Brooke Duffy
Associate Professor, Department of Communication
Brooke Erin Duffy is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at Cornell University, where she is also a member of the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies faculty. Her research interests include digital and social media industries; gender, identity, and inequality; and the impact of new technologies on creative work and labor. She's the author of two monographs on gender and cultural production, including (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love: Gender, Social Media, and Aspirational Work (Yale University Press, 2017), which draws upon research with fashion bloggers, YouTubers, and Instagrammers to explore the culture and politics of the digital labor. In addition, she is co-author of the newly released book Platforms & Cultural Production (Polity, 2021).
Duffy’s research has been published in such journals as Journal of Communication, New Media & Society, the International Journal of Communication, Critical Studies in Media Communication, Communication, Culture & Critique, the International Journal of Cultural Studies, Feminist Media Studies, Social Media + Society, and The Communication Review. In addition to her academic publications, Duffy has disseminated her research to a broader audience through popular writing in The Atlantic, Vox, Times Higher Education, Wired, and Quartz. Her commentary has been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, the BBC, Vox, The Washington Post, The USA Today, and Vice, among others. Duffy holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication.
Education
- Doctorate, University of Pennsylvania - 2011
- Master's Degree, University of Pennsylvania - 2008
- Bachelor of Arts, The Pennsylvania State University - 2002
Recent Research
- Social Media and Society
- Media and Cultural Production
- Gender, Identity, and Inequality
- Platforms and Algorithms
- Digital Labor
Awards & Honors
- Top Student-Led Paper Media Industry Studies, Division International Communication Association, 2021
- Young Scholar Award, Pop Comm Division, International Communication Association, 2018
- Outstanding Educator for Having Influenced a Merrill Presidential Scholar, Cornell University, 2017
- Emerging Scholar Award, Critical/Cultural Studies Division, National Comm. Association, 2014
- Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver Outstanding Woman Junior Scholar Award, 2014
Courses Taught
- COMM 7600: Special Topics in Media, Technology, and Society
- COMM 3200/INFO 3200: New Media & Society
- COMM/FGSS 4260: Gender and Media
Contact Information
478 Mann Library
Ithaca, NY 14853
bduffy [at] cornell.edu
Additional Links
Selected Publications
- Poell, T., Nieborg, D., & Duffy, B. E. (2021). Platforms and cultural production. London, UK: Polity Press (in press).
- Duffy, B. E. (2017). (Not) getting paid to do what you love: Gender, social media, and aspirational work. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
- Duffy, B. E. (2013). Remake, remodel: Women’s magazines in the digital age. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.
- Duffy, B. E., Pinch, A., Sannon, S., & Sawey, M.(2021). The nested precarities of creative labor on social media. Social Media + Society. April-June 2021: 1–12
- Duffy, B. E. (2020). Algorithmic precarity in cultural work (invited essay). Communication and the Public, 5 (3-4): 103-107.
- Duffy, B. E. & Hund, E. (2019). Navigating visibility and vulnerability in social media contexts: Instagram’s authenticity bind. International Journal of Communication, 13, 4983–5002.
- Petre, C., Duffy, B. E. & Hund, E. (2019). “Gaming the system”: Platform paternalism and the politics of algorithmic visibility. Social Media + Society, Oct-Dec. 1–12.
- Duffy, B. E. & Pooley, J. (2019). Idols of promotion: The triumph of self-branding in an age of precarity. Journal of Communication, 69(1), 26–48.
- Duffy, B. E. & Chan, N. K. (2019). “You never really know who’s looking”: Imagined surveillance across social media platforms. New Media & Society, 21(1), 119–138.
- Scolere, L., Pruchniewska, U., & Duffy, B. E. (2018). Constructing the platform-specific self-brand: The labor of social media promotion. Social Media + Society, July-Sept. 1–11.
- Duffy, B. E., Miltner, K. & Wahlstedt, A. (2020). Policing “fake” femininity: Anger and accusation in influencer “hateblogs.” Presented at the Association of Internet Researchers Conference (virtual), October 26-31.
- Sawey, M. & Duffy, B. E. (2020). The valuation of (in)visible labor in the social media industries. Presented at the International Communication Association (virtual), Gold Coast, Australia, May 21-25.
- Duffy, B. E., Pinch, A., and Sannon, S. (2019). Imagining and resisting algorithmic systems: Independent cultural workers in an era of platformization. Presented at the International Communication Association, Washington, D.C., May 21-25.
- Petre, C., Duffy, B. E., & Hund, E. (2019). “Gaming the system”? The politics of algorithmic manipulation in digital cultural production. Presented at the International Communication Association, Washington, D.C., May 21-25.
- Duffy, B. E. (2019). Gigs on platforms, platforms for gigs: Feminized labor in the gig economy. Presented at the International Communication Association, Washington, D.C., May 21-25.
- Duffy, B. E. & Hund, E. (2018). Projecting and policing authenticity on Instagram. Presented at the 2018 Association of Internet Researchers, Montreal, October 10-13.
Brooke in the news
News
Welcome back to the new semester and COMM Updates! Honors Continuing in the tradition of appointing our faculty members in high-level leadership positions, the university announced Professor Natalie Bazarova was appointed Associate Vice Provost...
News
Events Join us for COMMColloquium Friday, April 19, at 1:00 pm in 160 Mann Library Building. Visiting Associate Professor Bolin Cao (Shenzhen University) will present “ Understanding Human-Chatbot Interaction: Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, and...