Douglas Thomas is an Associate Professor in the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California (USC) and a fellow at the USC Annenberg Center. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in Communication in 1992 and specializes in critical theory and cultural studies of technology. His current research focuses on the uses of virtual worlds for education and global civic engagement.

Douglas is founding editor of Games & Culture: A Journal of Interactive Media, a quarterly international journal that aims to publish innovative theoretical and empirical research about games and culture within the context of interactive media. His books include: Hacking Culture (2002), a study of the cultural, social, and political dimensions of computer hacking, Reading Nietzsche Rhetorically (1998), an examination of the role of representation in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, Technological Visions: The Hopes and Fears that Shape New Technologies (2004), and Cybercrime: Law Enforcement, Security and Surveillance in the Information Age (2000).

Douglas is a founding member of the Critical and Cultural Studies division of the National Communication Association and has served as Chair of the division, serves on the advisory board for the Research Center for Cyberculture Studies at the University of Washington, and is currently Vice-President of the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) and Program Chair for the ACM/SIGGRAPH Video Game Symposium. He has testified before the US Congress on issues of computer hacking, cyberterrorism, and critical infrastructure protection.