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Ontario Tech acknowledges the lands and people of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation.

We are thankful to be welcome on these lands in friendship. The lands we are situated on are covered by the Williams Treaties and are the traditional territory of the Mississaugas, a branch of the greater Anishinaabeg Nation, including Algonquin, Ojibway, Odawa and Pottawatomi. These lands remain home to many Indigenous nations and peoples.

We acknowledge this land out of respect for the Indigenous nations who have cared for Turtle Island, also called North America, from before the arrival of settler peoples until this day. Most importantly, we acknowledge that the history of these lands has been tainted by poor treatment and a lack of friendship with the First Nations who call them home.

This history is something we are all affected by because we are all treaty people in Canada. We all have a shared history to reflect on, and each of us is affected by this history in different ways. Our past defines our present, but if we move forward as friends and allies, then it does not have to define our future.

Learn more about Indigenous Education and Cultural Services

Tanner Mirrlees
PhD

Associate Professor

Undergraduate Program Director

Communication and Digital Media Studies

Faculty of Social Science and Humanities

Contact information

Bordessa Hall - Room 312
Downtown Oshawa
55 Bond Street East
Oshawa, ON

905.721.8668 ext. 5852

tanner.mirrlees@ontariotechu.ca

Background

Tanner Mirrlees is an Associate Professor in the Communication and Digital Media Studies program in the Faculty of Social Science and Humanities at Ontario Tech University. A passionate educator, Mirrlees has designed and taught more than twenty-five unique social science and humanities courses across disciplines such as communication and digital media studies, political science and international relations, and the history, sociology and philosophy of technology. His current research centres on the global geopolitical economy of digital technologies and entertainment, work and labour in the creative and digital industries, and far-right hate groups and social media platforms. Mirrlees is the author of Hearts and Mines: The US Empire's Cultural Industry (UBC Press, 2016), Global Entertainment Media: Between Cultural Imperialism and Cultural Globalization (Routledge, 2013), co-author of EdTech Inc.: Selling, Automating and Globalizing Higher Education in the Digital Age (Routledge, 2019), and co-editor of Media Imperialism: Continuity and Change (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019) and The Television Reader (Oxford University Press, 2012). Mirrlees is also the author of over sixty publications, including research articles, book chapters, book reviews, encyclopedia entries, magazine articles and op-ed pieces. He has given over seventy-five public presentations across academic and community venues. Mirrlees is the president of the Canadian Communication Association (CCA) (2020-2022), the former convenor of the CCA’s annual meeting for the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, a research associate of the Decimal Lab, a steering committee member of the Centre on Hate, Bias and Extremism (CHBE), and co-organized The Capitalism Workshop.

Education

  • PhD, Communication and Culture York University and Ryerson University

Courses taught

  • COMM 1100 Introduction to Communication Studies
  • COMM 2411 Information & Society
  • COMM 2410 Communication and Technology
  • COMM 2270 Entertainment Goes Global
  • COMM 2271 Global Media Industries
  • COMM 3510 Work in the Information Age/Work in the Digital Age  
  • COMM 4170 International Communication
  • COMM 4420 Digital Media, Politics and Democracy
  • COMM 4120 War, Propaganda and Media Culture
  • COMM 4120 Watching, Analyzing and Making Digital Media, for Democracy

Research and expertise

Dr. Mirrlees is a critical political economist of digital media technologies and the cultural industries. His research interests include: global political economy of the digital technology and entertainment industries; war, digital technology and militainment; work and labour politics in the digital age; critical pedagogy and EdTech; alt-right and social media; social theories of technology.

Involvement