I am Professor and Chair of Cultural Sociology and New Media at the University of Amsterdam and Adjunct Professor of Sociology at Boston University.

Coming from economic, gender, and cultural sociology, I research how societies value people and things. My research identifies non-financial flows of capital such as beauty, status, and attention, and considers how their circulation impacts inequalities such as in markets, labor compensation, and more recently, in platform capitalism.

My current book project, called Now You See Me:  The Economy of Misdirection traces the labor and economics of the attention economy. How has attention become a prized commodity and what digital labor practices have emerged to capture it?  The book draws from four years of qualitative research, including 18 months of immersive ethnography at a content creation company and 80 interviews with content creators and managers. To date, this ethnography has produced three research articles (two co-authored with doctoral students), appearing in Social Media + Society (recipient of the ASA CITAMS Best Paper Award), Social Problems, and Work & Occupations.

Research methods

Ethnography, interviews, qualitative methods

Research grants & honours

Most recent paper prizes:

• 2024 | Best Paper Award of the American Sociological Association Communication, Information, Technology and Media Sociology Section.
• 2022 | Honorable Mention, Best Book Award, ASA Section on Consumers and Consumption

Research Priority Area (RPA)

Global digital cultures

Very Important People: Beauty and Status in the Global Party Circuit

2020. Princeton University Press.

• Honorable Mention, Best Book Award, ASA Section on Consumers and Consumption
• Editor’s Choice Book on Amazon
• Translations:  China, France, Japan, Russia, Taiwan

Pricing Beauty: The Making of a Fashion Model

2011. University of California Press.

• Translations: China, Korea, Japan

• Le Monde | 2026: Epstein case: 'The beauty of young women operates as a marker of status
• De Volkskrant | 2026: Een Nederlands topmodel in het Epstein-dossier, en wat dat zegt over de superrijke

More public facing writing and interviews: https://www.ashleymears.com/in-the-media

BA - BA / Undergraduate Classes

1.  Sociological Theory 2:  Critical Theory. A large lecture survey of critical theory from Karl Marx to Frantz Fanon, 200 students and six tutorial teachers.

2.  Bachelor Research Thesis supervision, group of 10 students under the theme of "Digital Culture and Online Community"  

3.  Research Masters: Working with Fieldwork Data:  Qualitative data analysis workshop

4.  PhD: Introduction to Ethnography