Meaghan L. Wester

Thesis title: Presence and Absence in the Ethical Terrain: Situationally Mapping Normative Approaches to Artificial Intelligence in Canada

Meaghan Wester is currently an MA student in Media Studies at Concordia University. She holds a B.A. from McGill University in Sociology with minors in Communications Studies and Political Science. She is the recipient of the honourable Joseph Armand Bombardier Award and her thesis investigates the ethical terrain guiding artificial intelligence in Canada. More precisely, her work asks what normative approaches to AI are being made conceptually through regulatory and policy work.

As part of her work at the Algorithmic Media Observatory, she is a research assistant on the international project Shaping AI; Controversies and Closures in Media, Policy, and Research funded by Open Research Area (ORA). She also works as a research assistant on the Media Governance After AI research project funded by SSHRC.

Meaghan was part of the organizing committee for the Annual Media Studies, MA, Conference 2021 Digital (Im)materialities where she presented Dismantling Data De-Identification: A Data Justice Perspective co-authored with Nicholas Gertler (2021).

Meaghan is the Teaching Assistant for Media History for Fall 2021 supervised by Stephen Monteiro and TAed Media Genre in Fall 2020 supervised by Christiana Abraham.