Williams’ research explores how economic, political, and technological changes influence media innovation and political discourse. His research has been supported by fellowships from the National Science Foundation, the Google Journalism program, and the American Press Institute. He has studied the growing pay gap between journalists and public relations specialists; the evolution of the debate over the digital paywall model in the newspaper industry; and the role partisan news websites played in spreading the derogatory political term “anchor babies.” His work has been published by the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Digital Journalism, and the Pew Research Center. His work has been cited by mainstream publications like the Washington Post, Quartz, Vox, The Guardian, Huffington Post, and Politico.