Education
BA, English Language & Literature, Wilfrid Laurier University
MA, Women’s Studies, St. Mary’s/Dalhousie/Mount Saint Vincent Universities
PhD, Communication Studies, Concordia University
Supervision Profile
While serving as Vice-Provost for Innovation in Teaching & Learning, I am unable to accept new students.
Current Projects
While the idea of leisurely sitting down with a paper over coffee seems almost antiquated now, weekend papers (Saturdays in Canada, Sundays in the U.S.) were key to increasing and expanding readerships and essential in establishing the newspaper as a key participant in modernity and popular culture. In addition to mapping the changes to 26 newspapers in 13 cities across North America, The Sunday Paper explores the intersections between newspapers and other communications technologies. Examining the period between popularization (1890s) into the early part of the 20th century (to the 1920s), newspapers were shameless in their appropriation of other communication technologies, including (among others) magazines, film and radio. The book is forthcoming from the University of Illinois Press.
This interest in how the newspaper changed in response to emergent media technologies has also extended to the contemporary moment in a project that explores how news stories translate into digital games. Designed to provide readers/players with a deeper contextual understanding of the social, political, economic and policy systems that often drive news stories but aren’t adequately explored in conventional news, newsgames provide an immersive experience for readers/players to better understand the systems at work in news stories. The Oldest Game, A Newsgame, explores sex work in Canada. Can games do journalism differently? How can game mechanics add complexity and nuance to journalistic storytelling? What are the relationships between long form journalism and digital games?
Student Supervision
Doctoral Supervision
Holowoka, Eileen. PhD in Communication Studies. Entered 2017.
Chen, Menghsu. “Digital News and Negotiated Agency: The Practice of Newsmaking in China’s Newspapers.” PhD in Communication Studies. Concordia University. Completed.
St. Pierre, Marilou. “Les journalistes sportives québécoises: regard diachronique sur les parcours professionnels et l’évolution du journalisme sportif dans une perspective genrée.” PhD in Communication Studies. Concordia University. Completed
Masters Supervision
Couture, Sadie. Master of Arts in Media Studies. Department of Communication Studies. Completed.
Hernández, Marisol Montúfar. Master of Arts in Media Studies. Department of Communication Studies. Concordia University. Completed
Hill, Katherine. “Building Bridges Online: Young Indigenous Women Building Community and Representing Culture on Social Media.” Master of Arts in Media Studies. Department of Communication Studies. Concordia University. Entered 2014. Graduated 2016.
Rice, Kristen. “Representations of Space, Identity, and Nation in Canadian Illustrated News: A Discourse Analysis of 19th Century Canadian Nationalism.” Master of Arts in Media Studies. Department of Communication Studies. Concordia University. Graduated 2014.
Zenger, Nancy. “APPropriate Fitness: Governing the Fit Body through Mobile Media.” Master of Arts in Media Studies. Concordia University. Graduated 2013.
Coulombe, Jordan. Co-Supervisor with Matt Soar. “Crooked Print: Queer Counterdiscourses and the Endurance of Print Media.” Master of Arts in Media Studies. Concordia University. Graduated 2013.