Adrienne Massanari

Adrienne Massanari is an Associate Professor in the Communication Studies division at American University's School of Communication. She previously held positions as Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and affiliate faculty in Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and as a faculty member in the School of Communication at Loyola University-Chicago where she also served as Director for the Center for Digital Ethics and Policy.

Her educational background includes a PhD and MA from the Department of Communication at the University of Washington, Seattle, and a BA from Guilford College. She brings over ten years of professional experience as a user-interface designer, usability consultant, and information architect in corporate and educational settings to her academic work.

Dr. Massanari's research focuses on digital culture, online communities, platform politics, game studies, pop culture, and gender and race online. Her work examines how digital platforms shape political discourse, community formation, and identity expression, with particular attention to toxic technocultures and marginalized communities. She has published extensively in top communication and media studies journals including New Media & Society, Feminist Media Studies, Social Media + Society, Journal of Communication, and First Monday.

Her publication record demonstrates a consistent focus on platform politics, with particular attention to Reddit as a case study for understanding online communities. Her work traces the evolution of toxic technocultures, particularly examining how gaming communities and platform architectures contribute to the mainstreaming of far-right ideologies. This trajectory culminated in her 2024 MIT Press book Gaming Democracy: How Silicon Valley Leveled Up the Far Right, which explores how play and gaming culture have mainstreamed far-right ideology through social media platforms.

Dr. Massanari serves on the editorial boards for the Journal of Sociotechnical Critique (open-access) and New Review of Hypermedia & Multimedia. She is also a CTRL Faculty Fellow in Inclusive Pedagogy for academic years 2024-25 and 2025-26 at American University.

She teaches courses including COMM-396 Selected Topics: Introduction to Game Studies, COMM-365 Digital Media and Culture, and COMM-480 Popular Culture/Communication. Her professional background in user experience design and information architecture informs her research on digital platforms and their social implications.