Navigating the Intersection of Identity, Technology, and Advocacy
Exploring Dr. Jessica Maddox’s journey to tenure, X's Grok, and the significance of Kamala Harris’s identity in contemporary politics.
Dr. Jessica Maddox's Path to Tenure and Advocacy
This week, we are celebrating and featuring Dr. Jessica Maddox, a CITAP affiliate who recently received tenure. Dr. Maddox is an associate professor in the Department of Journalism and Creative Media at the University of Alabama, where she researches social media platforms, internet popular culture, and feminist media studies.
In our interview, Dr. Maddox shares her latest research, discusses the importance of studying social media, and reflects on how her work aligns with CITAP's mission of fostering equitable and informed public discourse.
This conversation offers a deeper look into her journey to tenure, her thoughts on the evolving landscape of online culture, and her contributions to the field.
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What inspired you to pursue your field of study, and how has your research evolved over time?
I went to get a professional track master’s degree because I thought I wanted to work in public relations and do social media management, but early on in that program I realized I had so many questions about the cultural role social media played in our lives. Thanks to conversations and mentorship from my extraordinary professors Dr. Elli Roushanzamir and Dr. Carolina Acosta-Alzuru, I decided to pursue a Ph.D. While I’ve always been interested in creators, culture, and influencers, the specifics have focused over the years. For instance, I never thought in a million years I’d become such an advocate for child influencer labor. But I’m always thinking and trying to synthesize my own ideas and things I see going on online, and that leads me in really cool directions.
Can you highlight some of your research projects or contributions to the field?
In my overall body of work, I’m really proud of how I’ve helped draw attention to the inherently political dimensions of internet culture. In graduate school I was trained as a Cultural Studies scholar, and this shapes how I approach all of my work. I’m definitely proud of my book, “The Internet Is For Cats” (Rutgers University Press), which I wrote almost all of during 2020-2021 at the height of the COVID shutdowns. It wasn’t my dissertation, so I wrote an entirely new book on the tenure track.
I’m also very proud of my most recently published paper, “Using Creator Studies Insights to Optimize Participant Recruitment on TikTok”. I love this paper because it was one I never saw coming until I was 1) making TikTok videos to recruit research participants and 2) had the ideas forming in my mind. I am, though, constantly thinking about new ways to push at social media and creator studies scholarship, and this paper is emblematic of that.
I’ve also been so grateful for the work I’ve gotten to do over the last year and a half advocating for child influencer legislation in the United States. I’ve consulted on several state’s bills that have been written to ensure children starring in their parents’ social media content are paid for their labor. I also provided written testimony to the state of Missouri on their bill. Much of my public speaking, op-eds, and podcast interviews have focused on this topic, so I’m constantly bringing awareness to this issue. I’m excited to see several of these bills advance in their respective state houses to follow in the lead of Illinois, who passed the country’s first law in this area last year.
Is there any advice you would give to early-career academics or students considering a similar path?
For people seeking a tenure-track job, or are on the tenure-track: Be nice to yourself. Academia likes to tie our self-worth up in our productivity, and it makes sense that this happens when you are in this precarious place where your life could be upended in a few years if you don’t do enough. But you are more than your productivity. You are a person. Have hobbies. Hang out with your friends and loved ones. Unplug and disconnect for a few hours. I promise you have the time.
For people who want to study social media and specifically, internet culture: It’s a wonderful thing to study, but two things:
Be ready to defend your work. My career has been filled with one-off comments and slights (in-person and in peer review) about my research agenda being “unserious” and “amusing.” Be ready to defend your work in the places that matter, but also know you don’t have to engage in bad-faith arguments about the merits of your work.
Unplug. Studying social media can get really overwhelming, and this may surprise people, but there are times where I do go days without getting on any social media (TikTok, Twitter, Instagram) at all. It’s hard when something you use personally is so intertwined in the professional, so give yourself time to disconnect.
Join us in congratulating Dr. Maddox on this amazing accomplishment, and be sure to check out two of her articles below 👇👇👇
Publications and Appearances
In a recent article by The Washington Post, concerns were raised about the AI chatbot Grok, hosted on the platform X, which seems to lack sufficient guardrails to prevent the creation of offensive or misleading content. The article points out that Grok could easily generate harmful depictions of real people, trademarked characters, or violence.
Daniel Kreiss weighed in on the issue, discussing the potential risks associated with the chatbot's use. He noted, “It’s a good thing we live in a country where people can invent things that mock political candidates, that’s free expression at its finest, [but] with the proliferation of AI and the removal of guardrails, there’s a possibility for things to be fragmented in politically dangerous ways.”
In a thought-provoking New York Times audio essay, Tressie McMillan Cottom delves into the complex dynamics surrounding Kamala Harris's identity and its significance in the political landscape:
I was expecting a very different DNC, just a month or so ago. But now all of the drama about changing candidates seems to have settled down. And now I’m going into this convention thinking about how the presumptive nominee, Kamala Harris, will present her personal biography. The campaign so far has not wanted to play up the historic nature of her campaign.
But I think that we, voting public, would be remiss if we did not acknowledge that not only is this a woman running for president at the top of a major party ticket, this is a Black woman, a woman of color, a Gen X woman of color, by the way. And so I’m very interested to hear how the Kamala Harris campaign understands the significance of her identity and biography relative to what voters expect from a presidential candidate.
Coming Soon
September 25th
First Amendment Day – hosted by the Center for Media Law and Policy:
8:00 AM - 9:30 AM: Breakfast with Bubba
10:30 AM - 11:30 AM: Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl 1A Day Debate
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM: Banned Books Reading (with Francesca Tripodi)
11:00 AM - 2:00 PM: UNC Voter Registration Drive
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM: AI & 1A: How the Press is Harnessing New Technology
3:00 PM - 4:15 PM: CITAP Panel: “Election 2024”
4:30 PM - 5:00 PM: First Amendment Trivia Contest
5:15 PM - 6:30 PM: Keynote: Clashes on Campus - Student Protest & the First Amendment
October 24th
“Threats to Democracies – Media and the 2024 Elections in Transatlantic Perspective” (more details to come soon).