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Our people

Meet the community of researchers, academics and experts at JEX who focus on a wide variety of issues facing the future of journalism.

Direction

David M. Secko

Director of JEX and professor, Department of Journalism
David Secko is Director of the Centre for Journalism Experimentation (JEX) and a professor in the Department of Journalism. A former science journalist, Dr. Secko is the leader of the Concordia Science Journalism Project and the award-winning experiential science journalism summer school Projected Futures. His diverse research team works on digital innovation related to how science is communicated with society through journalism.

Research staff

Taylor Kann

Research coordinator
Taylor Kann is the research coordinator for the Centre for Journalism Experimentation (JEX) and a PhD Candidate in the Individualized Program in Humanities at Concordia. Taylor's research examines how media coverage of the clinical applications of synthetic biology impacts Canadian audiences' views on the integration of synthetic biology into medical care. Previously, Taylor was a faculty coordinator at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard Medical School.

Cristina Sanza

Researcher, Projected Futures coordinator
Cristina Sanza is a researcher for the Centre for Journalism Experimentation (JEX) and a digital journalism instructor in the Department of Journalism. Through the Science Journalism Hub, she coordinates its science journalism summer school, Projected Futures, and is part of the Concordia Science Journalism Project research team. Her research interests include how health topics are communicated with society, and how we can improve reporting on fitness and physical activity.

Research members

Andrea Hunter

JEX research member and professor, Department of Journalism
Andrea Hunter is a research member of Centre for Journalism Experimentation (JEX) and a professor in the Department of Journalism. She has worked for CBC Radio on national and regional shows for over a decade. She was a producer, on-air contributor, and fill-in host of  The Roundup, a daily national arts and entertainment program on CBC Radio One. Professor Hunter’s research interests are in journalism and sociology.

Greg M. Nielsen

JEX research member and professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Greg Nielsen is a research member of Centre for Journalism Experimentation (JEX) and a professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. His current project examines how journalism is confronted with a growing list of citizenship controversies concerned with urban poverty, undocumented migrants and the "reasonable accommodation" of cultural diversity in large North America cities. Dr Nielson’s research interests are in the areas of social and cultural theory as well as media sociology.

Elyse Amend

JEX research member and associate professor, Department of Journalism
Elyse Amend is a research member of Centre for Journalism Experimentation (JEX) and an associate professor in the Department of Journalism. She is a former Montreal-area community newspaper journalist and trade journal assistant editor. Her current research projects examine reforms to the federal Access to Information Act and its impacts on Canadian journalism practice, data journalism and forms of non-traditional journalistic storytelling, and digital lifestyle journalism with a focus on food journalism.

Alexandra Mills

JEX research member and head of Special Collections and Archives, Library
Alexandra Mills is a research member of Centre for Journalism Experimentation (JEX) and head of Special Collections and Archives, Concordia University Library. She has Masters Degrees in both Art History and Library and Information Studies. Her research areas are archives, collection development, digital collections and special collections. Her publications, guest lectures, conferences and panels touch on user impact on the development of digital special collections, and on the use of primary sources in classrooms and communities.

Francine Pelletier

JEX research member and Journalist-in-Residence
Alexandra Mills is a research member of Centre for Journalism Experimentation (JEX) and head of Special Collections and Archives, Concordia University Library. She has Masters Degrees in both Art History and Library and Information Studies. Her research areas are archives, collection development, digital collections and special collections. Her publications, guest lectures, conferences and panels touch on user impact on the development of digital special collections, and on the use of primary sources in classrooms and communities.

Aphrodite Salas

JEX research member and associate professor, Department of Journalism
Aphrodite Salas is a research member of Centre for Journalism Experimentation (JEX) and an associate professor in the Department of Journalism. Her research focuses on mobile journalism, collaborative journalism with Indigenous communities and more specifically, the decolonization of journalism education. She is also part of the management team of Volt-age, a multi-year 123-million dollar electrification research project based at Concordia University.

Mark Watson

JEX research member and associate professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Mark Watson is a research member of Centre for Journalism Experimentation (JEX) and an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. While he had been living in the beautiful city of Montreal before taking up his position, he is originally from the UK and has found his way here via Japan, Finland and other places in Canada. His research interests include (Urban) Indigenous Studies // Place and Belonging // Engagement.

Amélie Daoust-Boisvert

JEX research member and associate professor, Department of Journalism
Amélie Daoust-Boisvert is a research member of Centre for Journalism Experimentation (JEX) and an associate professor in the Department of Journalism. Her research interests span from science, health and climate journalism, evidence-based solutions and innovations for journalism, solutions journalism and gender and diversity issues and the media. She’s also a regular collaborator to the radio show Moteur de recherche at ICI Radio-Canada Première.

Magda Konieczna

JEX research member and associate professor, Department of Journalism
Magda Konieczna is a research member of Centre for Journalism Experimentation (JEX) and an associate professor in the Department of Journalism. Her book, Journalism Without Profit: Making News When the Market Fails, examines non-profit news organizations and how they provide public-service news.

Associates

  • Colette Brin
    Professor, Département d'information et de communication, Laval University
  • Francois Demers
    Affilated Professor, Département d'information et de communication, Laval University
  • Chantal Francoeur
    Professor, École des médias, Université du Québec à Montréal
  • Brian Gabrial
    Wise Endowed Chair in Journalism, Northwestern State University of Louisiana
  • Sandra Gabriele
    Vice-Provost, Innovation in Teaching & Learning; Associate Professor, Department of Communication Studies
  • Andreea Mandache
    Independent Scholar
  • Penny O’Donnell
    Senior Lecturer, Department of Media and Communications, University of Sydney, Australia
  • Tom Moring
    Professor, Swedish School of Social Science, University of Helsinki, Finland
  • Brian O'Neill
    Professor, Dublin Institute of Technology, School of Media, Ireland
  • Pierre Pagé
    Emeritus, Département d'études littéraires, UQAM
  • Marc Raboy
    Beaverbrook Chair in Ethics, Media and Communication, McGill University

Emeritus professors

Howard Fink

Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Department of English, Concordia University

Howard Fink is currently engaged in a research project on the BBC World Service Radio News, 1970-86, in the Concordia Centre for Broadcasting Studies (CCBS). The Diniacopoulos/BBC News Collection was donated to the University last year, and is housed in the CCBS.

The project involves, first, the archiving and dubbing to cd of 9,000 hours of WS (Radio) News programs, broadcast on short-wave and taped daily off-air by the late Prof. Denis Diniacopoulos (Communications, Concordia U). We are also gathering background information on the principles, organization, and procedures of production of these programs, during the significant 16-year period of the tapes.

Finally, the above work enables comparative research into these programs, renowned for their objectivity and comprehensiveness, relative to treatment of the same significant news by other comparable national broadcasters.

This project is being funded by a joint donation by the late Mrs Diniacopoulos, mother of Denis, and by Concordia Advancement.

The archiving of the tapes is now complete, and a copy of the microfilmed indexes to the BBC WS News has been purchased, as the CCBS instrument of access to this Collection. The work of dubbing these tapes to cds is moving rapidly ahead without incident, after the usual start-up problems. I have interviewed a number of BBC WS News administrators, most of whom have moved up the ranks from correspondent and editor, and these interviews have been recorded for further use both in this project and for future CCBS research on the programs. The comparative analysis is in the organizational stage. I will be delivering the first academic report on this project in Toronto next March in the Radio Section of the Popular Culture/ American Culture Associations Conference.

John D. Jackson

Professor Emeritus, Department of Sociology & Anthropology, Concordia University

John was co-founder of the Centre for Broadcasting Studies and Director from 1983 to 1986 and 1989 to 1992. He taught sociology, specialized to community studies and popular culture at Sir George Williams and then Concordia University from 1966 to 1998.

He is presently a member of the International Editorial Board of the Journal of Radio & Audio Media, a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre and a member of the Advisory Board of the RE-Visionary Interpretation of the Public Enterprise (RIPE), a research enterprise devoted to public broadcasting.

He was also Canadian Editor of the Museum of Broadcast Communications Encyclopedia of Radio edited by Christopher H. Sterling and published by Fitzroy Dearborn, London, 2004.

He is currently working on issues related to the use of radio among members of minority groups and the question of public spaces, media and citizenship while maintaining earlier interests in radio drama production.

Recent Publications

  • “Introduction to the Symposium on Canadian Radio Research”, Journal of Radio & Audio Media. Vol.20, No.2, Nov. 2013. Pp. 292-295
  • “The Socio-Cultural Context of Broadcasting Markets” (with Yon Hsu, Geoffrey Lealand, Brian O’Neill & Michael Foley and Christian Steininger) in Gregory F. Lowe & Christian S. Nissen (Eds.). Small among Giants: Television Broadcasting in Smaller Countries. Göteborg, Sweden: Nordicom, 2011.
  • Mediated Society: A Critical Sociology of Media (with Greg Nielsen & Yon Hsu). Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2011.
  • “Recognition & Mis-Recognition: Radio as Interlocutor – A Study of Second Generation Immigrant Use of Radio (With Michael Rosenberg). Centre for Broadcasting Studies, Concordia University, Montreal, 2004.
  • “This Hour Has 22 Minutes: The Centre-Periphery Problematic and Gender Performance” (With Tammy Saxton & Donavan Rocher) Fréquence/Frequency, Nos. 11-12, 2004 (Pp.182-198)
  • “Canadian Radio & Multiculturalism” Museum of Broadcast Communications Encyclopedia of Radio, London: Taylor & Francis Group, 2004. (Pp. 275-277)
  • “The Public/Private Tension in Broadcasting: The Canadian Experience with Convergence” (With Mary Vipond) in Gregory Lowe & Taisto Hujanen (eds.), Broadcasting and Convergence: New Articulations of the Public Service Remit. Göteborg: Nordicom, 2003 (Pp. 69-82)
  • “From Cultural Relativity to Multiculturalism: The CBC’s The Ways of Mankind Series, 1953. Fréquence/Frequency, Nos. 9-10, 2002 (Pp. 95-108)
  • “Production, Preservation and Access: The Struggle to Retain Audio-Visual Archives” Canadian Journal of Communications, Vol. 26; Nos. 2 & 3; 2001 (Pp.285-293)
  • "Broadcasting: Centralization, Regionalization and Canadian Identity" Pp. 80-90 in Craig McKie & Benjamin Singer (eds.),Communications in Canadian Society. Toronto: Thompson Educational Publishers, Inc., 2001.

Mary Vipond

Professor Emeritus, Department of History, Concordia University

Mary Vipond taught in the Department of History from 1970 to 2008, retiring as Professor Emeritus. She has studied Canadian broadcasting history since the early 1980s and is the author of The Mass Media in Canada (Toronto: James Lorimer, 4th ed. 2012) and Listening In: The First Decade of Canadian Broadcasting (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1992), as well as many articles on radio history in the 1920s and 1930s.

Her most recent publications are:

  • “What’s a New Public Broadcaster to Do?: The Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission’s Programs in Transnational Context, 1932-1936,” Journal of Radio and Audio Media, 20, 2 (2013), 295-310
  • “A Life in History: Nationalism and Communication,” Canadian Historical Review, 98, 3 (2017), 568-90. She is currently completing a SSHRC-funded project on propaganda on the CBC during World War II.

Students

  • Dana Hachwa
    JEX research assistant, undergraduate student
  • Janyne Leonardi de Carvalho
    JEX research assistant, MA student
  • Melissa Migueis
    JEX research assistant, undergraduate student
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