Biography

T.L. Taylor is a qualitative sociologist who received her M.A. (1997) &  Ph.D. (2000) from Brandeis University. She is a community college graduate (Chaffey, 1988) who went onto UC Berkeley for her bachelor degree (1990). She has focused on the interrelations between culture and technology in online environments for over thirty years. Her work sits at the intersection of sociology, critical internet and game studies, and science and technology studies. She is the author of three books on gaming as well as co-author of a handbook on ethnographic methods.

In addition to her academic work, she co-founded the non-profit AnyKey and served as its director of research, then advisory committee chair, from 2015-2021. She was also a founding member of Twitch’s Safety Advisory Council and served on it from 2020-2024. She has been both a consulting and visiting researcher at Microsoft Research New England and is regularly sought out for industry consultations. She was honored to have been invited to the White House on two occasions and the International Olympics Committee for special summits focused on gaming.

At MIT she teaches subjects that include critical internet studies, qualitative methods, and gaming. She is also currently the director of the MIT Game Lab.

Research

My work has focused on exploring the interrelations between technology and culture in online spaces. From my earliest work exploring virtual worlds in the 1990s to my current projects on play and games, I’ve long been interested in a critical examination of internet environments that provide anchors to explore issues of governance & IP, emergent culture in commercial environments, labor and play, and the assemblage that happens as people navigate online life.

My book about game live streaming, Watch Me Play: Twitch and the Rise of Game Live Streaming (Princeton University Press, 2018), was the first of its kind to chronicle the emerging media space of online game broadcasting and won the American Sociological Association’s CITAMS book award. I am also the author of Raising the Stakes: E-Sports and the Professionalization of Computer Gaming (MIT Press, 2012) which explored the rise of esports and Play Between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture (MIT Press, 2006), an ethnography of the massively multiplayer online game EverQuest. I am also co-author of Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: A Handbook of Method (Princeton, 2012) which focuses on conducting ethnographic and qualitative research in online environments.

I am currently at work on a project about play in theme parks, exploring both the emerging socio-technical assemblage of places like Disney, but also how emergent play and community sits within these highly curated environments.

Selected Publications

Teaching

CMS.341/941
Immersive Social Worlds

Focuses on critical media sociology of immersive social worlds, from digital environments and avatar-based worlds to live action role-play (LARP) and theme parks. Draws on both historical and contemporary cases. Investigates key issues including communication and community; authorship and co-creativity; embodiment and identity; and ownership, governance, and management. Attention given to cultural and socio-technical nature of these environments and their ongoing construction within a broader media system.

CMS.614
Critical Internet Studies

Focuses on the power dynamics in internet-related technologies (including social networking platforms, surveillance technology, entertainment technologies, and emerging media forms). Theories and readings focus on the cultural, social, economic, and political aspects of internet use and design, with a special attention to gender and race. Topics include: online communication and communities, algorithms and search engines, activism and online resistance, surveillance and privacy, content moderation and platform governance, and the spread of dis- and misinformation. Instruction and practice in written and oral communication provided.

CMS.616/868
Games and Culture

Examines the social, cultural, economic, and political aspects of digital games. Topics include the culture of gameplay, gaming styles, communities, spectatorship and performance, gender and race within digital gaming, and the politics and economics of production processes, including co-creation and intellectual property.

CMS.702/802
Qualitative Research Methods

Focuses on a number of qualitative social science methods including interviewing, participant observation, focus groups, cultural probes, and visual sociology. Primary emphasis on understanding and learning concrete techniques that can be evaluated and utilized in any given project. Data organization and analysis will be addressed. Several advanced critical thematics are also covered, including ethics, reciprocity, "studying up," and risk.

Awards

News

Links

Personal Site

“In through the back door” – reflections on being first gen

YouTube channel

Instagram