Sandra Robinson
Assistant Professor
| Building: | Richcraft Hall, Room 2310 |
| Department: | School of Journalism and Communication |
Biography
Dr. Robinson holds a PhD in Sociology from Queen’s University, an MA in Legal Studies (Carleton University), an MBA in digital technology management (Royal Roads), and a BA in Anthropology (University of Alberta). She is the recipient of two teaching awards, Teaching Achievement Award (2017) and Faculty of Public Affairs Teaching Fellowship (2017-2019) and the co-author of Law’s Expression: Communication, Law and Media in Canada (2019).
Current Research
My research engages with critical concerns around privacy, surveillance, and power, freedom of expression, and the role of algorithms in communication and media. Recent work has explored aspects of communication, culture, and regulation, gender and media, algorithmic culture, networks, and social media analysis and visualisation. I am available to supervise graduate students working in areas that may include any of those dimensions.
Current Research Projects
- As co-investigator on a 5-year, SSHRC Insight grant, Populist Publics: Memory, Populism, and Misinformation in the Canadian Social Mediascape, which examines how populist narratives enter and circulate on social platforms. Research will explore how hate speech about immigration, multiculturalism, gender equality and LGBTQ+ rights are circulated by far-right groups to become normalized as legitimate discourse within the Canadian mediascape.
- Algorithmic vitality: an ongoing exploration of communication understood through the ‘vital network’ as a platform for control that enables processes such as micro-targeting and surveillance, algorithm-based content curation, and social profiling. This project is an attempt to think with, and think through, the algorithm as central to our contemporary media platforms and culture.
Awards
2017 Provost’s Teaching Achievement Award
2017-2019 Faculty of Public Affairs Teaching Fellowship
Selected publications
2019 Law’s Expression: Communication, Law and Media in Canada, Second Edition, LexisNexis, with co-author Sheryl N. Hamilton.
2022 Platform Multiverse: Discontent and Disconnection among Alt-Rights. Canadian Journal of Communication 47(1), 197–218.
2022 Cases and Traces, Platforms and Publics: Big Data and Health Surveillance. In Communication and Health, eds. J. Greenberg and C. Elliott (Palgrave).
2019 A platform approach to experiential learning. Data literacy and technical skills development, NETCOM: Réseaux, communication et territoire, 33(1-2).
2018 Doppelgängers and databases: New articulations of power. Configurations 26.
2018 Mining, making, and meaning: Building digital literacy skills in an era of big data, In Reseaux Sociaux, Traces Numerique, et Communication Electronique. Eds. S. Zlitni and F. Liénard (Le Havre: University of Le Havre).
2016 The Vital Network: An Algorithmic Milieu of Communication and Control, Communication +1 (5).
Public Engagement
2020 ‘Policy Crunch: Navigating the internet from social media to digital governance,’ Institute on Governance, Ottawa, Civil Society Initiative, 3 March 2020.
2020 Invited speaker and discussant, ‘DIALOGUE’ roundtable at the Into the Air Symposium, The School of Journalism and Communication, Carleton University, 16-17 January 2020.
2019 ‘Imperfect writing machines: Searching for civility on social media platforms,’ presentation at Session 1: Civil and Uncivil Society, March 27, 2019. Civil Society and Governance in Canada: Rebuilding Trust and Supporting Collaboration at the Institute on Governance, Ottawa.
2019 Digital Equity Panelist, Canadian Commission for UNESCO at MEA2019: Media Ethics: Human Ecology in a Connected World, 27 June 2019.