Tanner Mirrlees
PhD

Background

Tanner Mirrlees is the former president of the Canadian Communication Association (CCA) (2020-2022), the past organizer of the CCA’s annual conference for the Congress of the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences (2018-2020), and the current Director of the Communication and Digital Media Studies program, member of the Centre on Hate, Bias and Extremism (CHBE) and research associate of the Digital Life Institute and the Global Labour Research Centre.

Mirrlees earned a PhD from York University and Toronto Metropolitan University’s Joint Graduate Program in Communication & Culture, and won the prestigious Governor General’s Gold Medal Award for achieving the highest academic standing in the program. Mirrlees is the author or co-author of over ninety publications, including Global Entertainment Media: Between Cultural Imperialism and Cultural Globalization (Routledge, 2013), Hearts and Mines: The US Empire's Cultural Industry (UBC Press, 2016), and EdTech Inc.: Selling, Automating and Globalizing Higher Education in the Digital Age (Routledge, 2019). Mirrlees is also the co-editor of Media Imperialism: Continuity and Change (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019), Media, Technology, and the Culture of Militarism (Democratic Communiqué, 2014), and The Television Reader (Oxford University Press, 2012), and on the editorial boards of Canadian Journal of Communication, Media, War & Conflict, and Democratic Communiqué.

Mirrlees’ overall research focuses on: global political economy of communications; creative and entertainment industries; digital media platforms and cultural policy; work and labour in the digital age; persuasion, public relations and propaganda; political and strategic communication; war, media & conflict; social media and society; new media and activism; the social shaping of technology; and, critical theory. Some of Mirrlees' current research probes: an emerging rivalry between the United States and China’s ICT industries; video games and future warfare; the far Right and social media platforms; democratic socialist creator cultures;  work and labour in the creative industries; and, techno-utopianism/techno-dystopianism.

A passionate educator, Mirrlees has designed and taught more than twenty-five unique social science and humanities courses across disciplines such as communication studies, political science and international relations, and the history, sociology and philosophy of technology, and is the winner of the University of Guelph-Humber Media Studies Teaching Award (2011) and the Ontario Tech University Faculty of Social Science and Humanities Teaching Award (2014). Mirrlees is currently experimenting with new forms of public pedagogy in the digital age.

Mirrlees is a public intellectual whose extensive knowledge mobilization activity aims to bridge the gap between academia and communities, both local and global. Mirrlees has given over one hundred public presentations, co-organized over thirty scholar-activist events through The Capitalism Workshop and other forums, interviewed with print, radio, TV, digital and podcast media, written op-eds, appeared in documentaries such as Theatres of War (Media Education Foundation) and Myths on Screen: Hollywood’s Role in War and Propaganda (CBC IDEAS), co-created podcasts including Tech-Bros and Techno-Utopias: A Darts and Letters Mini-Series, authored video essays for YouTube, and designed digital posters, managed social media campaigns, and edited videos for community events.