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Tamara Shepherd

Pronouns: she/her

Positions

Associate Professor

Faculty of Arts, Department of Communication, Media and Film

Graduate Program Director

Faculty of Arts, Department of Communication, Media and Film

Contact information

Email

tamara.shepherd@ucalgary.ca

Background

Educational Background

Doctor of Philosophy Communications, Concordia University, 2012

Master of Arts Media Studies, University of Western Ontario, 2007

Honours Bachelor of Science Psychology and English, University of Toronto, 2003

Biography

I am an Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director in the Department of Communication, Media and Film at the University of Calgary. My work in the feminist political economy of digital culture includes research on digital policy and digital labour in “Big Tech”. I am currently the co-investigator on “The role and impact of mentorship for equity, diversity, and inclusion in tech,” a project funded by SSHRC’s Insight program. I also serve on the editorial board of Social Media + Society. My work has been published in venues including Convergence, First Monday, International Journal of Cultural Studies, and the Canadian Journal of Communication.

Research

Areas of Research

Digital policy

Regulation of the internet, digital platforms, and Big Tech companies; tech lobbying

Feminist political economy

Intersectional interventions in digital policy; feminist studies of digital labour; inequality in the tech industry

Media literacy

Digital policy literacy; literacy in digital surveillance and privacy

Participation in university strategic initiatives

Human dynamics in a changing world

Courses

Course number Course title Semester
COMS 203 LEC 01 New Media Winter 2025
COMS 601 SEC 01 Interdisciplinary Approaches To Coms Studies Fall 2024

Publications

  • The Canadian Clearview AI Investigation as a Call for Digital Policy Literacy. Tamara Shepherd. Surveillance & Society. 179-191. (2024)
  • Diversity in Governance. Tamara Shepherd. Handbook of Media and Communication Governance. 179-190. (2024)
  • Platforms and Power: A Panel Discussion. Bannerman, Sara, Christina Baade, Rena Bivens, Leslie Regan Shade, Tamara Shepherd, & Andrea Zeffiro. Canadian Journal of Communication: Policy Portal . 473-490. (2020)
  • Net Neutrality Regulation and the Participatory Condition. Tamara Shepherd. Internet Policy Review. (2019)
  • Discursive Legitimation in the Cultures of Internet Policymaking. Tamara Shepherd. Communication, Culture & Critique . 231-246. (2018)
  • AI, the persona, and rights. Tamara Shepherd. In Zizi Papacharissi (ed.), A Networked Self and Human Augmentics, Artificial Intelligence, Sentience . 187-200. (2018)
  • Yik Yak: From anonymity to identification. Tamara Shepherd; Christopher Cwynar. In Jeremy Morris and Sara Murray (eds.), Appified . 241-250. (2018)
  • Neocolonial Intimacies. Tamara Shepherd. California Review of Images and Mark Zuckerberg . (2017)
  • When Passion isn’t Enough: Gender, Affect and Credibility in Digital Games Design. Alison Harvey; Tamara Shepherd. International Journal of Cultural Studies . 492-508. (2017)
  • Open Privacy Badges for Digital Policy Literacy. Karen Louise Smith; Leslie Regan Shade; Tamara Shepherd. International Journal of Communication . 2784-2805.. (2017)

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