This document discusses how changes in higher education and knowledge production have led to increased incentives for academics to develop public profiles and online followings, referred to as "micro-celebrity". It notes that while going public can be liberating, it also shifts the risks of maintaining institutional status onto individuals. Furthermore, the risks and incentives differ for different types of scholars, and becoming more publicly visible can exacerbate existing inequalities, such as fewer protections against online harassment for minority scholars. The document calls for institutions to provide more support for academics navigating these changes.

1. (Academic) Micro-
Celebrity + Tenure Track
Tressie McMillan Cottom, Ph.D.
@tressiemcphd
www.tressiemc.com
#digitalsociolgoy
#ess2016

2. Why Me?
A sociologist studying the
infinitely creative new ways that
the capital transforms inequalities.
Political Economy
Higher education
Work
Technology
Intersecting Inequalities
Emerging Inequalities
#LowerEd
#DigitalSociologies

3. 19000 Twitter Followers
14, 608 Blog Followers
875 Facebook Followers
367 Google Scholar
Citations
One White House Visit
Three Books
Advise One Presidential
Campaign

4. Go Be Popular
Changes in the political economy of knowledge production + work =
more incentives to be public

5. Micro-Celebrity + Tenure Track
“Microcelebrity refers to the affective capital engendered and commodified by
various social and new media platforms where identity and brand are merged
and measured in likes, shares, follows, comments and so on.” (McMillan Cottom
2015)

6. Micro-Celebrity + Tenure Track =
Academic Celebrity
“Microcelebrity is the economics of attention in which academics are being
encouraged, mostly through normative pressure, to brand their academic
knowledge for mass consumption...in the neo-liberal “public” square of private
media.” (McMillan Cottom 2015)

7. Micro-Celebrity
+ Market Imperative
+ Shifts Risk of Institutional Status Maintenance to Individuals
+ Liberatory only when used with other strategies
+ Incentives and risks are different for different kind of scholars

8. Micro-Celebrity
+ Market Imperative
+ Shifts Risk of Institutional Status Maintenance to Individuals
+ Liberatory only when used with other strategies
+ Incentives and risks are different for different kind of scholars

9. Mo Scale, Mo Problems
The more scale, the more publics and the
more salient a scholar’s master identity.
TRANSLATION: The more people who read
me the less I am a sociologist and the
more I am black woman, with all
associated risks and attenuated rewards.
Steven Salaita
Zenitra Robinson
Saida Grundy
Anthea Butler
Sara Goldrick Rab

10. Mo Scale, Mo Problems + Tenure Inequalities
the proportion of African-Americans in non-tenure-track positions (15.2 percent) is more
than 50 percent greater than that of whites (9.6 percent). (AAUW)
“43 percent increase in the award of PhDs to blacks from about 7000 in 1999-2000 to
slightly over 10,000 in 2009-2010. Yet, the average increase in black faculty appointments
at TWIs during the same period was about 1.3 percent” (NCES 2014)

11. Institutional Responsibility
Institutions incentivize publicness and must provide institutional protections
against risks of being public:
+ Technical and administrative support
+ What does your professional association do for YOU?
+ Legal counsel in rapidly shifting legal domain (copyright, harassment etc.)
+ Negotiate at hire and promotion
+ Quantify to translate affective labor for institutional contexts

12. Ways Forward
+ ASA Social Media Toolkit
+ Sociologists for Women in Society Academic Justice Committee
+ FemTechNet

13. Be Popular to Do Good but Be
Safe.

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