Emily Hiltz

Biography

Emily Hiltz is an Associate Professor, Teaching Stream in the Communication and Media Studies program. Her teaching and research focus on advancing creative, interdisciplinary and critical approaches to visual media culture, identity, gender and sexuality, and online communication. Her research contributes to visual culture studies, feminist intersectional media studies, and critical media approaches to crime and criminalization. She holds a PhD in Communication from Carleton University, a MA in Media Studies from The University of Western Ontario, and an Honours BA in Media, Information and Technoculture also from Western.

Research Interests

My research explores varied visual media practices tied to notoriety construction in North American popular culture. Looking to familiar images of criminalized and victimized subjects, I consider how notoriety emerges through the transmediated use of photographic and artistic images. For example, I am currently investigating the legal, journalistic, and social conventions tied to courtroom art production in Canada – and in particular, how drawn likenesses of accused criminals are created and used in news reporting. A secondary, ongoing project considers the commercial function of crime in a postfeminist, ‘true crime’ media culture. My co-authored research published in the Journal of Gender Studies and TOPIA offers critiques of other visual materials circulating online (e.g., anti- and pro-vaccination memes) and in colonial texts and policies (e.g., through Indian Residential School reports and photography). Questions of method, knowledge production and affect are central to all my research endeavours, which also directly informs my teaching practice.

Teaching Experience and Supervision

I regularly teach research-focused classes, such as ‘Introduction to Communication Research’ (COMS 2004), ‘Qualitative Research in Communication’ (COMS 3002) and ‘Professional Communication Research’ (COMS 4507), and I teach specialized undergraduate elective courses like ‘Media and Crime’ (COMS 3003), ‘Gender, Sexuality and Media’ (COMS 4604), and ‘Gender, Sexuality, Culture’ (COMS 5509) at the graduate level. Overall, my pedagogical approach is student-centred, experiential, and oriented around skills development.

In 2022, I was awarded the Faculty of Public Affairs’ Teaching Excellence Award in recognition of my commitment to student satisfaction, engagement and support, along with curriculum development.

With the support of a Scholarship in Teaching and Learning grant, I am conducting research on co-op students’ perspectives on the learning outcomes of the program, and at a broader level, developing a systematic process for consulting students as part of program review and curriculum development.

I also supervise undergraduate and graduate students on a wide range of projects and topics, such as: age and gendered practices on Instagram, postfeminist pop culture, decolonial news and art, and gaming culture and geek masculinity. I regularly work with undergraduate students through the Students as Partners Program and mentor graduate Research Assistants with hands-on research training. I welcome expressions of interest re: supervision from MA Communication students who are pursuing Major Research Essays.

Publications

Robinson, S., & Hiltz, E. (2024). Platformed misogyny in Depp v Heard: #justiceforjohnny and networked defamation. Feminist Media Studies, 24:1, 162-165. DOI: 10.1080/14680777.2023.2284107

Brady, M. J., Christiansen, E., & Hiltz, E. (2022). Good Karen, Bad Karen: visual culture and the anti-vaxx mom on Reddit, Journal of Gender Studies. DOI: 10.1080/09589236.2022.2069088

Brady, M., & Hiltz, E. (2017). The archaeology of an image: The persistent persuasion of Thomas Moore Keesick’s residential school photographs. TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies. DOI: 37(Spring), 61-85. DOI: 10.3138/topia.37.61

Select Conference Presentations

“Weaponizing defamation: Harms, hate, and platformed misogyny in Depp v Heard.” Console-ing Passions 2023, Calgary AB, June 23, 2024. Presented with Sandra Robinson.

Finding ‘Karen’: Tracking the Good and Bad ‘Anti-Vaxx’ Mom on Reddit.” Canadian Communication Association Annual Conference. Panel: Grappling with feminisms in our methodologies. June 4, 2021.

“The violence of smiles through the Black Dahlia image: Cultural remediations of Elizabeth

Short’s victim photographs.” Association for the Study of Law, Culture and the Humanities. Fairmont Chateau Laurier, Ottawa. March 23, 2019.

“Notoriety as postfeminist sensibility.” Histories / theories / archaeologies / archives: 40 years of communication and media research. Panel: Histories. Carleton University, Ottawa. Sept. 14, 2018.

“The visual construction of criminal notoriety: Discourse analysis as an historical critique of violent women’s notoriety.” Paris 2017, The International Association for Media and History (IAMHIST) – Media and History: Crime, Violence and Justice. Paris, France. July 10-13, 2017.