Research

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My research investigates the connections between media, culture, and technology, and how these contribute to changes in social interaction and social control. My intellectual and theoretical approach is interdisciplinary and includes perspectives consistent with sociology, critical criminology, cultural studies, law, and media and communication studies. Broadly speaking, my research has sought to understand changes in social reality and the human condition attributed to media.

I have written or collaborated on eight books and have published dozens of scholarly papers, book chapters, and essays. My keynote address delivered at the 2017 Couch-Stone / Midwest Sociological Society meetings can be understood as a summation of the analytical approach used across much of my scholarly work. My keynote paper received an Emerald Literati Award: Outstanding Author Contribution Award (2020) in recognition of "authors who have contributed something new or of significant value to the body of knowledge, either in terms of approach or subject matter."

My current funded research includes two multi-year federally funded research projects. I am the PI on a $77,718 SSHRC Insight Grant (2020-2023, extended due to coronavirus) investigating women’s experiences of risk in heavy metal and hard music scenes. The goal of this research is to document women's participation in heavy metal culture, including festival and concert attendance, as a means of better understanding the gendered dimensions of voluntary risk-taking and agency as exercised by women-identified people in male-dominated spaces. I am the co-PI on a $398,412 SSHRC Open Research Area Grant (2023-2025) that is partnered with scholars based in the United Kingdom, Germany, and France to examine how visual technologies are impacting police oversight and training, a total funded research project of $2.5 million CAD. It is a mixed methods project, utilizing document and observational ethnography, interviewing, media analyses, and vernacular video analyses.