This document summarizes the 10th Annual CGC Academic Conference on the theme of "Failure". The conference welcomes presenters from across Canada and internationally to share academic research on various types of failures. It thanks the organizers, sponsors, and volunteers who have helped plan and support the multi-day event. The document includes the full conference schedule detailing the various panels, presenters, topics, and keynote speakers. It acknowledges those who have contributed to the success of the conference over its ten year history.

2. MESSAGE FROM THE CONFERENCE CO-CHAIRS
Welcome to the 10th
Annual CGC Academic Conference: Failure: Interruptions, Confrontations and
Silences. We are excited to welcome presenters from across Canada and internationally to talk about
this year’s theme and share their academic research.
For the past nine years, this conference has grown in size and stature in the academic community.
Graduate students and researchers have submitted top rate papers and were able to network with
leading scholars in their fields. We want to thank all of this year’s participants for helping us continue
this trend into year ten.
A great deal of work has gone into planning and organizing this conference. We want to thank Dr. Irena
Knezevic, Dr. Josh Greenberg, Dr. Sheryl Hamilton, Carole Craswell, and Coleen Kornelsen for their
support at every stage. We want to thank executive members of the 2014/2015 Communication
Graduate Caucus as well as our volunteers for their hard work.
Finally, we would like to thank the Faculty of Public Affairs for including our conference as part of their
annual Research Month. We value this commitment to graduate research, and have appreciated their
tremendous support throughout our planning.
We hope you enjoy this year’s conference and look forward to continuing the discussion.
Sarah Harney, PhD2 Èva Morin, MA2
Conference Co-Chair Conference Co-Chair
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to thank the following Carleton University departments and organizations as well as
faculty, staff and students in the School of Journalism and Communication. This conference would
not have been possible without their tremendous support:
School of Journalism and Communication Department of Political Science
Office of the Provost and Vice President (Academic) Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs School of Canadian Studies
Faculty of Public Affairs Graduate Students’ Association
Arthur Kroeger College Canadian Journal of Communication
Department of History Canadian Communication Association /
L’Association Canadienne de
Communication
The Communication Graduate Caucus (CGC) Executive Committee:
Emily Hiltz, Caitlin Turner, Jason Rothery, Courtney Tracey, Nadia Hai, Peter Roumeliotis, Sarah
Harney, Èva Morin, Henry Guardado, Kyle Diplock, Jennifer Maybank, Sündüs Kabaca,
Simon Vodrey, Kevin Smith
Conference Committee Members:
Caitlin Turner, Emily Hiltz, Nadia Hai, and Sündüs Kabaca
Poster Design: Jason Rothery
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MESSAGE FROM THE SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM AND COMMUNICATION
On behalf of the School of Journalism and Communication I wish to formally welcome you to the
10th
annual CGC Conference. The conference is the best of its kind in Canada and will be an
exciting venue in which to present your research.
This year’s conference theme is “Failure” and we are thrilled to host Dr. Kate Crawford as the
conference keynote and annual Attallah Lecture speaker. Dr. Crawford’s lecture will inspire a
great deal of discussion and debate about the ethics, power and politics of “big data.” These
and related themes will also shape what we anticipate to be lively and engaging panels and
presentations.
Carleton University has been awarding graduate degrees in communication for more than two
decades. Our program has attracted high caliber students who have gone on to distinguished
careers as university professors, policy analysts, communication professionals, entrepreneurs,
lawyers and leaders of advocacy organizations. We believe the solid research foundation they
acquired during their graduate studies played a key role in their success.
Enjoy your time at Carleton and please accept my very best wishes for a stimulating and
successful conference!
Josh Greenberg, PhD
Director, School of Journalism and Communication
Carleton University’s School of Journalism and Communication,
in collaboration with the Communication Graduate Caucus, presents
Dr. Kate Crawford, the 7th Annual Attallah Lecture speaker
Kate Crawford is a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research, a Visiting Professor
at the MIT Center for Civic Media, a Senior Fellow at NYU's Information Law Institute, and an
Associate Professor at the University of New South Wales. Dr. Crawford investigates the ethical
failures of big data and the power dimensions of data analytics. She is currently writing a new book
on data and power with Yale University Press. She is the author of Adult Themes (Macmillan,
2006), and has co-edited a special section in the International Journal of Communications with
Mary L. Gray, titled “Big Data, Big Questions.” Dr. Crawford has also written for The Atlantic, The
New York Times and The New Inquiry, while serving on advisory boards for the Information
Program at the Open Society Foundation, and at New Museum’s art and technology incubator,
New Inc. She is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Data-Driven
Development, and co-director of the NSF-funded Council for Big Data, Ethics & Society.
Kate was a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio fellow in 2013, where she worked on issues to do with
big data, ethics, and communities.
“The Partial Witness: Data, Bodies and the
Trouble with Truth” - March 5, 6:00 PM
Dr. Crawford’s lecture will focus on the emergence of
personal devices purporting to generate greater insight
about our health and well-being, while also producing a
range of additional consequences that feed back into
asymmetrical relations of power: with device makers,
employers, insurers and the legal system.

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CONFERENCE SCHEDULE – THURSDAY, MARCH 5TH
9:00 a.m. - 9:30 a.m. – Registration and Refreshments
9:30 a.m. - 9:45 a.m. – Welcome and Greetings
9:45 a.m. - 10:15 a.m. – Opening Speaker, Dr. Irena Knezevic (Location: RB 2220/2224)
10:15 a.m. - 10:30 a.m. – Break and Networking
10:30 a.m. - 11:45 a.m. – Panel 1: Fictional Failures (Location: RB 2228)
Chair: Dr. Sandra Robinson
Justine Mallah, Carleton University - Americanizing Harry Potter: A Success Story with Grave
Consequences
Chantelle Brule, Carleton University - Demonizing Islam: Misrepresentations in Da Vinci’s
Demons
Jess Wind, Carleton University - Failure of Safe Institutions in a Zombie Apocalypse
12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. – Lunch (Location: 2nd
floor River Building Atrium)
1:30 p.m. - 2:45 p.m. – Panel 2: Deceptive Corporate Codes (Location: RB 2220/2224)
Chair: Dr. Gina Grosenick
Renata Malta, Universidade Federal de Sergipe – Gender Representation in Brazilian
Advertisement: Reflections of a Patriarchal Hegemony
Adam Thomlison, University of Ottawa - From Pipeline to Plate: The Domestication of Oil
Sands through Food Analogies
Jaclyn Nardone, Western University - Branded Buildings & Alumni Posters: An Examination of
Western University as a Cultural Marketplace
1:30 p.m. - 2:45 p.m. – Panel 3: Carleton Undergraduate Panel (Location: RB 2228)
Chair: Dr. Ira Wagman
Antonella Pucci - Marketing the Moustache: A Real Man’s Story
Laina Pilon - Language and Identity among the Chinese Diaspora: A Look at Southeast
Asian and Western Communities
Christine Ackerley - Narrowcasting and the Nightly News: Failures, Opportunities,
Change, Growing Pains, Disappearing News or Better than Ever?
Mike Elliott - Rhythm, Conflict and Memory: Communicating the Third Space in the Music
of the African-American Diaspora
Alicia Lim - Interdependent Agents: Tibetan Diaspora and Notions of Freedom
2:45 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. – Break and Networking

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3:00 p.m. - 4:15 p.m. – Panel 4: Rebuilding Regional Identities (Location: 2220/2224)
Chair: Dr. Karim Karim
Jennifer Maybank, Carleton University - We’re All in it Together: Failure and the Maritime
Identity
Fatemeh Mohammadi, Carleton University - Canadian Muslim Youth Rebel: Misrepresented
Youth Identity
Anna Kozlova, Brandenburg Technical University - Reconstruction of National Identity through
the Berliner Stadtschloss: A Critical Analysis of the Humboldt Forum Project
6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. – Seventh Annual Attallah Lecture, Dr. Kate Crawford (Location: RB 2220)
CONFERENCE SCHEDULE – FRIDAY, MARCH 6TH
9:00 a.m. - 9:30 a.m. – Registration and Refreshments
9:15 a.m. - 10:30 a.m. – Panel 5: Resisting Silenced Narratives (Location: RB 2220/2224)
Chair: Dr. Ben Woo
Kathy Dobson, Carleton University - Media Narratives: Contrasting Mainstream and Alternative
Narratives of the Idle No More Movement
Joanne Farrall, Carleton University - Queer Failure/Queer Futurity: Silences, Erasures and the
Possibilities for Transformative Justice in Leelah Alcorn’s Suicide Note
Nadia Hai, Carleton University - Disaster’s “Fans”: Exploring ISIS’s Countercultural Appeal
10:30 a.m. - 10:45 a.m. – Break and Networking
10:45 a.m. - 12:00 a.m. – Panel 6: Infrastructural Divides (Location: RB 2220/2224)
Chair: Dr. Dwayne Winseck
Sarah Harney, Carleton University - Failing Economics: Surveillance and Inequality in
Canada
Henry Guardado, Carleton University - Failing to Connect: The Issue of the Digital Divide
Caitlin Turner, Carleton University - Speaking and Silencing through the Spatiality of
Contention and Control
10:45 a.m. - 12:00 a.m. – Panel 7: The Limits of Political Systems (Location: RB 2228)
Chair: Dr. Mary Francoli
Simon Vodrey, Carleton University - Predict, Fail, Forgive & Repeat: Political Polling
Mark Johnson, Carleton University - Ethics in Political Communication: The 2008
Canadian Coalition Failure and the Conservative Party Response

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12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. – Lunch (Location: 2nd
Floor River Building Atrium)
1:30 p.m. - 2:45 p.m. – Panel 8: Visual (Mis)recognitions (Location: RB 2220/2224)
Chair: Dr. Irena Knezevic
Emily Hiltz, Carleton University - Failed Transformations: Fissures in Notorious Women’s
Image Crafting
Jessica Chapman, Carleton University - Failure to Recognize: How Biometric Technologies are
Reinforcing Social Inequality
Tyler Morgenstern, Concordia University - Refusing Settler State Surveillance through
Indigenous Culture Transmission: Error and Endurance in Raymond Boisjoly’s (And) Other
Echoes
1:30 p.m. - 2:45 p.m. – Panel 9: Informational Gaps (Location: RB 2228)
Chair: Dr. Merlyna Lim
Steven Watts, McMaster University - A “Glocal Impasse”: Balancing Environmental Coverage
and Public Service Broadcaster Responsibilities
Suzanne Waldman, Carleton University - The Failure of Information: The Status of the
Information Deficit Model in Risk Communication
Chris Peppin, Carleton University - Credit Rating Agencies and Communication: Towards an
Integration of Medium Theory and Political Economy of Finance
2:45 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. – Break and Networking
3:00 p.m. - 4:15 p.m. – Panel 10: Audiovisual Dialogues and Silences (Location: RB 2220/2224)
Chair: Dr. Ross Eaman
David Jackson, Western University - Militant Sound Investigation: Sound Based Research and
Activist Listening
Agnes Malkinson, Carleton University - Exploring the Audiovisual Aesthetics of Trueview
Youtube Advertising
Jason Rothery, Carleton University - Ironic Cinephilia (or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying
and Love The Room)
4:15 p.m. - 4:45 p.m. – Closing Speaker, Dr. Ben Woo
4:45 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. Awarding of Canadian Journal of Communication Student Paper Prize,
Closing Remarks

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ABSTRACTS
Christine Ackerley, Carleton University | chris_ack@rogers.com
Narrowcasting and the Nightly News: Failures, Opportunities, Change, Growing Pains,
Disappearing News or Better than Ever?
More than 30 years ago, CBS Washington bureau chief Barbara Cohen said, “It has become
fashionable to predict the demise of network news in general and the evening news broadcasts in
particular” (Lotz, 2009, p. 94). Yet nightly newscasts have survived, despite significant drops in
viewership. Developments in online content capabilities, however, have further destabilized networks
and journalism practices. The term “post-broadcast,” as used by Turner and Tay (2009), is a useful
concept for audiences, media companies and communication scholars to understand these changes
around nightly newscasts. This presentation examines the current network news landscape, identifying
unrealized expectations and ideals for modern video-based journalism, but also areas of success and
opportunity. The implications of post-broadcast phenomena of “pull models” or “narrowcasting” have
interesting implications for audiences and nations. Lotz (2009) suggests news is actually ideal for
streaming on portable screens, because news formats already emphasize timeliness and short
packages. Audiences seem to agree: last year in the U.S., 36 per cent of all adults watched news
videos online, roughly the same percentage of Americans who now get news from Facebook
(Olmstead, Mitchell, Holcomb, & Vogt, 2014). Novel, post-broadcast forms of news distribution might
deepen audience engagement with news and democratic society, by enabling personalized choice and
unscheduled viewing. However, an individualized post-broadcast era could also undermine democracy,
because audiences are no longer made aware of broad issues of civic importance. Like print and radio
news before it, video news is contending with significant challenges and shifts. But, like those earlier
forms, video news is evolving, not failing.
Chantelle Brule, Carleton University | chantelle.brule@carleton.ca
Demonizing Islam: Misrepresentations in Da Vinci’s Demons
Da Vinci’s Demons is a historical drama produced by BBC Worldwide, airing within the US and UK in
April 2013. The series presents Leonardo da Vinci and his efforts to assist the Medici in their conflicts
with the Vatican and Papal States. While centering on these conflicts, the show also includes significant
depictions of Muslims, who are portrayed as the ultimate enemy of Rome and Catholicism.
In this paper I will concentrate on one particular episode, the second season finale, “The Sins of
Deaedalus.” In this episode the Constantinople Muslims arrive by ship to overthrow Rome and
convert its citizens to Islam. In response, the Medici and Papal states set aside their conflicts to
protect Rome from the “barbaric” Muslims. Using this episode I will illustrate how Muslims are
misrepresented within this series. I will consider how the tropes of the “clash of civilizations” and
historical distortions position Islam as “other” to Catholicism; and how in using such tropes Islam is
conceived of as “violent” and “barbaric” in contrast to Christianity. This is of interest considering the
Romans are previously depicted conducting so-called “amoral” actions, like adultery. In
misrepresenting Islam and Muslims, this episode fails to consider the history and plurality of this
faith. While research exists on televised representations of Muslims, there remains to be work done
on how such representations occur within historical fictions. Such work can contribute to our
understanding of the ways in which media represent and misrepresent Muslims to Western
audiences.

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Jessica Chapman, Carleton University | Jessica.chapman@carleton.ca
Failure to Recognize: How Biometric Technologies are Reinforcing Social Inequality
Surveillance technologies are routinely presented as necessary mechanisms of security; however,
these systems often have deeper social consequences that are frequently overlooked. Historically,
surveillance technologies have been instruments of power that create and reinforce social inequalities
by privileging certain groups and targeting others. Biometrics - which refer to technologies that
recognise people based on behavioural and physiological characteristics - are an example of how
surveillance technologies frequently fail to transcend the biases of those who implement them.
Although presented as an objective alternative to other methods of surveillance, biometrics have
repeatedly demonstrated a failure to recognise any deviance from the normative assumptions built into
them. Further, their implementation often serves an existing agenda.
Using Foucault’s concept of biopower as a starting point, this paper will discuss how the use of
biometrics provides an example of human bodies being subject to problematization, politicisation and
technological intervention. By drawing on case studies ranging from airport security to law enforcement,
I will investigate the ways in which biometrics fail to account for diversity of race, gender, age, and
ability. Further, I will attempt to draw parallels between biometric discrimination and existing social
inequalities.
Whether intentional or not, biometric technologies are becoming mechanisms for social sorting,
creating divisions based on biological differences. It is likely that as a result of the systemic biases
present in biometrics, particular groups will become the targets of more invasive investigation based on
the same characteristics that make them targets in a broader social context.
Kathy Dobson, Carleton University | Kathy.Dobson@carleton.ca
Media Narratives: Contrasting Mainstream and Alternative Media Narratives of the Idle No More
Movement
This paper explores the role of alternative media platforms in framing the Idle No More movement, a
network of Indigenous communities that has become one of the largest Indigenous mass protests in
Canadian history, in contrast to the framing by mainstream media. The movement is committed to
asserting Indigenous rights to sovereignty, and serves as a call to arms against Bill C-45 for alleged
legislative abuses of indigenous treaty rights. A grassroots movement that emerged in late 2012, this
Indigenous-led protest has relied heavily on social media networks to speak out on Bill C-45, a bill
which includes changes that could potentially have a huge and negative impact on Indigenous rights in
Canada as it involves changes to the Indian Act, the Navigable Waters Protection Act, the
Fisheries Act and the Environmental Assessment Act. Through the use of social media, this
movement has gained national attention and led to organized rallies across Canada. However, as
this paper contends, the contrast between mainstream and alternative media’s framing of this
movement reveals a significant discrepancy between the two narratives.
Mike Elliott, Carleton University | mikeelliott@cmail.carleton.ca
Rhythm, Conflict and Memory: Communicating the Third Space in the Music of the African-
American Diaspora
The failures of the African-American diaspora in the West to communicate with "Africa" as a
referent-origin, has led to the marginalization of discourses involved in mediating Black politics in
global development issues. One of the kinds of failures is Hip-Hop music. Many Hip-Hop artists
invoke a memory of Africa as a lineage through politically-charged resistance sentiments toward
American institutions, which many African immigrants do not identify with. The result is a conflict
between the Pan-African diaspora and the Black American from the failures of Hip-Hop music.

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However, with the global movements of individuals within a wide array of social and geographic spaces,
the potential for communication between Africans and Black Americans on what it means to be Black is
high, due to the outsourcing of music videos and global streaming services. Resisting the blending of
cultures into an assimilated whole, while inquiring and expressing conscientious interest towards each
other, rests as one of the fundamental challenges of diasporic communication between Black
Americans and African immigrants. I wish to advance Homi Bhabba's theory of the third space as
reflecting in the failures and connections that the African-American diaspora makes in regards to its
formations of myths and symbols, and the double marginalization that occurs within the American
mainstream and the African homeland that many realize they cannot return to, geographically and
psychologically. Diasporic communication can confront both African immigrants in North America and
the African-American diaspora to communicate on issues of Blackness in the contemporary paradigm
of cultural and ethnic hybridity.
Joanne Farrall, Carleton University | joanne.farrall@queensu.ca
Queer Failure/Queer Futurity: Silences, Erasures and the Possibilities for Transformative
Justice in Leelah Alcorn’s Suicide Note
On December 28, 2014, transgender teenager Leelah Alcorn took her own life after posting her suicide
note to Tumblr. She added her name to the growing number of young people, including Jaime Hubley,
Jayme Rodemeyer, Tallulah Wilson and Olivia Penepraze, who have used Tumblr to publish their
suicide notes. Angela McRobbie has argued that modern suicide notes can be read as “nascent
political texts,” texts that make a social statement without a political agenda or awareness of political
language. Melancholia drives people to focus only on their own individual suffering, but texts such as
suicide notes can shift the focus away from individual pain and back towards an acknowledgement of
her social circumstances, damaging social norms and practices. I argue that the use of social media
platforms, such as Tumblr, to publish suicide notes, transforms these texts beyond the nascent and into
potentially transformative political texts that are at odds with modern discourses about suicide. Suicide
in our culture is read as the ultimate failure. According to Ian Marsh, the modern meaning of suicide has
shifted from classical conceptions of it as a political and contingent act with multiple possible meanings,
to the act of an individual person with a universal, ahistorical set of pathological symptoms consistent
with mental illness. In her note, Alcorn writes a political text about her family’s refusal to accept her
gender identity and their misrecognition of her. She writes about the failures of optimistic queer futurity
offered to her in spaces like the It Gets Better project. She ends her note ”My death needs to mean
something… Fix society. Please.” Her family has since attempted to scrub all record of their daughter
from the internet. My paper explores Leelah’s note along multiple axes of silences, erasures and
transformative possibilities. Is there a queer futurity that can move past mandatory optimism and
toward transformative justice?
Henry Guardado, Carleton University | guardadohenry@hotmail.com
Failure to Connect: The Issue of the Digital Divide
The “digital divide” refers to the divide between those who have and who do not have access to
Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Views on the existence of the divide are
split: some, such as Compaine (2002), have dismissed the term’s legitimacy by arguing that, rather
than being a pressing social problem, the divide is nothing more than a “gap” between early and
late adopters of ICTs. On the other hand, there are scholars who have argued that the divide is an
issue that merits discussion, particularly in developing countries, and that it is the responsibility of
the state to address it as it is capable of influencing the allocation of resources and market
direction.

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This paper discusses the failures of developing states in addressing the “digital divide” by placing it in a
Central American context. It does so in three parts: first, drawing on Singh (1999) and Casanueva-
Reguart (2013), it discusses the different kinds of reforms that developing states can undergo to
address the issue, including ones that lead to their “failure.” Second, it discusses theories supporting
and opposing the idea of the digital divide. Third, through a case study of Honduras, it presents
preliminary findings of how the state has addressed the divide in that country, and to what degree it has
succeeded or failed to address it. Ultimately, this paper argues that the state has a responsibility in
addressing the divide, whether or not it is able to bridge it completely.
Nadia Hai, Carleton University | nadia.hai@carleton.ca
Disaster’s “Fans”: Exploring ISIS’s Countercultural Appeal
ISIS’s success in Iraq and Syria is presented as a product of the failure of The War on Terror,
specifically in Iraq. The breakdown of order in the region is often compared to Afghanistan following the
Soviet-Afghan war, another “failed” conflict, which became a training ground for foreign fighter and/or
“Terrorists.” However, unlike the conflict in Afghanistan, there are more citizens of “Western” countries
joining the ranks of ISIS. It is commonly believed that individuals from the West are drawn to
movements like ISIS based on their extreme religious beliefs. This position fails to recognise how the
appeal of ISIS may share more similarities with many Western countercultural narratives historically
popular amongst youth, rather than the religious ideals of violent Salafists.
These countercultural narratives highlight the many ways in which a given society may “fail” an
individual. For some idealists, they may see fighting with ISIS as a fight against imperialism or escaping
the downfall of an overly decadent modern society, much like the new communalist hippies of the late
sixties. For others, being a part of ISIS may be a way of dealing with alienation and the opportunity to
gain fellowship, glory, guns and women, as promoted by the glamorization of gang culture. This paper
argues that the appeal of religious insurgent groups like ISIS should be explored by logics of popular
and fan cultures, rather than the common discourses of youth being brainwashed by “evil” foreign
and/or religious ideas.
Sarah Harney, Carleton University | SarahHarney@cmail.carleton.ca
Failing Economics: Surveillance and Inequality in Canada
Surveillance has become a significant political question in light of Edward Snowden’s revelations
concerning the practices of the National Security Agency (NSA). The Communications Security
Establishment (CSE) in Canada, on the other hand, has received less public attention regarding
their surveillance practices, yet they have conducted a domestic metadata program since 2005.
Questions of surveillance persist with recently proposed bills that give security and policing
organizations more power in exchange for purported increased safety and may be revealing of a
broader movement towards increased surveillance measures in Canada. The newly passed Bill C-
13 extends policing powers on the Internet. Following this trend, Canada’s new anti-terror bill
proposes to expand the powers of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, CSIS. Though these
bills are framed in terms of increased security, they will ultimately also allow for domestic
monitoring.
This begs the question, what is driving Canada’s move towards increased domestic surveillance
measures? Some theorists argue that the growth of mass surveillance systems is tied to changing
societal structures. For the past few decades, transformations in global economic and financial
institutions have occurred in accordance with the values of neoliberalism. The failure of neoliberal
economics has resulted in an increase in inequality, and consequentially a decline in living
standards, creating instability and unrest in populations globally. In recent years, inequality in

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Canada has worsened, with most income growth being accumulated by the top 10 percent of
Canadians.
Arguably, a link can be made between inequality and the implementation of surveillance measures as a
means to monitor internal instability and unrest. This paper situates Canada’s increased focus on
surveillance measures within the context of its political economy. Utilizing the concepts of “social
sorting,” and the “surveillant assemblage,” this paper will critically analyze the relationship between
inequality and the implementation of surveillance measures in Canada.
Emily Hiltz, Carleton University | emily.hiltz@carleton.ca
Failed Transformations: Fissures in Notorious Women's Image Crafting
A year after convicted serial killer Aileen Wuornos' execution, Hollywood actress Charlize Theron
transformed into Wuornos in Monster, an Oscar-winning role film critic Roger Ebert described as "not a
performance, but an embodiment" (2003). Her role was also "courageous," implying Theron's adoption
of Wuornos' violence and look was a heroic act of self-sacrifice. Unlike other notoriously violent women,
Aileen Wuornos herself is not critiqued for her practices of image crafting, in transforming her body to
conform to her claim of victimhood; in embodying a "worthy" victim status as white, beautiful, and
middle class (Gilchrist, 2010). Instead, Wuornos is notoriously exempt from and outside of image
crafting practice because her look is deemed crazed; her history unnaturally, sexually dangerous.
This paper traces the moralized sexual evaluation of female offenders' failed beauty transformations by
comparing the notorious imagery of three convicted murderers. Jodi Arias, convicted of killing her ex-
boyfriend, and Amanda Knox, twice convicted of murdering her roommate, offer countervailing
perspectives on the 'look' of innocence and the accused's role in managing their image. Though Arias,
Knox, and Wuornos' stories vary in how they fail to transform, they are all nonetheless defined
according to the logics of the male gaze (Mulvey, 1975) subjecting their physiques, dress, and stares to
scrutiny. However, these women also display varied degrees of control over their image, in crafting an
identity that may look legally and socially innocent. As such, criminals' efforts to craft their image, and
their failures to do so, dually reinforce the focus on women's bodies while challenging onlookers
determine the 'true' meaning behind their looks.
David Jackson, Western University | DavidC.jackson@carleton.ca
Militant Sound Investigation: Sound Based Research and Activist Listening
This paper will explore the activist writings by the political sound collective Ultra-Red and sound
artist Christopher Delaurenti, who argue for the realization of an activist listening and hearing that
vigorously undermines our assumptions about the passivity of the ambient sonic world. Using field
recordings and composition, sound artists are challenged by Ultra-Red and Delaurenti to move
beyond creating immersive and wooly sound art, and to conceptually reconceive ambience as an
active and dynamic space that is empathetic to the struggles and immiseration of people
everywhere. Activist and militant sound tactics amplify and expand noises and silences that
characterize political struggle.
Militant sound investigation produces explorations rooted in “sound based research that directly
engage the organizing and analyses of political struggles” [i]. The investigation is a sonic response
to the hegemonic organization of space that can creatively intervene and reconfigure how we
understand community, relationships, and other people’s worlds to uncover our common grounds
of opposition against the dominant narratives. I recognize voice is important to the communicative
matrix, but there is a deficit of listening and a lack of clarity in hearing. By sounding back to those
who maintain the ambiences of vulnerability by ignoring and silencing opposition, those involved in

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challenging dominant structures sound resistant notes capable of defiance, rebellion, and non-
cooperation. The reception and comprehension of material communication can be used to build new
ways of understanding and new ways of becoming, if even for just a moment.
Mark Johnson, Carleton University | mark.brian.johnson@gmail.com
Ethics in Political Communication: The 2008 Canadian Coalition Failure and the Conservative
Party Response
When it comes to the ethics of political communication, can the ends justify the means? In Canada in
late 2008, an unprecedented political disaster buffeted the minority Conservative government when the
Liberals, NDP and Bloc Québécois joined forces in an attempt to replace the Conservatives with a new
coalition government. The nature of the crisis communication rapidly employed by the Conservatives
drew heavy criticism from academia, and some corners of the news media, but was widely considered
to be highly effective in turning public opinion against the coalition proposal, thanks in part to an
apparent failure of civic knowledge. Did the Conservative Party act ethically as it waged its successful
public relations campaign against the coalition? Is “management” of public opinion justifiable if the
greater good is served? Using an established theoretical framework, drawing upon several ethical
approaches, this research uses document analysis to qualitatively evaluate the communication
campaign of the Conservative government, as it endeavored to fend off an immediate – but ultimately
doomed – threat to its survival.
Anna Kozlova, Brandenburg Technical University | anna.e.kozlova@gmail.com
Reconstruction of National Identity through the Berliner Stadtschloss: A Critical Analysis of the
Humboldt Forum Project
Twenty-five years have passed since the fall of the Berlin wall, an event that led to the reunification of
the city of Berlin and later on, of Germany. In spite of the fairly significant time that has passed since
this monumental event, Germany is still working on uniting its former halves. One of the ways in which
it is attempting to do so is with the construction of the Humboldt Forum.
According to the project’s managers, this is the “most important culturally political project in Germany at
the beginning of the 21st century” (Berlin Palace–Humboldt forum Foundation, 2011). The goal behind
the construction of the Humboldt Forum is to rebuild a replica of the ill-fated Berlin City Palace
(Berliner Stadtschloss), which was bombed during World War II and afterwards demolished by the
GDR government. The Humboldt Forum will be a cultural complex consisting of non-European art
and artifacts, as well as having a partnership with Humboldt University and the City Library of
Berlin.
This paper will look at the changing identity of the Berlin City Palace throughout the years and
examine the controversy surrounding the reconstruction of the Palace, some of which is centered
on the project’s decision to create an idealized version of the past. Lastly, this paper will discuss
how this project is not just about reinstating a failed cultural institution to its former glory; it is
actually part of a larger and more complex project focused on forging a new unified German
identity.

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Alicia Lim, Carleton University
Interdependent Agents: Tibetan Diaspora and Notions of Freedom
This paper will study how the Tibetan diaspora’s media use and conceptions of freedom are shaped by
Tibet’s political failure. This paper seeks to use the key ideas of Tibetan narratives, political agenda and
struggle as a framework to understand how Tibetan diasporans use media to navigate the identity of a
failed state and how their thoughts of freedom are thereby informed. Ever since Tibetans began to think
of themselves as a nation and other to China, the heart of their political activity has been the movement
for a free and independent state. The failure to attain this goal influences their imagined identity,
depictions of Tibet in Western culture, and the spiritual faith of Tibetan individuals. Particularly, the
World Wide Web has opened up opportunities for diasporas to negotiate their own identities and react
to the nation’s political failure. Communities use the lens of Tibetan identity and Western imaginings of
Tibet to read and reread the desire to liberate their country and achieve legitimacy in the eyes of United
Nations member states and in the international sphere. Significantly for diasporans, the sense of
contradiction in the Tibetan narrative, hybridity and choice are concepts that shape their
understandings of themselves as individuals and as a nation. Cosmopolitan Tibetans seek political and
religious freedom, questioning for themselves the political actions of the Dalai Lama while maintaining
his religious authority and this also suggests the failure of Tibet’s political leader.
Agnes Malkinson, Carleton University | agnes.malkinson@carleton.ca
Exploring the Audiovisual Aesthetics of Trueview Youtube Advertising
YouTube advertising is poised to eclipse traditionally dominant television ads as the most effective
audiovisual marketing strategy. Trueview advertising, in-stream ads with the option to “skip” after the
first five seconds, has quickly become the most desirable option for Youtube ad campaigns. The
overwhelming success of Trueview ads is attributed to the apparent mutual benefit of the format:
advertisers only pay for ads clicked and consumers are “granted” the agency to skip a commercial at
the five second mark. In order to avert such agency, the text maximizes opening features of the ad to
engage audiences and elicit click through action on the part of the viewer within this short timeframe.
The result is a new audiovisual aesthetic for video ads, most pronounced in the “synch point” of the fifth
second, increasingly prevalent in Youtube’s most recent and successful client campaigns.
Recent studies on Youtube aesthetics have neglected the effects of this increasingly efficient video
advertising format, invented and proliferated by the platform. This paper, therefore, explores the
creative shift in this advertising aesthetic that skillfully aims to sustain audiovisual interest until the
crucial decision-making juncture of the ad, and how continuous attention is maintained through
discontinuous, attention-gaining, audiovisual fragmentation. It considers the interaction between
visual and aural aesthetics of Trueview ads within the wider context of broadcast flow, the attention
economy, and Michel Chion’s Motion Picture Sound Theory. In doing so, this paper investigates
how carefully crafted interactions between sound and image cultivate allure and compel audiences
in merely five seconds.
Justine Mallah, Carleton University | JustineMallah@cmail.carleton.ca
Americanizing Harry Potter: A Success Story with Grave Consequences
Whereas cultural globalization literature often examines the spread of American culture in non-
Western contexts, this paper examines the spread of a British cultural product to the United States.
More specifically, it explores the motives behind translating Harry Potter into American English. In
doing so, the research questions will be answered: How has the Potter series as a British cultural
product been globalized and, at the same time, localized in the American context?

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What are the socio-political and economic-based power dynamics embedded in these globalization and
localization processes?
Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling and Scholastic’s American English translator Arthur Levine claim that
the reason for translating the Potter series was to make it understandable for American children. It is
argued that they are putting forward a persuasive rhetoric in support of hybridity that not only masks,
but also legitimizes and facilitates their goal of capitalist gains. Analysing Rowling and Levine’s
strategic rhetoric through Kraidy’s theory of hybridity highlights its negative consequences, such as the
promotion of consumerism and the glorified presentation of neoliberal ideologies. Instead of allowing
American readers to gain an understanding of life in Britain, Scholastic has Americanized the text to
increase its profitability, and is putting forward a distorted construction of British culture. In this way,
despite intentionality, Harry Potter is an example of an American corporation asserting dominance over
other cultures through its resistance of the British text. By doing this, Scholastic is promoting a type of
homogenized America, free of non-hybridized multicultural products.
Renata Malta, Universidade Federal de Sergipe | renatamalta@hotmail.com
Gender Representation in Brazilian Advertisement: Reflections of a Patriarchal Hegemony
This paper is constituted by two complementary stages, the theoretical and the empirical, which are
essential to reach the following aim we have proposed: to analyze gender representation in the
Brazilian advertising production based on the corpus. Considering the premise that advertising is a
cultural production, we propose an understanding of social relations, especially the role of men and
women in Brazilian society, in different periods of time. The theoretical discussion based on Cultural
Studies, specifically in authors who discourse about gender, is the bottom-line of this research. The
empirical study applies as a method the quantitative content analysis of the corpus, composed by 160
advertising videos, carefully defined, of the Brazilian automobile industry from five decades, 60s, 70s,
80s, 90s and 2000s. Different categories have been defined and measured, codified from several forms
of gender representation, identified in the corpus. From the quantitative data, we have extracted and
interpreted meaningful considerations for the present research. Following the analytical and theoretical
path, we have concluded that the link between vehicles and technology is inseparable and that the
automobile sector is a primarily male environment. The sexual division of labor is reinforced by the
massive presence of men represented as professionals specialized in cars in advertising productions,
based on the corpus, making women invisible in the field. Advertising also reinforces the hegemonic
patriarchy by representing women with symbols which fulfill the male social imaginary, characterizing
women as fragile and dependent on men or objectifying the female body. This misrepresentation of
gender is clear in the corpus during the whole period analyzed, however, we have observed that the
dynamism of social representations ensured a female presence as protagonist in the current
advertising discourse, albeit modestly.
Jennifer Maybank, Carleton University | jennifer.maybank@carleton.ca
We’re All in it Together: Failure and the Maritime Identity
The Maritime region—New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island—and success have
rarely been synonymous. Tommy Douglas colourfully evoked the region when he described
Canada as “…an old cow. The West feeds it. Ontario and Quebec milk it. And you can well imagine
what it’s doing in the Maritimes.” The ‘forgotten provinces’ share more than a coastline, their
respective residents also share a long history of low incomes, high unemployment, and mass out-
migration. The golden age of development for the region is a distant memory, peaking around the
time of Confederation. As such, ‘goin’ down the road’ to make a living wage has long been a fact of
life for Maritimers. Most often, this migration, or in some instances, long-distance commute, takes

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Maritimers thousands of kilometers from home—after all, ‘you know you’re from [insert Maritime
province of choice] if…you’re living in Fort Mac.’
In this paper, I explore the idea that a Maritime identity exists and that its foundation is in the shared
experiences and grievances of the region’s residents. The by-product of a collective memory in which
the economic failings of the Maritime provinces figure prominently, a strong regional identity exists
alongside, and is sometimes strategically invoked in lieu of, individual provincial or broader national
ties. I will draw on both historical and contemporary examples of how this identity has been expressed
in popular and everyday culture in order to illustrate how closely its existence is tied specifically to the
out-migration of Maritimers from the region.
Fatemeh Mohammadi, Carleton University
Canadian Muslim Youth Rebel: Misrepresented Youth Identity
Music, drugs, clubbing, joining gangs are a few of the many stereotypical images of youth in people’s
minds. Muslims are the youngest religious group in Canada, with a mean age of around 28 years old.
These younger generations, known as second-generation Muslims, are born and raised in Canada and
usually have multiple ethnic backgrounds. Academic scholarship on Muslims in North America has so
far mainly concentrated on first generation immigrants and how they deal with North American culture,
resulting in few studies that focus specifically on second generation Muslims and their experiences and
challenges. Second generation Muslims need to deal with multiple identities as well as being young at
the same time, which comes with its own challenges and difficulties. This paper seeks to illuminate
issues of Muslim youth rebellion by asking who and what do they rebel against?
This paper exposes how the secular liberal discourse of the West and the media have misrepresented
the agency and empowerment of Muslim youth who are seen as cultural and religious dupes under the
influence of extremists. In reality, rather than being under danger of radicalization, in the grand majority
of cases Muslim youth seize the initiative and rebel against the religious and cultural authority of their
parents’ generation. This is why it is important to understand the pressures and incentives faced by
Muslim youth both from mainstream Canadian society as well as from their own ethnic and religious
families and communities.
Tyler Morgenstern, Concordia University | tyler.morgenstern@gmail.com
Refusing Settler State Surveillance through Indigenous Culture Transmission: Error and
Endurance in Raymond Boisjoly’s (And) Other Echoes
Particularly since the emergence of Idle No More in the winter of 2012, the Canadian government
has dramatically intensified its surveillance of Indigenous communities (see Boutilier, 2014; Ling,
2013, 2014). While certainly of a piece with broader post 9/11 securitization programs, these
developments are also the inheritance of the Canadian state’s long history of subjecting
Indigenous bodies to particularly invasive forms of surveillance (Proulx, 2014). As Farrell Racette
(2011), Bell (2011), Peers & Brown (2009), Evans (2011), and others demonstrate, this history is
bound up with specific representational forms that, since the late 19th century, have worked to fix
Indigenous bodies within teleological decline narratives and transform the bodily surface itself into
a site of social and racial differentiation that justifies the “logic of elimination” (Wolfe, 2006) on
which settler-colonial governance is predicated. In this paper, I will explore how one such
technology – the portrait photograph – helped to consolidate, and so remains embedded, in the
Canadian state’s escalating efforts to surveil Indigenous communities. In recounting these
entanglements, however, I will also approach the portrait as a site of pitched contestation where
Indigenous subjects might and do refuse the “containerizing” (Gordon, 2008, p. 125) gaze of the
settler state. I will develop this contention by turning to the work of Haida-Québecois artist
Raymond Boisjoly, focusing on his 2013 photo series (And) Other Echoes. Drawing on recent

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Media Studies scholarship (Nunes, 2011; Barker, 2011) that explores the aesthetic and political
implications of error and glitch in new media texts, I will contend that by distorting the generic and
formal conventions of portrait photography, Boisjoly enacts a form of Indigenous cultural transmission
that outstrips the containerizing thrust of Canadian settler state surveillance, and opens toward a mode
of embodied relationality rooted in the endurance of Indigenous bodies and social worlds.
Jaclyn Nardone, Western University | jnardon@uwo.ca
Branded Buildings & Alumni Posters: An Examination of Western University as a Cultural
Marketplace
On March 7th
, 1878 Bishop Isaac Hellmuth founded The Western University of London Ontario, and the
campus has since achieved heights of greatness—greatness tinted in purple, that is. This paper will
examine the campus’ new Visual Identity campaign, its lineage of corporatization and, ultimately, how
the university has been, and continues to be, in a “perpetual state of transformation and growth since
the founding”—as a new promotional video notes. Examining the dichotomous relationship between
excess and silence, through a framework informed by Political Economy and Cultural Studies, this
paper critiques the university as a site of research—and of struggle and resistance—through the lens of
Neoliberalism. This will be done by examining: the name shift of The University of Western Ontario to
Western University, the new crafting of the latter name through texts and intertextuality, the campus’
branded buildings and corporate endowers as embodiment of social capital and the shift from local to
global outreach. From named lecture halls to alumni on showcase, this paper not only sees Western
University as a business, but also highlights how external political economic interests fail to merit the
university’s identity of being a cultural heritage site. Employing the theories of intertextuality to social
capital, this paper examines the symbolic and productive functions involved in the creation,
consumption and circulation of the Western brand—as a symbol of learning and of business.
Chris Peppin, Carleton University | chrispeppin@cmail.carleton.ca
Credit Rating Agencies and Communication: Towards an Integration of Medium Theory and
Political Economy of Finance
Information is a key element of both economics and finance; it can be the root cause of both profits and
losses; booms and busts; productivity and inefficiency. However, despite its critical importance
controversy persists about how information should be understood. The paper will contribute to this
debate by conceptualizing information as a complex and dialectical entity, while contrasting this
definition with other common representations of information in economics. This more robust
definition will be used to investigate the problematic role that Credit Rating Agencies (CRAs) play
in the modern economy. The paper will focus on two specific aspects of CRAs: how they produce
information and how this information operates once agencies publish it.
The methods CRAs use to produce ratings are problematic because there is a lacuna between the
way ratings are understood and what they actually are. In reality, ratings are subjective judgments,
but they are often construed as objective facts. This creates a problem because agencies are
expected to predict the future, a feat that often proves impossible in the modern economy. Once
agencies release their judgments they become objectified as scientific facts. This paper will argue
that a key element in this objectification process is the dialectical properties of information. Since
information cannot be accurately defined as a commodity, its treatment as such produces problems
including the objectification of judgments as well as the obfuscation of the political nature of
ratings. These two issues have implications for financial governance and regulation, particularly
considering the CRAs’ role in the economic crises since 2008.

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Laina Pilon, Carleton University
Language and Identity among the Chinese Diaspora: A Look at Southeast Asian and Western
Communities
The Chinese diaspora is a complex, heterogeneous imagined community, which differs greatly
according to locations. Central to the Chinese identity in diaspora is language, often related to the idea
of being authentically Chinese by Chinese-speakers. Migration from China to all corners of the earth
has been ongoing for centuries, particularly in Southeast Asia, and most recently to the West. Studying
motives for leaving, as well as the circumstances in which the Chinese were and are living in diaspora,
is of importance to understanding the ever-changing nature of the Chinese identity for members of the
diaspora. As a result of these varied migrations, the Chinese diaspora saw much hybridity in these
communities, often taking elements of the receiving location and incorporating parts of their own
heritage. Sometimes, they would drop their ability to speak Chinese by not passing it on to their
Children, such as in Indonesia where being Chinese was, for a time, negatively-viewed. In other
situations, newspapers and Chinese-language schools were established to sustain Chinese culture and
language for members of the diaspora. For many, being able to speak Chinese indicates that one is an
authentic Chinese person, but this is very limiting as it does not take into account history or social
circumstances. Similarly, speaking Mandarin over any other Chinese dialect suggests superiority and a
better class. This idea has been taking over the diasporic community, following the pattern in China,
thus adding another level of complexity to the Chinese identity in diaspora.
Antonella Pucci, Carleton University
Marketing the Moustache: A Real Man’s Story
Male participants growing moustaches for Movember is an interesting research case study that involves
the evolved cause-related marketing tactic of embodied philanthropy, or the temporary body
modification of one’s self in showing support toward a specific cause. Although embodied philanthropy
has many benefits in gaining more participation, there is disconnection behind the motive of this tactic.
This campaign raises questions whether the intentions of Movember participants are truly altruistic in
supporting men’s health issues or if Movember’s tactic of embodied philanthropy is used as a
persuasive incentive to gain further participation in return for participants to publically showcase their
philanthropy and masculinity. Michel Foucault’s “Technologies of the Self” theory will be applied to
deconstruct the embodied philanthropy campaign. The findings of this study reveal how Movember
capitalizes on the body in order to motivate enhanced promotion by constructing meanings and
expectations of philanthropic discourse and masculine identity among participants. Implications lead to
how embodiment has not only become a successful and popular tactic in cause-related health
campaigns to gain increased fundraising, but also a miscommunication, or failure to communicate
about the cause when adopted as a fad in social status embodiment to those who participate in the
politics of the campaign.
Jason Rothery, Carleton University | jasonrothery@gmail.com
Ironic Cinephilia (or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Room)
Tommy Wiseau’s risible cinematic nose-dive The Room (2003) has blossomed into a bona-fide
participatory film phenomenon. Aficionados across North America fill theatres to chant favourite
lines, throw spoons at the screen, circumambulate the theatre (in mimicry of a certain physical
sequences) and hurl improvised invective during rare lulls.
The Room is not the only movie abomination to enjoy such a strange second life. Subsequent to
reverential midnight screenings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), atrocities such as Paul
Verhoven’s vile passion project Showgirls (1995), and the troll-less Troll 2 (1990) have been
resurrected by devoted fans after having seemingly been relegated to discount bin ignominy. Their

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recuperation as “cult classics” often involves a proliferation of participatory practices, such as those that
attend screenings of The Room.
In a movie marketplace flush with cheap cash-ins, knock-offs, and lame direct-to-DVD sequels, why are
these titles revived and not others? What makes a particular bad movie worthy of “best worst” movie
status? How does audience appropriation of content challenge orthodox notions of authorship (as well
as upend the accepted protocols of public movie consumption)? Are audiences mocking these
miserable movie misfits, or can ironic love be as sincere as earnest love?
Ironic Cinephilia examines three classic cinematic failures -- The Room, Showgirls, and Troll 2 -- and
documents the process by which certain bad movies (and not others) are plucked from obscurity, the
unique qualities and characteristics that precipitated their revival, and the emergence and evolution of
participatory consumption practices in and amongst bad-moviegoing constituencies.
Adam Thomlison, University of Ottawa | athom150@uottawa.ca
From Pipeline to Plate: The Domestication of Oil Sands through Visual Food Analogies
Comparisons to food have become a theme in the promotional material of companies working in
Alberta's oil-sands, with the products being compared to yogurt, cupcakes and corndogs. The desired
effect seems to be to domesticate the products in the eyes of a public still weighing the benefits of oil
sands development. However, opponents argue the comparisons are a deliberate miscommunication of
the ecological reality. Domestication theory looks at the practices involved in incorporating innovations
into users' lives; the term refers to outside innovations being brought in to the domestic sphere. Marvin
(1988) and Sterne (2012) talk about the body as a domestication tool, and report that those promoting
new technologies use analogies of the body to render them less strange to people. Food is one of the
most obvious symbols of the intersection of body and home. This paper undertakes a qualitative image
analysis of visual communication (on television, in print, and online) by oil sands industry stakeholders
to examine their use of food analogies in the debate over oil sands development. It will look specifically
at instances where there is a visual representation of food in place of, or in tandem with, oil sands. This
paper is based on material collected as part of the SSHRC-funded MediaToil research project being
undertaken at the University of Ottawa, which is examining visual communications related to oil sands
development. The author of this paper is the project’s research assistant.
Caitlin Turner, Carleton University | CaitlinTurner@cmail.carleton.ca
Speaking and Silencing through the Spatiality of Contention and Control
Behind much of our contemporary social and political mobilization lays an intricate series of
choices and action shaped and constrained by a finite set of possibilities and circumstances. And
while digital communication technologies are forging paths of dissent and transforming social
movement actions; these actions are also subject to offline pre-emption and control of dissent.
Geographical space also matters to social movements; these spaces empower dissent to
coalesce, strategize, to act, and to be seen. And like digital spaces, physical space also ensnares
social movements in thousands of traps and controls and forces the confrontation of State, and
capital interests, with those of contention and change. Within the success and failure of social
movements, digital spaces and geographically defined territories are co-implicated, each with their
own affordances, regulations and laws that intervene on social movement actors and actions.
Comparing various digital and physical strategies of dissent and containment, this paper argues
that the restraining geographical space is intimately tied to the digital imagination of the same
space. Drawing on case studies involving, for example, anti-kettling software, mesh-networks and
street protests, the argument is made that offline containment strategies are constantly challenged
by digital intervention. Bringing the digital to bear on the physical becomes, in these cases, a

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continued and renewed battle to surface and stifle the deeper roots of resistance. The interlocking of
digital and physical space pits State desires to stifle against activist desires to surface resistance. On
both sides of the equation the challenge becomes how to use geography and code to control who can
speak, who can be heard and where they can do so.
Simon Vodrey, Carleton University | simon.vodrey@carleton.ca
Predict, Fail, Forgive & Repeat: Political Polling
Gary Genosko (2012) claims that, “accidents are not really aberrant; the blackout is inseparable from
the electrical grid. Breakdown and malfunction are inseparable from the communication network.
Deception is a dimension of reception” (p. 14). Put differently, failure is intimately tied to
communication. While Genosko examined the technical linkage of failure with communication by way of
communications networks, John Durham Peters (1999), in Speaking into the Air: A History of the Idea
of Communication, examined failure’s more philosophical linkage with communication. I propose to
blend both elements of communication and failure by focusing on a particular subject matter. More
specifically, I intend to investigate a small, often condemned, topic that is reliant upon communications
technology, which regularly taps into philosophical concerns but which is also hobbled by a long history
of failure: political polling.
My analysis will proceed in the following manner: First, the stage will be set by identifying why
politicians, political practitioners, the media and the public have questioned the efficacy as well as the
accuracy of public opinion polling. Furthermore, I will examine why, despite a high rate of failure in
accurately predicting political futures, polling continues to attract the attention of the media and the
public, as well as a substantial percentage of funding from politicians and political practitioners alike.
Second, I will address the consequences of failed political polling for politicians, political consultants,
the polling industry itself, the media and, of course, the general public.
Suzanne Waldman, Carleton University | swaldman@sympatico.ca
The Failure of Information: The Status of the Information Deficit Model in Risk Communication
In my paper I propose to review the history and context of a signature communication failure, which is
that which has accrued to the Information Deficit Model (IDM) of risk communication. The IDM
comprises the assumption that public risk perceptions and decisions that corroborate poorly with
empirical information can be adjusted if expert bodies provide more, as well as more correct,
information. The IDM involves two secondary assumptions: 1) public risk perceptions that do not
correlate with the risk analyses of expert bodies reflect a condition of ignorance; 2) this ignorance
can be remediated if it is “filled up” with information or if the wrong information is replaced with right
information. Each of these assumptions has continually met with resistance as well as failure, with
the latter recently encountering a new challenge from the Cultural Cognition school of risk
communication, which contends that risk perceptions are based in distinctive cultural formations
and as such are resistant to adjustment at the level of the individual.
My plan for the paper is review the strength of the challenge presented by Cultural Cognition to the
IDM and ultimately to turn to political theorists such as Lippman to question what is at stake in
dispensing with the Information Deficit Model. If individual citizens do not make risk as well as other
decisions in accordance with information, what is left of our faith in the liberal-individualist
conception of democratic choice, and with what ought we to replace this conception?

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Steven Watts, McMaster University | wattssr@mcmaster.ca
A “Glocal Impasse”: Balancing Environmental Coverage and Public Service Broadcaster
Responsibilities
Considering environmental degradation is an issue requiring worldwide attention and cooperation,
Public Service Broadcasters (PSBs) should approach related stories using a “national cosmopolitan”
frame. In doing so, the PSBs can fulfill their mandates and accurately represent international issues.
Using a discourse analysis, this study explores the PSB coverage of environmental issues on Fifth
Estate and Four Corners. These programs are produced and aired by the Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation (CBC) and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) respectively. CBC and ABC’s
failure to convey the globality of environmental issues, especially when confronted with competition
from commercial markets, has exposed gaps in their long-established mandates. Although the PSBs
may seek to thoroughly cover international issues, their legal requirements predetermine the scope of
coverage. Thus, only the national effects of environmental issues are acknowledged, limiting the
obligation and necessity for environmental action within regional borders. Furthermore, in response to
the changing media market, the PSBs have prioritized entertainment over education, which does not
fulfill the breadth of the Canadian and Australian Broadcasting Acts. Consequently, the heavy reliance
on narrative-style coverage, and the ensuing appeal to audience emotions, is not effective at educating
the public about environmental issues. As seen throughout this study, the policies being implemented
by CBC and ABC are restrictive in nature and have become counterproductive in terms of informing
national audiences.
Jess Wind, Carleton University | JessicaWind@cmail.carleton.ca
Failure of Safe Institutions in a Zombie Apocalypse
Zombies are failure — their bodies fail to live and to die. They bring about the failure of government,
society, and humanity. And, when it comes to finding safety after the outbreak, zombie narratives point
to the failure of the institutions we expect to protect us.
This project suggests there is a reason why constructed institutions of safety fail in zombie narratives,
relating to our anxiety about their ability to protect us in a disaster. To illustrate this relationship I will
focus on the mid-season five finale of The Walking Dead. Despite widespread zombie destruction, the
narrative reveals a continuing reliance on old structures of safety. In the episode a church is overrun by
the undead and a hospital becomes a murder site while a police force fails to protect its people.
Through narrative analysis this project will examine the failure of these institutions through the lens
of what Gerlach and Hamilton called pandemic culture. In a pandemic culture we experience
anxiety related to a perpetual vulnerability toward disease, spurred on not by medical phenomena,
but by the communication of imagined or potential pandemics. The Walking Dead highlights this
pandemic anxiety and points to the failure of communication by the institutions we normally turn to
for safety and protection.
A failure ultimately leaves survivors constructing their own safe zone: If the police, the hospital and
the church cannot protect us, who will?

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NOTES