Converging in Parallel
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Bram Dov Abramson is a BCL/LLB candidate at the Faculty of Law, McGill University. Before returning to school he worked as virtual conference coordinator for Videazimut, a now-defunct international video and film NGO, focusing on communications rights; as research director for TeleGeography, a private-sector research firm focusing on international telecom infrastructure and traffic flow; and as a senior analyst in the CRTC's telecommunications branch. Panel 4.
Sara Bannerman has studied Canadian copyright for the last four years in the context of her MA and, now, PhD work in the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton University, where she focusses on the theorization of "the public interest" in Canadian copyright policy as it emerges in various conceptualizations in international forums. She also teaches a course in Communications Policy: Institutions and Practices as a sessional lecturer at Carleton, with material on Treasury Board communication policy, access to information and privacy, copyright, telecommunications policy, broadcasting policy, regulation of the Internet, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, censorship, and multiculturalism policy. Panel 3.
Jeff Boggs, an assistant professor at Brock University, is an economic geographer who examines the locational dynamics of cultural industries. He focuses on book publishing, and is now conducting a preliminary examination of the locational dynamics in the Canadian book trade, with plans to examine the role of Canadian cultural policy in setting competitive conditions and thereby shaping the geography of employment in the book trade generally, and among book publishing houses in particular. Jeff's PhD dissertation, completed in 2005 at UCLA, examined the evolution of competitive conditions in the book publishing industries of Frankfurt-am-Main and Berlin, Germany. Panel 1.
Geneviève Bonin is a doctoral candidate in communication studies at McGill University, where she is studying program and policy evaluation in the context of how policy and regulation are elaborated in Canada: does current broadcasting regulation really hold anyone accountable? If so, are the penalties severe enough? What kinds of methodologies can be used to evaluate broadcasting regulation? How do we compare to other countries where accountability is concerned? Geneviève holds degrees in communications (Ottawa), journalism (King's College, Halifax) and business administration (UQAM). Panel 5.
Sandra Braman has been studying the macro-level effects of the use of new information technologies and their policy implications since the mid-1980s. Recent work includes Change of State: An Introduction to Information Policy (2006, MIT Press) and the edited volumes Communication Researchers and Policy-makers (2003, MIT Press), The Emergent Global Information Policy Regime (2004, Palgrave Macmillan) and The Meta-technologies of Information: Biotechnology and Communication (2004, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates). With Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation support, Braman has been working on problems associated with the effort to bring the research and communication policy communities more closely together. She has published over four dozen scholarly journal articles, book chapters, and books; served as book review editor of the Journal of Communication; is former Chair of the Communication Law & Policy Division of the International Communication Association; and sits on the editorial boards of nine scholarly journals. During 1997-1998 Braman designed and implemented the first graduate-level program in telecommunication and information policy on the African continent, for the University of South Africa. Currently Professor of Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Braman earned her PhD from the University of Minnesota in 1988 and previously served as Reese Phifer Professor at the University of Alabama, Henry Rutgers Research Fellow at Rutgers University, Research Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois-Urbana, and the Silha Fellow of Media Law and Ethics at the University of Minnesota. Keynote.
Marilyn Burgess completed her PhD in communications at Concordia University, teaching communications and film theory before beginning a career in communications policy with the federal government, where she has worked largely in film and new media cultural industries policy. She is currently Director of Policy, Planning and Research with Telefilm Canada. Roundtable.
Michele Byers is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology & Criminology at Saint Mary's University and a graduate faculty member of the Inter-University Women's Studies Program in Halifax, where she conducts research at the intersection of television and Canadian youth culture. Her work has focused on how ideas about youth culture and identity are produced within Canadian television production, and how these diverge from those produced in the United States and elsewhere. Panel 3.
Stéphane Couture is doctoral candidate at the School of Media, Université du Québec à Montréal, where he coordinates the Laboratoire de communication médiatisée par ordinateur (LabCMO), a computer-mediated communications unit, and is active within the Centre interuniversitaire de recherche sur la science et les technologie (CIRST) and Canadian Research Alliance for Community Innovation and Networking (CRACIN) and, outside the university setting, sits as a member of the boards of FACIL and Koumbit, which link community groups to free software. His work draws on ethnography, research-action and the sociology of science and technology (SST) to study how community groups in Quebec and Canada have interacted with free software. Panel 3.
Lainy Destin's educational background is in international relations (Columbia University, 2000) and comparative and identity politics (M.A., McGill University, expected in 2007), and is currently focusing her law studies at McGill University on administrative law, corporate regulation, and aboriginal law. She has been active in a number of student and community groups. Panel 5.
Erik Ens is an economist within the Industry Framework Policy group in Industry Canada's Telecommunications Policy Branch. He studied economics at the University of British Columbia. Panel 4.
Howard Fremeth holds degrees from the University of Western Ontario and from Simon Fraser University, where his masters thesis looked at how Telesat Canada's early public relations and communications strategies affected its policy treatment. He is now a doctoral candidate at Carleton University, studying how broadcasting and telecommunications policy are shaped in federal election campaigns in Canada. Panel 2.
Teisha Gaylard is Director of Policy at the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council. She holds communications degrees from Carleton (B.A.) and York (M.A) universities; her masters thesis explored the policy framework for Canadian digital pay and specialty television services. Panel 2.
As Legal and Policy Counsel at the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), Jacob Glick works with the General Counsel and Director of Policy ensuring CIRA's compliance with applicable legislation, providing legal advice, overseeing the CDRP, drafting and negotiating legal documents, and developing and implementing national and international policy initiatives. Jacob is called to the Bar of Ontario; before coming to CIRA he practiced law as an Intellectual Property litigator at McCarthy Tétrault LLP in Toronto, representing a wide variety of companies and individuals in technology, internet and intellectual property related matters. He also provided pro bono assistance to civil-society technology groups. Originally from Waterloo, Ontario, Jacob is a two-time graduate of the University of Toronto, (Honours BA, with High Distinction, and LLB). Panel 3.
Gordon Gow is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Extension at the University of Alberta, and Honorary Secretary for the Canadian chapter of the Cellular Emergency Alert Service Association (CEASa); before joining the University of Alberta he was a Lecturer in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His My research looks at the development of electronic communications networks from a combined social and technical perspective, with the aim of expanding public understanding of and participation in policymaking, with a wider research focus on the development of mobile voice and data systems, especially with respect to regulatory concerns such as spectrum policy and management, telecom reform, technical standardization, and public safety. He completed his PhD in communications at Simon Fraser University. Panel 4.
Sara M. Grimes holds communications degrees from the University of Ottawa and Simon Fraser University, where her doctoral research focuses on children's use of information communication technologies (ICTs), including cell phones, digital games, social networking sites and other Internet applications. She has most recently been analyzing the convergence of digital games and advertising, a marketing practice called "advergames", taking place within many of the most popular children's games and online destinations. Panel 2.
Jamie Killingsworth is a doctoral student in mass communications at Carleton University, sportscaster at CTV Southwestern Ontario television and on FAN 590/680 NEWS radio, and lecturer in media studies at the University of Guelph. Jamie's recent research has focused on the regulatory treatment of specialty television channels and of satellite radio in Canada. Panel 1.
Normand Landry is a doctoral student in communication studies at McGill University. Before coming to McGill he was affiliated with the Communication Policy Research Laboratory (LRPC) at Université de Montréal, where his work on global media governance and the World Summit on the Information Society was published, with Marc Raboy, as Civil Society, Communication, and Global Governance (Peter Lang Publishers). Normand's MSc thesis at the Université de Montréal connected how television ads are regulated in Canada with policy questions regarding freedom of expression. Panel 1.
Anthony Lemke holds a degree in Theatre Arts from the University of Waterloo and is completing his BCL/LLB at the Faculty of Law at McGill University. He has held regular and recurring roles in a number of Canadian-made TV series, including Rumours and 15/Love. His made-for-television movie credits include the recently completed biopic The Debbie Smith Story, the thrillers Legacy of Fear and Proof of Lies, and the miniseries Robocop: Prime Directives. Anthony wrote and is currently producing his first short film, which goes to camera in January. During his studies at McGill, Anthony researched the history and effectiveness of the CRTC's attempts to promote English-language Canadian drama. Panel 1.
Evan Light is a masters candidate in communications at the School of Media, Université du Québec à Montréal, where he is conducting a comparative case study of the community radio systems of Montréal and Montevideo, Uruguay. In June 2006 he was elected to the Board of Directors of the National Campus and Community Radio Association (NCRA), where he chairs the RadioFund Committee. Working with this committee, the NCRA and other Canadian community radio associations, he is charged with creating a multi-million-dollar funding mechanism for Canadian community radio. Even has been an active volunteer in campus and community radio in the United States and Canada for the last 13 years, and carried out research projects analyzing American media and Canadian community media policy. Panel 5.
Graham Longford is a post-doctoral research fellow in the Faculty of Information Studies (FIS), University of Toronto, and an executive member of the Canadian Research Alliance for Community Innovation and Networking (CRACIN), a four-year research alliance that brings together academics, community practitioners and federal government officials to study the impact of community-based ICT initiatives on local social development. He is also co-investigator on a new research project, the Community Wireless Infrastructure Research Project (CWIRP), which studies models of community-based, wireless broadband infrastructure, including community-owned Internet infrastructure. He holds a doctorate in political science from York University. Panel 4.
Donald J. MacLean is an independent consultant on ICT-related policy, strategy and governance issues based in Ottawa, Canada. From 1992-99, he served as Chief of Strategic Planning and External Affairs at the International Telecommunication Union. Prior to joining the ITU he worked in the Canadian Department of Communications from 1977 to 1989, before leaving government to establish his consulting practice. At the national level, his work has included projects on access to broadband networks and services, on line delivery of government services, measures to counter spam, innovation strategies for the e-economy, and reform of Canadian telecommunications policy and regulation. At the international level, he has worked on projects to support the Global Knowledge Partnership, the G8 Digital Opportunity Task Force and the World Summit on the Information Society. In addition, he edited Internet Governance: a Grand Collaboration for the UN ICT Task Force, was a member of the WSIS Working Group on Internet Governance, and contributed "A Brief History of WGIG" to Reforming Internet Governance, a collection of essays edited by William J. Drake. Donald MacLean holds a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from McGill University and did graduate studies at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques (Paris), McGill, and Princeton. Roundtable.
Anne McCulloch is a masters candidate in the School of Communication, Simon Fraser University, and holds a journalism degree from Carleton University. She has worked as a parliamentary page and as a student reporter with the Calgary Herald and Ottawa Citizen; before returning to school she worked in Japan, Nigeria, and Alberta, where she worked as a health issues researcher, and continues to focus on health information in the context of public policy as a graduate student. Panel 3.
Craig McTaggart has been Senior Regulatory Legal Counsel in Telecom Policy and Regulatory Affairs at TELUS Communications Company in Ottawa since June 2004. His practice is focused on matters of Internet infrastructure policy and telecommunication services regulation and forbearance. Craig holds an undergraduate degree from Queens University and law degrees from the University of Western Ontario (LL.B.) and the University of Toronto (LL.M., S.J.D.), where he earned his doctorate in law under the supervision of Professors Hudson Janisch and Michael Trebilcock in 2004. His dissertation, titled "The Internet's Self-governance Gap," examined the non-legal institutions that substitute for law within the Internet operational community. Craig has published articles on the ENUM protocol (Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law) and layered Internet policy models (McGill Law Journal). An Ontario lawyer since 1997, Craig has previously worked at SaskTel, Call-Net Enterprises, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and law firms Fasken Martineau and McMillan Binch. At the ITU in Geneva, he researched and co-wrote the first major international report on the policy aspects of voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP). Craig has taught Internet law and policy in both the Faculty of Law and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto, and in the Faculty of Law at Queen's University. Panel 4.
Mary Milliken completed her masters degree in sociology at the University of New Brunswick, where she is currently a doctoral candidate and researcher with the National Research Council's IIT e-Business unit in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Before returning to school she held a variety of positions within the CBC organisation and several small media-related businesses; her experience of Canadians' passion for, and tensions inherent within, public service media, have helped guide her doctoral work on the extent to which the nature of public service in broadcasting has been changing in the so-called information age. Panel 5.
James Missen is the Cultural Policy Advisor at the Canadian Conference of the Arts (CCA) and a part-time contract lecturer on experimental film, video art, and new media in the School for Studies in Culture at Carleton University. James has published numerous scholarly articles and has participated as a speaker at various academic conferences across North America. He currently sits on the board of Le Groupe Dance Lab, is an Ontario regional representative on the board of the Independent Media Arts Alliance (IMAA) based in Montreal, and is a member of the Editorial Working Groups for www.culturescope.ca. James holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film and Video (Honours, Screenwriting) from York University, as well as a Master's Degree in Film Studies from Carleton. Panel 1.
David Newman is in his second year of a PhD focusing on the political economy of the international film industry and comparative film policy at Simon Fraser University. His published research has compared feature film policy in New Zealand and British Columbia, New Zealand and Canada, and Hollywood and Australia/New Zealand. He holds degrees in economic history and recreation administration from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and an MFA in interdisciplinary arts from Ohio University, and has worked for the New Zealand Film Commission and Arts Council and as a lecturer at universities in Hong Kong and Vietnam. Panel 1.
Tina Piper is an Assistant Professor of Law within the Faculty of Law, McGill University; member of McGill's Centre for Intellectual Property Policy; and co-Director of Creative Commons Canada. Before joining McGill University, she clerked for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, completed graduate work at the University of Oxford as a Canadian Rhodes Scholar, and was a Research Associate to the Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre and Oxford Centre for Socio-Legal Studies. Tina Piper graduated from the University of Toronto's Engineering Science program as a National Scholar with a specialization in Electrical/Biomedical Engineering and as the the gold medallist at Dalhousie Law School in 2001. Her doctoral thesis considers the history and current problems of medical exceptions in patent law. Panel 3.
Alison Powell is a doctoral student in the Communication Studies department at Concordia University, where she studies public internet access, community-based wireless infrastructure, and mobile technologies, and a member of the Canadian Research Alliance for Community Innovation and Networking. She completed her MA at Ryerson University, conducting ethnographic research in Internet cafés and public internet access points; her current work examines how the expansion and distribution of Internet services via WiFi and other wireless networks draws from and influences Internet policy in different national contexts. Panel 4.
Marc Raboy is Full Professor and Beaverbrook Chair in Ethics, Media and Communications in the Department of Art History and Communication Studies. A former journalist in a wide variety of media, educated at McGill, Professor Raboy taught previously at the Université de Montréal and Laval University. He is the author or editor of thirteen books and more than one hundred journal articles or book chapters, as well as reports for such organizations as UNESCO, the Japan Broadcasting Corporation, the European Broadcasting Union, the Policy Research Secretariat of the Government of Canada, and the Quebec Ministry for Culture and Communication. He is a senior research associate in the Programme on Comparative Media Law and Policy at the University of Oxford, member of the international council of the International Association of Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), past president of the Canadian Communication Association, and member of several editorial boards. From 2001 to 2003 he served as expert advisor to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage for its study of Canadian broadcasting. He is also a founding member of an international advocacy campaign for Communication Rights in the Information Society. Keynote.
Elizabeth Roscoe has since April 2006 been Senior Vice-President of Policy & Public Affairs at the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB). She has also served as Senior Vice-President for External Affairs and Senior Vice-President, Public Affairs and Regulatory Development, with the Canadian Cable Telecommunications Association (CCTA), as it then was. She is active in Canadian Women in Communications and has served as Chair of the Media Awareness Network. Roundtable.
Philip Savage spent over 15 years working as an audience researcher and regulatory affairs manager with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and is now Assistant Professor (CLA), Communication Studies and Multimedia at McMaster University; research director for the Canadian Media Research Consortium (CMRC); and a member of the advisory board for the Research Analyst Program (RAP) at Georgian College in Barrie, Ontario. He teaches courses on policy, research methodology and political economy of media, and recently defended his doctoral dissertation at York University on "The Audience Massage: Audience Research and Canadian Broadcasting Policy". Panel 5.
Kim Sawchuk is an associate professor of communications at Concordia University and current editor of the Canadian Journal of Communications. Her research involves the close study of the relationship between embodiment, social practice and discourses on technology, and she has been experimenting with the potential of open source software and multimedia tools for collaborative research and developing research protocols and processes for better understanding how to enhance user participation with locative media projects. In 1996 Kim co-founded StudioXX, a feminist research and media arts centre in Montreal. Panel 5.
Richard Schultz is James McGill professor of political science and former director of the Center for the Study of Regulated Industries at McGill University, whose activities have included training seminars for CRTC telecommunications staff. He was educated at York University, Toronto (B.A. and Ph.D.) and the University of Manchester, England (M.A.). He is the author or co-editor of eight books, most recently Changing the Rules: Canadian Regulatory Regimes and Institutions, and is currently writing Contested Networks: The Politics of Canadian Telecommunications 1976-1993. In 2005 Richard Schultz was a resident fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, where he spent time researching the policy issues arising from the linkages between media concentration and cross-ownership and possible public policy responses. Roundtable.
Jeremy Shtern is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Communication, Université de Montréal. He has contributed chapters and articles to a variety of publications on subjects ranging from Internet Governance at the WSIS to free/open source software. He has worked on initiatives experimenting with innovate uses of ICTs for citizen engagement: As research assistant at the Hansard Society e-democracy programme (UK) and as associate director of the byDesign eLab projects "A Dialogue on Foreign Policy" and "The Electronic Commons" (Canada). His research examines the renegotiation of the public's interest in communications governance accompanying the emergence of digital ICTs. Panel 2.
Richard Sutherland holds degrees in philosophy and communications from the University of Calgary, and is currently a doctoral candidate in communications at McGill University, where his dissertation examines the policies of the Canadian federal sound recording policies during the 1968-1997 period, which runs from the hearings which led to the implementation of Canadian content regulations for radio broadcasters through to passage of the second phase of revision of the Copyright Act, which introduced both neighboring rights and a home taping right. His interest in communication policy was sparked by a prior career in the music industry, particularly several years' employment by the Canadian Independent Record Production Association, lobbying on behalf of the domestic sound recording industry. Panel 1.
Gregory Taylor is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Art History and Communication Studies at McGill, where he specializes in media policy, and is chair and founder of the Montreal Media Policy Group, a collective of academics and professionals in the Montreal region with an interest in communications and politics. Gregory has written on satellite piracy in Canada, the media monitoring efforts of the Fraser Institute, the origins of the "liberal media" argument in America, and the birth of the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council. In a previous incarnation Gregory was a Toronto high school teacher, specializing in media literacy. Panel 2.
Lara Trehearne holds a B.A. and is completing her M.A. in communications at the University of Ottawa, where she has acted as a teaching assistant for courses on media ethics, communication policy, new media, and media industries. Her graduate research involves a case study of the CBC digital archives as one of the funded federal agencies of the Memory Fund, examining how the Department of Canadian Heritage (PCH) conceived of a technological solution to the essentially cultural and educational challenges to Canadian identity and historical memory, and how the goals and objectives of this program were taken up, understood, and acted upon by the CBC.ca archive unit. Panel 3.
Ira Wagman is Assistant Professor in the School of Journalism and Communication, Carleton University. He holds a Ph.D. in Communication from McGill University, MBA in Arts and Media Administration from York University and an Honours BA from McGill University, and is currently a Research Fellow with Carleton’s Centre for Jewish Studies and Research and sits on the editorial board of the Canadian Journal of Communication. He is involved with research projects on cultural policy and epistemology; the history of communication studies in Canada, 1945-1970; and the aesthetics of cable news. Panel 2.
Patricia Williams is a doctoral candidate in sociology at York University. Her recent work, based on audience ratings, programme analysis, and interviews with program producers at CBC, BBC, and PBS, has examined how public broadcasting has changed through digital technologies, corporate convergence, and increased political vulnerabilities. Panel 5.