Dr Rachel Ashman appointed Research Fellow of the Hufschmid Chair at USC
Senior Lecturer in Marketing, Dr Rachel Ashman, has been appointed Research Fellow of the Hufschmid Chair at the University of Southern California (USC), where she will undertake creative, future-focused research in adult entertainment consumption.
During this two-year appointment, Rachel will work alongside Jayne and Hans Hufschmid Chair of Public Relations and Business Communication, Professor Professor Robert Kozinets, at the USC’s Annenberg School for Communication (ASC) and Marshall School of Business.
Robert is a globally recognised expert in marketing research, strategy and social media, and creator of netnography, a type of applied anthropology that is used online in social media networks.
The focus of Rachel’s time in Los Angeles will be a research project,'Consumer Desire in the Age of AI: An Auto-netnographic peep into the world of cyborg porn', aimed at understanding adult entertainment consumption and the link between technology consumption and desire.
Although still in its infancy, the project received the McAlexander "Cool Research Award" at the Consumer Culture Theory Conference in San Diego last summer and will be presented at the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) next year.
Rachel will play a key role in advancing this research through her involvement in data analysis and positioning the study findings in world leading publications.
She will also embark on an ambitious mobile ethnography methodology paper project, alongside Robert, Professor Ulrike Gretzel from the ASC’s Center for Public Relations and Professor Lena Cavusoglu from Pacific University.
The paper, based on the novel methodology applied in the wider adult entertainment consumption project, is expected to offer a contribution to the field of mobile ethnography, an innovative non-invasive research technique that allows participant observation by collecting data on their consumption behaviours on portable devices.
I am delighted to be appointed to this position alongside Robert and excited to be undertaking this thought-provoking research
Rachel Ashman
In addition to her academic contribution, Rachel will support the planning of the 2025 and 2026 Netnocon Conference, the largest global event for netnographers from around the world, aimed at exploring, sharing and discussing the experimental methods employed in their research and work.
As the Program Chair for Netnocon 2025 in Marseille (France), Rachel will be involved in the design the final programme and provide operational and communications support for the event.
Her work will serve to the overall goal of attracting international scholars in Marketing and Consumer Research, as well as a business audience with an expertise in using netnographic methods (e.g., marketing researchers, advertising agency professionals, marketing executives, etc).
Finally, Rachel will work with Robert and other faculty members to raise the public profile of the Hufschmid Chair’s contribution among relevant global business and academics.