About
We’re an interdisciplinary research centre dedicated to understanding the relationship between media, technology, and democracy.
Collaborating with a network of academic, policy, journalistic, and community stakeholders, the Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy works to understand and address the democratic harms of emerging media technologies and to inform and develop fair and accountable governance systems.
While digital media and technology infrastructures have enabled new voices, collective actions, and economic models, they have also exposed structural challenges to democracy including online hate speech, political and medical mis/disinformation, election interference, and the polarization and commodification of what was once celebrated as an open and inclusive digital public sphere.
The Centre produces critical research, policy advocacy, and public events that inform debates about the changing relationship between media and democracy, and that encourage policy aimed at maximising the benefits and minimizing the systemic harms embedded in the design and use of emerging technologies.
Research Streams
Technology Governance
Democratic governments around the world are struggling to govern a set of emerging technologies that challenge existing norms, laws, and regulations. This has led to a governance gap that demands new ideas. Working with policymakers, scholars, think tanks, and civil society stakeholders, the Centre researches, develops, and advocates for policy reforms and coordination both within Canada and internationally.
Information Ecosystems
The integrity of the public sphere is being compromised by misinformation and disinformation, online hate, and increased political polarization. Rather than addressing these problems as the fault of “bad actors,” the Centre tackles the structural problems behind them: centralized control, the attention economy, the decline of news source credibility, and the fragmentation of media audiences. Understanding these phenomena requires monitoring and studying the information ecosystem in its entirety, and addressing the underlying conditions shaping the nature of our digital public sphere.
Media and Journalism
Access to reliable information is integral to democracy. For much of the 20th century, this function was provided by journalism organizations. But due to the rise of digital platforms and the collapse of the funding model for news, we are in need of new models. The Centre is developing a program that studies these changes to the practice and business of journalism, supports journalistic production, and helps inform public policy that engages with the media sector.