About Professor Cook

Education:

  • B.A. Oberlin College, Sociology, 1993

  • M.A. University of Arizona, Sociology, 1996

  • Ph.D. University of Arizona, Sociology, 2000

Areas of Expertise:

  • Social network analysis

  • Social media analytics

  • Political sociology

  • Sociology of gender

Recent Publications

[see current curriculum vitae for full list of publications, presentation, and service]

Cook, James M. 2023. “Social Media and Heroism.” In Encyclopedia of Heroism Studies. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17125-3_79-1

Rubinsky, Valerie, and James Cook. 2023. “More than Two… but not Right Now: Interpretations and Responses to Covid-19 Measures on Reddit for Two Communities of Consensual Non-Monogamy.” Sexuality and Culture 27(3):1098-1119. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-022-10056-w.

Gurnack, Anne M. and James M. Cook. 2021. “Polish Americans, Political Partisanship and Presidential Election Voting: 1972-2020.” European Journal of Transformation Studies 9(2): 30-39.

Duguay, Ashley, Todd Loughead and James M. Cook. 2019. “Athlete Leadership as a Shared Process: Using a Social Network Approach to Examine Athlete Leadership in Competitive Female Youth Soccer Teams.” The Sport Psychologist 33(3): 189-202. doi.org/10.1123/tsp.2018-0019.

Cook, James M. 2019. “Talking Donald Trump: A Sociolinguistic Study of Style, Metadiscourse, and Political Identity (Book Review).”  Presidential Studies Quarterly 49(2): 483-484. doi.org/10.1111/psq.12537.

Cook, James M., Carrie Hill and Jennifer Chase. 2018. “From Offline Politics to Online Action: Social Media Adoption and Communication by the Legislators, Lobbyists, and Business Groups of Maine.” in Sub-National Democracy and Politics through Social Media (Mehmet Zahid Sobacı and İbrahim Hatipoğlu, eds.). Heidelberg, Germany: Springer.

Cook, James M. 2017. “Twitter Adoption and Activity in US Legislatures: A 50-State Study.” American Behavioral Scientist 61(7): 724-740.

Cook, James M. 2016. “Are American Politicians as Partisan Online as they are Offline? Twitter Networks in the U.S. Senate and Maine State Legislature.” Policy & Internet 8(1): 55-71.

Cook, James M. 2016. “Twitter Adoption in U.S. Legislatures: A Fifty-State Study.” Proceedings of the 2016 International Social Media & Society Conference, London, UK. (free full-text access | pre-print | published at ACM: DOI: 10.1145/2930971.2930982)

Cook, James M. 2016. “Gender, Party, and Presentation of Family in the Social Media Profiles of 10 State Legislatures.” Social Media + Society 2(2): 1-11. (full text available)

Cook, James M. and Dawn Plourde. 2016. “Do Scholars Follow Betteridge’s Law? Questions in Journal Article Titles.” Scientometrics (DOI: 10.1007/s11192-016-2030-2).

Academic Interests

My primary areas of interest in research and teaching are political organizations, social networks, social media, and the sociology of gender. That interest is reflected in the development of new courses at UMA in Political Investigation, Social Networks and Analyzing Social Media and in community service (where my current projects have included DEI research for a Maine school district and a relaunch of the artistic community Midcoast Community Chorus).

My present research interests include applications of social network and social identity theory to social media, the development and testing of a social network model of state legislators, and the cultural and social network characteristics of publicly-communicating groups of sexual and gender minorities.

Social Presence: Mastodon | YouTube | Google Scholar Profile

PROFESSIONAL HISTORY

University of Maine at Augusta

  • Associate Professor of Sociology, 2017–2025

  • Assistant Professor of Social Science, 2011-2017

Duke University

  • Assistant Professor of Sociology, 2000-2006 

University of Arizona

  • Ph.D. Sociology, 2000

  • Areas of Concentration: Political Sociology, Social Networks

  • Dissertation: “The Social Structure of Political Behavior: Action, Interaction and Congressional Cosponsorship.”