Adrienne Massanari is an Assistant Professor of New and Digital Media, and currently serves as the Program Director for the School of Communication’s Center for Digital Ethics and Policy.  Dr. Massanari teaches courses on communication and technology, communication theory, and research methods.  She has also taught special topics classes about guerrilla/alterative media and game studies.

Massanari has a PhD and MA from the Department of Communication at the University of Washington, Seattle, and more than 10 years experience as a user researcher, information architect, usability specialist, and consultant in both corporate and educational settings. 

Her research interests include the social and cultural impacts of new media, information architecture and user-centered design, and youth culture.  Massanari’s work on the construction of users within information architecture practice was presented at the Information Architecture Summit in 2009 and will be published in an upcoming issue of New Media & Society.  She also co-edited a book with David Silver, Critical Cyberculture Studies, published by NYU Press in 2006.

Selected Publications and Presentations:

Massanari, A. L.  (Forthcoming). Designing for imaginary friends: Information architecture, personas, and the politics of user-centered design.  New Media & Society.

Massanari, A. L. (2009).  Advocating for users in new media design:  Contradictions and politics in information architecture practice.  Presented at the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) conference in Milwaukee, WI, October 8-10, 2009.

Massanari, A. L.  (2009).  “Understand users, then ignore them”:  The construction of the ‘user’ within web design texts.” Presented at the International Communication Association conference in Chicago, IL, May 21-25, 2009.

Massanari, A. L. (2009). Personas and politics: The discursive construction of the ‘user’ in Information Architecture. Presented at the IA Summit in Memphis, TN, March 20-22, 2009.

Heider, D. & Massanari, A. L.  (2009).  Hypersocial exchanges in virtual worlds.  Presented at LSU’s Mardi Gras Conference in Baton Rouge, LA, February 19-21, 2009.

Howard, P. N. & Massanari, A. L.  (2007).  Learning to search and searching to learn:  Income, education, and experience online.  Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(3).  http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue3/howard.html

Silver, D. & Massanari, A. L.  (2006). Critical cyberculture studies:  Current terrains, future directions (Eds).  New York:  New York University Press.

Massanari, A. L.  (2006).  New media, new literacy(ies), new ethics.  Presented at the National Communication Association conference in San Antonio, TX, November 16-19, 2006.

Massanari also presented her research ‘Fit some Fit in’: Games, Gender, and the Wii as part of the School of Communication’s Faculty Speaker Series: Notes from the Field at the Terry Center on Water Tower Campus. In her study Massanari, looked at how the Nintendo Wii (as a system and the way it was marketed) stereotyped women into the role of gamer with a purpose rather than a gamer for fun.