杏吧原创

Biography

I am an Associate Professor in Communication and Media Studies, with a cross-appointment with the Institute for the Comparative Study of Art, Literature, and Culture. I also hold research affiliations at 杏吧原创 with the Max and Tessie Zelikovitz Centre for Jewish Studies, the 杏吧原创 Centre for Public History, and the Centre for European Studies. I hold a PhD in Communication Studies from McGill University in Montreal.

Over the past 20 years I have held several visiting appointments. I am a former Fulbright Chair in Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California. I also held an Erasmus Mundus Visiting Professorship at Erasmus University Rotterdam, Arhus University and at the University of Amsterdam. Finally, I have held guest professorships at SUNY-Plattsburgh, the University of Freiburg, the Universit脿 Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, and Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In winter 2025 I will be a short-term visiting professor at the University of Minho in Braga, Portugal.

Teaching

I teach in several areas across our undergraduate and graduate curriculum. This includes core courses in media studies and communication theory as well as specialized courses focusing on media in the Canadian context, on media industries, and on media and communication ethics. I have also taught special topics exploring the relationship between communication and time. I was one of the first recipients of a Teaching Achievement Award offered by the Faculty of Public and Global Affairs.

I am happy to supervise MA and PhD students pursuing research in any of these areas or in the specific areas mentioned in my research profile.

Research Profile

My work covers three broad areas of study: Media history, communication theory, and the study of the entertainment industries. A few main themes cut across these different areas:

1. An interest in television as a form of entertainment, as a site for the circulation of culture, as a source for theorizing about media, and as way to study media regulation and communication policy.
2. A focus on how different kinds of media technologies are used in different contexts 鈥� for education, for dissemination, and as a 鈥渢ool鈥� for doing things in the world

To carry out this work I use of a range of historical and interpretive methods, including archival research, policy analysis, and media-theoretical criticism.

My current research focuses on the impact of the Catholic Church on the historical development of television in Quebec in the 1950s and 60s and on the emerging field of 鈥渕edia studies鈥�. This work further considers the value of thinking of the relationship between the history of television and urban history. Another project focuses on developing mid-range ethical frameworks for dealing with the ubiquity of online personal memory, using the European Union鈥檚 鈥渞ight to be forgotten鈥� as inspiration. Finally, I have written about Toronto鈥檚 CN Tower (both on my own and in joint work with my colleague Liam Cole Young) to think about the relationship between media and verticality.

Please see the list of publications below for published work in these areas, along with earlier research on Canadian cultural policy and on the use of television at UNESCO in the 1950s.

Je souhaite 茅galement continuer 脿 d茅velopper mon engagement 脿 travailler et 脿 茅crire en fran莽ais. Je suis autodidacte et je suis fi猫re de publier mes recherches dans ma langue seconde et de contribuer davantage aux travaux que j’ai effectu茅s au sein de jurys acad茅miques et artistiques.

Selected Publications

Edited Anthologies and Journals

听Co-edited with Vincent Bouchard.听 Special issue of 滨苍迟别谤尘茅诲颈补濒颈迟茅蝉:听Histoire et th茅orie des arts, des lettres et des techniques, volume 33, Spring, 2019.

鈥溾��, Special Issue of听Communicazioni Sociali, co-edited with Massimo Scaglioni.

. Co-edited with Peter Urquhart. Toronto: James Lorimer and Company, 2012.

. Co-edited with Will Straw and Sandra Gabriele. Toronto: Emond Montgomery, 2011.

Recent Book Chapters and Journal Articles

芦听脡glise, t茅l茅vision et c茅l茅brit茅 dans la presse catholique des听1950 au Qu茅bec听禄. In La fabrique journalistique des c茅l茅brit茅s. Eds. Adrien Rannaud, Maude Marcotte, et M茅lodie Simand-Houde. Montreal听: Presses de l鈥橴niversit茅 de Montr茅al, Accepted, now in revisions.

鈥淯p and Out: Verticality and Mediality at Toronto鈥檚 CN Tower鈥�. In Media Building: Architecture, Design and the Spatial Politics of Mass Communication. Eds. James West, Wil Mari, and Carole O鈥橰eilly. London: Palgrave MacMillan. In press.听

History of Media Studies 1:1 (October 2021), 7pp. https://doi.org/10.32376/d895a0ea.ef8f548f

鈥淏etween Canadians and Culture: The First Year of the CRTC鈥�. In Canada鈥檚 1968: A Year and its Legacies.听 Edited by Christopher Kirkey, Andrew Holman, and Michael Hawes.听 Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2021, pp. 175-194. 听

鈥淪hould Canada Have an International Broadcasting Service?鈥�. In Canada鈥檚 Public Diplomacy. 听Edited by Nicholas Cull and Michael Hawes.听 London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020, pp. 161-172.

鈥�. In Digital Peripheries. Edited by Paul Stepan, Pavel Zahradka, and Petr Szczepanik, Berlin: Springer, 2020, pp. 15-35.

鈥�, Co-authored with Liam Cole Young.听 Imaginations: Journal of Cross-Cultural Image Studies. 10:2,听 2019, pp. 6-37.

鈥淭hree Canadian Film Policy Frameworks鈥�, In Oxford Companion to Canadian Cinema. Edited by Will Straw and Janine Marchessault. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019, pp. 3-20.

鈥淭alking to Netflix with a Canadian Accent: On Digital Platforms and National Media Policies鈥�.听 In Reconceptualizing Film Policies. Edited by Nolwenn Mignant and Cecilia Tirtaine. New York: Routledge. 2017, pp. 209-221.

鈥淏ureaucratic Celebrity鈥�. In Far and Wide: Celebrity Culture in Canada. Edited by Katja Lee and Lorraine York. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2016, pp. 201-218.

In How Canadians Communicate: Sports. Edited by Christopher Waddell and David Taras.听 Athabasca University Press, 2016, pp. 117-136.

鈥淟ocating UNESCO in Histories of Communication Study鈥�. In The International History of Communication Study. Edited by Peter Simonson and David Park. Routledge, 2015, pp. 71-89.

鈥淔orgiving Without Forgetting: Contending with Digital Memory鈥�. In Sharrona Pearl, ed. Images, Ethics, Technology. New York: Routledge. 2015, pp. 111-125.

Recent Conference Presentations and Invited Lectures

鈥淭he Beginning of the Present: Pay TV, Screen Convergence and a Golden Age of Canadian Film鈥�. Paper co-written with Peter Urquhart and presented at the Annual Meeting of the Film and Media Studies Association of Canada, Montreal, Quebec, June 2024.

鈥淭eaching Television in the Pages of Quebec鈥檚 L鈥橝ction Catholique, 1952-60鈥�. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Boston, Massachusetts, March 15, 2024.

鈥淧latforming the Circulation of (Some) Canadian Television鈥�. Paper presented at conference, 鈥淧latforms and Uses: Cinema, Television, Video Games, and Digital Creation鈥�, Universit茅 de Montr茅al, Montreal, Quebec, November 3, 2023.

鈥淔ashioning Televisual Celebrity in Quebec鈥檚 Catholic Press, 1952-1962鈥�. Paper presented at conference, La fabrique journalistique des c茅l茅brit茅s: Vedettariat, presse, et culture m茅diatique dans la francophonie nord-atlantique (XVIII^e听– XXI^e听si猫cles), University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, April 27, 2023.

鈥淥n Media Policy and the Ethics of Digital Memory: Appreciating听the 鈥楻ight to be Forgotten鈥欌��. Invited lecture, Institut f眉r Politikwisschenschaft, TU-Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany, October 24, 2022.

鈥淭he CN Tower and the Vertical Imaginary鈥�. Paper presented at symposium, 鈥淰ertical Media鈥�. York University, Toronto, Ontario, October 21, 2022.

鈥淲hat is the Lifecycle for Audiovisual Content in the Age of Streaming?鈥�. Paper co-presented with Petr Szczepanik at virtual pre-conference, 鈥淭he Impact of Streaming on Media Industries and Cultural Production鈥�. European Communication Research and Education Association (Media Industries and Cultural Production Section), Arhus, Denmark, October 17, 2022.

鈥淭he CN Tower and the Production of Vertical Spectacles in 1970s Toronto鈥�. Paper presented at virtual conference, 鈥淢edia Building鈥�, Northumbria University and the Salford School of Arts, Media, and Creative Technology, United Kingdom, July 7, 2021.

鈥淭he Art of Living in Media Time鈥�. Invited lecture as part of the Institut Fran莽ais series 鈥淟a nuit des id茅es鈥�, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, January 30, 2020.

鈥淜eywords for Studying the Circulation of Audiovisual Content on SVOD Services鈥�. Paper co-presented with Petr Szczepanik at the conference 鈥淭he International Circulation of National Cinemas and Audiovisual Content鈥�, Catholic University of Milan, Milan, Italy.听 September 17-18, 2019.

鈥淢cLuhanism and the Celebrity Media Executive鈥�. Paper presented at 鈥淓dgy Media Symposium: On Borders, and Media Studies鈥�. School of Creative Arts, University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, March 1, 2019.