About

I am an Associate Professor at Concordia University’s Department of Communication Studies. My research and teaching focuses on social, policy, and ethical aspects of ICTs, political economy of the media, feminism/gender issues and media in Canada.

I have been active in conducting research on the social and policy aspects of the Internet since the mid-1990s. My research contributions straddle the line between academic and non-academic audiences, including policymakers and non-profit groups. While I was a doctoral student at McGill University, I was engaged in several projects and contracts that brought me in touch with a variety of non-profit groups. In 1994 I worked on an ONIP (Ontario Network Infrastructure Program) project whose goal was to design an e-mail network for Ontario based non-profit groups. The initial feasibility study was successful and our group was awarded $1M in funding, but the Harris Government then cancelled the entire ONIP Program. I also worked with several organizations involved in delineating public interest responses towards the “information highway”, including the Coalition for Public Information and the IPRP series of workshops on universal access. The IPRP series of workshops led me to work actively with several federal departments (Heritage Canada, Industry Canada, and Status of Women Canada), writing up workshop reports and some policy recommendations.

More recently, I have worked with various not-for-profit groups, including the Media Awareness Network (on content issues of the Internet related to children) the Canadian Library Association (on Internet content issues), the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, (co-editing books with Marita Moll on public interest perspectives towards the Internet). Other contributions have been made to the Policy Research Network through conference presentations (1999, 2001), and through the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) Public Policy Program, with respect to universal access issues and critical perspectives on the KBE/S, and the World Bank’s Gender and the Digital Divide Seminar Series. Since 1993, I have presented over 50 papers at scholarly conferences, NGO conferences, and government conferences. I have published widely in a variety of venues (see selected list below).

One of my current research projects, funded by SSHRC, is Children, Youth and New Media in the Home (2002-05), a look at the everyday uses of the Internet in the home.