Questions over how new technologies will change people have been asked since at least the time of Plato’s critique of writing in the Phaedrus. As technology has become ubiquitous, the response to this change has ranged from reactionary to celebratory, but it seems clear that we have changed as a society and as humans. My work examines how these changes in the technological landscape have influenced constructions of identity, our perceptions of embodiment, and how we engage in political action.

My dissertation research focused on computer hackers. I have published several articles and book chapters from this strand of research, including an analysis of legendary hacker journal Phrack (journal article published in Media History Monographs), an examination of the debate between two hacker groups concerning the ethics of using distributed denial of service attacks as a means of protest (book chapter published in Controversies in Digital Ethics), and analysis of contemporary website defacement messaging (journal article published in Communication Law Review and book chapter in War and the Media: Essays on News Reporting, Propaganda and Popular Culture).

Another strand of research explores how our technological landscape has influenced our behavior, our relationships, and our identities. For example, new media technologies have changed how we maintain and initiate relationships, and I have published work on online cheating (journal article published in Explorations in Media Ecology), legal issues surrounding adolescent sexual expression online (journal article published in Explorations in Media Ecology and book chapter in The Ethics of Emerging Media: Information, Social Norms and New Media Technology), and the potential for digital media to "out" one's physical self (book chapter published in Theorizing Digital Rhetoric). Of course, how we talk about teachnology also has implications for how we view it, and I have published work on the "net generation" (journal article in Explorations in Media Ecology and ETC: A Review of General Semantics) and how technical communication can help clarify issues for the public (book chapter published in Legal Issues in Global Contexts: Perspectives on Technical Communication in the Global Age).

These themes of technology, embodiment, and language were further explored in my books. My first book, Naked Politics: Nudity, Political Action, and the Rhetoric of the Body, examined how the unclothed body can be mobilized for political and social ends. This work also considered the constraints of the different media through which the body is displayed. For example, a chapter on lactivism (politically motivated breastfeeding) examined protests both in physical space and on Facebook. My work suggests that the physical protests were covered by the news media much more sympathetically because the women possessed a legal right to breastfeed in public and the immediacy of the hungry child mitigated accusations of exhibition. In contrast, the women who posted breastfeeding photos on Facebook had mistakenly placed Facebook into the same category as public space.

My second book, Public Nudity and the Rhetoric of the Body, examines political actions that embrace sexual display and focuses on the global media environment. For example, one chapter describes how Egyptian blogger Aliaa Magda Elmahdy’s nude photo posted on Twitter with the hashtag #NudePhotoRevolutionary served as both a repudiation of religious norms concerning how women should display their bodies and as a call to action for like-minded women. The photo spread through social media channels and spurred similar displays.

My work has been well received both in the scholarly community and in the mass media. My work on nudity and political action has led to interviews with such outlets as BBC World / American Public Media, Slate, Elle, and the Brazilian magazine Época, as well as mentions in such outlets as The Guardian and Newsweek. Some of my other work has been mentioned in outlets like Talking Points Memo and Newsweek. Naked Politics was reviewed favorably in Explorations in Media Ecology, Rhetoric Society Quarterly and Journal of Popular Culture. My work has also been recognized by the Media Ecology Association in 2014 and 2017 with the Walter Benjamin Award for Outstanding Article in the Field of Media Ecology.