_Recent Publications

Liu, M., Sun, Q. & Williams, D.
(2024). With great power comes great accountability: Network positions, victimization, perpetration, and victim-perpetrator overlap in an online multiplayer game. New Media & Society.
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Liu, M., Tang, J. & Williams, D. (2025, in press). Sympathy for the Devil: Serial Mediation Models for Toxicity, Community and Retention. Media and Communication.PDF
Yang, A. & Williams, D. (2024, in press). Quantified Networked Influence: How Much do Disinformation Spreaders’ Networks Drive Their Public Engagement? Social Media + Society.forthcoming
Williams, D., Liu, M., Choi, S., Bowman, N. & Shaikh, S. (2024). Playing Through the Pandemic: Gaming Usage as a Buffer During COVID-19. Games and Culture.PDF
Williams, D., Choi, S., Sparks, P. & Hong, J (2023). The Value of Time Together: Mentors, Proteges and a Longitudinal Online Test. Internet Research.PDF
Wang, Z., Zhu, J. Xu, Y., Kim, D. & Williams, D. (2023). Cross-Platform Information Flow and Multilingual Text Analysis: A Comparative Study of Weibo and Twitter Through Deep Learning. Computational Communication.PDF
Williams, D., Khan, E., Pathak, N. & Srivastava, J. (2022). Social Value: A Computational Model for Measuring Influence on Purchases and Actions for Individuals and Systems. Journal of Advertising.PDF
Huang-Isherwood, K., Kim, S. Williams, D & Bisberg, A. (2022). Women Hold Up Half of the Sky: Examining the Motivations, the Behaviors, and the Social Capital in a Multiplayer Game Popular Among Female Players. Revista Internacional de Sociologia.PDF English

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Spanish
Kim, S., Huang-Isherwood, K, Zheng, W. & Williams, D. (2022) The art of being together: How group play can increase reciprocity, social capital, and social status in a multiplayer online game. Computers in Human Behavior. PDF

_Prospective Students

Am I taking students? Generally, yes, but the supply and demand at play stops me from being overtly encouraging. Each year I get about 30-40 inquiries for maybe one spot (it varies year to year). Most students come interested in game-based research, but of late I have been focusing more on the Social Value work, sometimes using game data but sometimes using data from retail, ecommerce and even charitable donations. The best fits are usually students with strong quant skills, though I would also welcome qualitative students who share my goals and can complement the quant work with deeper insights and methods.

Here is my general advice for anyone seeking a PhD, with me or elsewhere.

_Consulting

I provide consulting services to firms seeking to manage their data and gain insights into their customer’s behavior, including satisfaction, interactions, subscriptions and microtransactions.

Most of this work is with video game developers managing game populations and seeking to improve the player experience, but the models are widely applicable and adaptable.

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