyone should watch the old show UnReal

Shoutout to this woman in particular for walking up and down, next to the line, cheering us on and holding this sign:

No shout out to the ICE agents there to “help” 🙄but were standing around watching videos on their phone and giggling.

I made it through security in ATL in 25 minutes. Thankfully I have pre-check. Shoutout to the ATL airport for being so organized and on top of it, and to the TSA agents caught in the middle. Many of them were working multiple stations.

🤣🤣🤣

In the year of 2026 I just had to listen to an old man tell me (again) that social media and content creation are just fads.

He committed to the bit, 10/10 no notes

AND I’D DO IT AGAIN

The only way I knew how to celebrate AJ’s new book was to get him a political Cameo.

It finally happened.

A reviewer told me to cite Maddox's work on BookTok.

I am Maddox.

BTW: Trump's Tweets Were the Original Generated Slop On political shitposting, audiences, and making fake content

I'm back on my Substack bullshit tomorrow.
open.substack.com/pub/bytheway...

A real email I sent to my boss today.

Rethinking television via TikTok. That sounds like a pretty cool paper d-(^_^)z

Thanks!!

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

New article out today with Andreas Schellewald, @krystenstein.bsky.social, Ignacio Siles, and Ellenrose Firth, in which we examine how TikTok functions like television via audiences, genres, political economy, aesthetics, and intertextual elements.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

It’s Bad: What Now? - Nancy K. Baym, 2026 This essay reflects on a decade of worsening social media harms—inequality, algorithmic power, precarious labor, and data extraction—arguing for renewed interdi...

An absolute banger of an article by @nancybaym.bsky.social out today in Social Media + Society. She astutely captures so much of what I've felt and observed about social media these days.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

From dismissal to DOI: disciplining creator and influencer studies - Creator and Influencer Studies Creator and Influencer Studies -

My opening editorial as Editor-in-Chief of Creator and Influencer Studies is now live. In this piece, I reflect on how creator and influencer studies has been a discipline for a while, and how journals risk siloing as much as they do creating an umbrella.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...