Leslie Regan Shade

Contact Information
Email: 
leslie [dot] shadeatutoronto [dot] ca
Phone: 
416-978-7110
Website: 
Young Canadians, Participatory Digital Culture and Policy Literacy
Room: 
BL 711
Associate Professor
Education: 

B.A., Communications-Visual Arts, University of California, San Diego (UCSD) M.L.S., University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) PhD., Communications, McGill University

Administrative responsibilities: 

Faculty Workload Group 2012-2013 (Member) Graduate Coordinator (Winter +) Academic Appeals Committee (Member)

Biography: 

Leslie Regan Shade's research focus since the mid-1990’s has been on the social and policy aspects of information and communication technologies (ICTs), with particular concerns towards issues of gender, youth and political economy. Her research promotes the notion of the public interest in ICT policy; publications, community outreach and student supervision have as their goal the promotion of a wider popular discourse on information and communication policy issues and media reform in Canada and internationally for a diverse public and policy audience. This includes an ongoing commitment to building participatory scholar-activist networks.

Research highlight: 

Arguing that policymakers need to think critically – and creatively – about developing digital literacy skills that consider children and young people as valid and active citizens, particularly those focusing on the authenticity and prevalence of commercial content, raising awareness of privacy rights, and copyright education, Shade’s current SSHRC-funded research is titled Young Canadians, Participatory Digital Culture and Policy Literacy.

Research description: 

Research interests:

  • Media reform
  • Political economy of communication
  • Feminist media studies
  • Girls' studies
  • Youth and media
  • Social and policy issues surrounding the internet
  • Mobile media studies
  • Public interest
  • Social media and privacy

Shade's various publications have drawn on a diverse range of topics from a political economic focus: media concentration in Canada; neoliberal tenets in Canadian telecommunications policy in Canada; community informatics in Canada; the revised discourse of modernization in ICT4D (information and communication technologies for development) and M4D (mobiles for development); gender and technological design; social media and social justice; privacy issues in Facebook; a feminist political economy of the internet; and the commodification of young people’s online spaces. Previously she taught at Concordia University in the Department of Communication Studies and the University of Ottawa in the Department of Communication.

Selected publications: 

Forthcoming, 2013. Mobilizing for Development: Promises, Perils, and Policy Implications of M4D in Mobilities, Knowledge and Social Justice, ed. Suzan Ilcan (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press).

2013 Ed., Mediascapes: New Patterns in Canadian Communication. 4th ed. (Nelson Canada). With Michael Lithgow: Media Ownership, Public Participation, and Democracy in the Canadian Mediascape, pp. 174-203.

2012. Whose Radical Transparency? Why Privacy Rights are Necessary for the Facebook Generation, pp. 295-303 in Communications in Question: Controversial Issues in Communication Studies, 2nd ed., edited Josh Greenberg and Charlene Elliott (Nelson Education).

2012. Connecting Canadians?: Investigations in Community Informatics, eds. Andrew Clement, Michael Gurstein, Graham Longford, Marita Moll and Leslie Regan Shade. (Edmonton, AB: Athabasca University Press.)

Mobile Phones as a “Necessary Evil”: Canadian Youth Talk About Their Mobile Phones, co-authored with Tamara Shepherd, pp. 199-218 in Technologies and Mobilities in the Americas, eds. Philip Vaninni, Lucy Budd, Christian Fisker, Paolo Jirin, and Ole B. Jenson. (NY: Peter Lang).

Social Media and Social Justice Activism in Canada, co-authored with Normand Landry, pp. 296-311 in Power and Resistance: Critical Thinking about Canadian Social Issues, 5th ed., eds. Wayne Antony and Les Samuelson. (Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing).

2011. The Internet Tree: The State of Telecom Policy in Canada 3.0, co-edited with Marita Moll. (Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives).

Media Reform in North America, pp.147-165 in The Handbook on Global Media and Communication Policy, eds. Robin Mansell and Marc Raboy. (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Inc.).

Engaging in Scholar-Activist Communications in Canada, pp. 28-44 in Communication Research in Action: Scholar-Activist Collaborations for a Democratic Public Sphere, eds. Philip M. Napoli and Minna Aslama (Fordham University Press).

Surveilling the Girl Via the Third and Networked Screen, pp. 261-275 in Mediated Girlhoods: New Explorations of Girls’ Media Cultures, ed. Mary Celeste Kearney. (NY: Peter Lang Publishing).

Wanted, Alive and Kicking: Curious Feminist Digital Policy Geeks. Feminist Media Studies 11(1): 123-129.

Canadian Journal of Communication 36(1), Democratizing Communication Policy in the Americas: Why It Matters, co-edited with Becky Lentz. Guest editorial with Becky Lentz: Democratizing Communication Policy in the Americas: Why It Matters, pp. 3-9.

Affiliations & collaboration: 

Canadian Communication Association

Association of Internet Researchers (AOIR)

Journal editorial boards: Feminist Media Studies; Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication; Journal of Information Policy; Journal of Community Informatics; International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics; Canadian Journal of Communication

Year joined the iSchool: 
2012