Tyler Leeds | Sociologist
I am a sociology PhD candidate at UC Berkeley and incoming assistant professor of sociological theory at the University of Delaware. I study how political knowledge shapes on-the-ground activism and is shaped by its transmission through digital and legacy media forms. I also explore new directions for social theory, such as by considering what sociological perspectives on behavior can learn from biomedical research on pain and how Stuart Hall's theorizing can redirect political sociology. My research has been published in Social Problems, Sociological Theory, and New Media & Society, among other outlets.
Peer-Reviewed Publications
Leeds, Tyler. 2024. "The Influencer-Intellectual Tactic and Social Media Advertisements: How PragerU Advances Partisan Knowledge." New Media & Society. OA link
Leeds, Tyler. 2024. “The 1619 Project Moral Panic: The Role of Cable News.” Social Problems. link
Leeds, Tyler. 2024. "Stuart Hall's Relational Political Sociology: A Heuristic for Right-Wing Studies." Journal of Right-Wing Studies 2(1): 98-126. OA link
Leeds, Tyler. 2024. "The Bio-Habitus: Using Pain Science to Reconstruct Bourdieusian Theory." Sociological Theory, 42(1): 49-72.* OA link
* Herbert Blumer Prize Winner, UC Berkeley Sociology, 2024
* ASA Biosociology Section Graduate Student Paper Award Co-Winner, 2024
* ASA Body & Embodiment Section Graduate Student Paper Award Honorable Mention, 2024
Leeds, Tyler. 2023. “The Journalistic Field in the Platform Economy: The New York Times and the Inverted Pyramid.” Social Problems 70(3): 849-867. link
Leeds, Tyler. 2022. “The Unthinkable Path Forward for American Journalism.” Berkeley Journal of Sociology 63: 56-63. link
Leeds, Tyler. 2020. “The State Schema: Seeing Politics through Morality and Capacity.” Qualitative Sociology 43: 543-564. link
Background & Contact
Prior to Berkeley, I worked at a daily newspaper in Oregon, where my reporting focused on political tensions in a former mill town experiencing rapid tourism-driven growth. I also covered the armed occupation of a wildlife refuge and debates over the implementation of marijuana legalization. Before becoming a journalist, I earned a bachelor's degree in sociology from the University of Chicago.
tyler_leeds [at] berkeley [dot] edu
art by Kate Oliver Irick