Associate Professor, Department of Communication, Cornell University

Lead, Creators & Platform Labor Research Group

Brooke Erin Duffy, Ph.D., is an author, researcher, and associate professor at Cornell University. Her research explores the role of social media in work, culture, and society with a focus on the creator economy. She is the author or editor of four books, including (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love: Gender and Aspirational Labor in the Social Media Economy, which Wired named one of the "Top Tech Books of 2017." Her co-authored book, Platforms and Cultural Production, has been translated into multiple languages.

Duffy’s latest monograph, The Visibility Bind, is forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press. Based on interviews with social media creators, industry professionals, and platform representatives, the book explores the paradoxical nature of platform-dependent creative work.

Duffy’s work has been published in such journals as Journal of Communication, New Media & Society, the International Journal of Communication, Critical Studies in Media Communication, the International Journal of Cultural Studies, Social Media + Society, and Information, Communication, and Society. Her research has earned her national and international accolades. In 2026, she was awarded a residency fellowship at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center.

In addition to her academic publications, she has disseminated her research to a broader audience through popular writing in The Atlantic, Vox, Salon, Business Insider, Wired, and Forbes, among others.

At Cornell, Duffy holds appointments in the graduate fields of Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Media Studies. She has taught undergraduate and graduate courses on Gender and Media, New Media & Society, Cultural Production in the Digital Age, Media Theory, Advertising & Society, and Qualitative Methods of Communication Research.

Duffy completed her Ph.D. at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania in 2011. She holds an M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and B.A. from The Pennsylvania State University, where she was the student marshal for the College of Communications. Duffy serves on the board for the American Influencer Council and is a member of the Content Creator Scholar Network.