2022 Dallas Smythe Memorial Lecture: Communication Platform Regulation in Canada

March 16, 2022

*Please note the Q&A period from this event is not included in the recording*

The School of Communication at Simon Fraser University presents the 2022 Dallas Smythe Lecture, Platform regulation in Canada: Networked autonomy and networked sovereignty, featuring Canada Research Chair Sara Bannerman.

Communications law and policy, including platform regulation, is often taken as a neutral or technical arbiter serving justice and balancing the interests of conflicting groups. Are laws and policies neutral? Are laws and policies capable of “keeping up,” serving racial, gender and labour justice, and meeting the needs of people in the context of powerful internet companies, platforms and decision-making algorithms?
Governments and consumers, in some cases, have bought into the idea that algorithms are the new neutral arbiters, and platforms the new governors. Just as individual autonomy is now connected to technologies, the power of states, platforms and algorithms are tied together in a new set of powers, dependencies, and relations. These relations are fortified by the expansion of tech lobbying and datified election campaigns — including in Canada. In a world of complex interconnectedness, what do autonomy and sovereignty look like? While platforms have tremendous and growing power, battles over platform regulation are not preordained.

Tune into this exciting lecture as we explore these questions and look to the future of platform regulation in Canada.

The Dallas Smythe Memorial Lecture has honoured critical scholars in the field of political economy of communications since 1993. Organized by SFU’s School of Communication, the lecture brings together faculty, students, and the broader community to honour the work and research of Dallas Smythe, who taught at SFU from 1976 until he passed away in 1992.

Presented in partnership with SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement and SFU Public Square.

About the Speaker
Sara Bannerman (she/her), Canada Research Chair in Communication Policy and Governance, is an Associate Professor of Communication Studies at McMaster University in Canada. She researches and teaches on communication policy and governance, including traditional forms of governance such as copyright, intellectual property, and privacy law; and the intersection of these with governance by code, technologies, and private entities. For example, she examines platform regulation and lobbying; the regulation of algorithmic recommender systems, privacy and datified election campaigning; privacy in the context of networked technologies, networked selves, and smart cities; crowdfunding culture, and copyright and access to knowledge.

Dr. Bannerman’s most recent book is Canadian Communication Policy and Law (Canadian Scholars, 2020), examining Canadian telecommunications policy, broadcasting policy, internet regulation, freedom of expression, censorship, defamation, privacy, government surveillance, intellectual property, etc. She has published two books on international copyright: International Copyright and Access to Knowledge (Cambridge University Press, 2016) and The Struggle for Canadian Copyright: Imperialism to Internationalism, 1842-1971 (UBC Press, 2013)—a history of Canadian international copyright. She has published in journals such as New Media & Society, Communication Theory, New Political Economy, the Canadian Journal of Communication, Futures, and Information, Communication & Society.

Dr. Bannerman is a Governing Board member of the International Society for the Theory and History of Intellectual Property, Vice President of the Lambda Scholarship Foundation, a past vice-chair of the law section of the International Association for Media and Communication Research, and past co-chair of the Emerging Scholars section of the International Association for Media and Communication Research. She holds a Bachelor of Music from Queen’s University, and an MA (2004) and a PhD (2009) in communication studies from Carleton University. She directs McMaster's Communications Governance Observatory.

About the Moderator
Sarah Anne Ganter is Assistant Professor of Communication and Cultural Policy in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. She has published widely on media governance, digital policy and regulation, and journalism, and analyzes media and digital policy transformations from a theoretical perspective that focuses on the dynamics and interactions shaping institutional fields. Her co-authored book “The power of platforms: shaping media and society” is coming out this April with Oxford University Press.

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