FIMS Profile

Edward Comor
Professor

FIMS & Nursing Building Room 4138
Phone: 519-661-2111 x81233

University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5B7
Fax: 519-661-3506
ecomor@uwo.ca
  • About Me

  • Teaching

  • Publications

  • Courses Taught

My research focuses on the political economy of communication and culture, comparative historical analyses, and the writings of Harold Innis. My PhD is in Political Science (York University 1995) and previously I taught at American University's School of International Service (Washington, DC) and the Department of Social Sciences at Loughborough University (UK). Here at the University of Western Ontario, I am a past Faculty Scholar and Rogers Chair in Journalism and New Information Technology. In my teaching career, I have supervised more than fifty major research projects and dissertations and on six occasions attained the Students Council Teaching Award. Outside the university, I was a short-listed finalist for TV Ontario’s Big Ideas Best Lecturer Contest.

Among other professional contributions, I was the Co-Founder and Inaugural Chair of the International Communication Section of the International Studies Association; I have served as a review official for the Canada Council for the Arts, the Canada Research Chairs Program, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council; I was on the Board of Directors for the UNESCO-affiliated Workers’ Educational Association of Canada; I co-conducted a national survey on the implications of digital technologies on journalism; and I prepared a report on how free trade agreements impact culture for the Senate of Canada.

Internationally, I have given invited lectures to several universities (including the University of Amsterdam, the University of Leicester, and Murdoch University); was the Program Chair for the International Communication Section of the International Studies Association; co-organized the British International Studies Association Communications Research Group; served as a Referee for The Institute of European Studies; was an International Research Assessor for the Australian National Quality Exercise; organized and chaired special academic panels in the United States and the United Kingdom (including one honouring Todd Gitlin and a memorial roundtable for Herbert Schiller); coordinated the 16th General International Federation of Workers’ Educational Associations Convention; acted as a referee for many academic publishers, including Oxford University Press, Cornell University Press, State University of New York Press; and have had my work featured in non-academic venues, including an exhibition at the Estonian Museum of Contemporary Art. Among my news media activities, I have been interviewed by CBC Radio, NBC Television, and The New York Times.

I have authored or edited five books as well as dozens of peer reviewed articles and book chapters (see Publications section). Currently, I teach graduate and undergraduate courses on political economy, global communications, and another on the environment, animals and media.

 

 

Interdisciplinary Foundations of Media Theory (MA and PhD) 

Political Economy of Global Communication (MA and PhD)

Foundations of Global Communication

Political Economy of Communication

Global Political Economy of Communication

The Culture of Consumption

Innis, McLuhan, and Medium Theory

Environment, Animals, and Communication

Courses at Loughborough University:

Key Debates in Communication and Cultural Theory

Practical Communication and Media Analysis

Introduction to Communication and Media Studies

The Global Information Economy

Key Concepts in Communication and Cultural Theory

Courses at American University:

Colloquium in International Communication (PhD) 

Political Economy of International Communication (MA)

Research Seminar in International Communication (MA)

Communication and Economic and Social Development (MA)

International Communication (MA)

Senior Seminar in International Communication

International Communication and the Global Marketplace

Foundations of International Communication

 

 

Peer reviewed books:

Editor (with Robert E. Babe), Harold A. Innis, Political Economy in the Modern State. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018. 427pp. <https://utorontopress.com/9781487522926/political-economy-in-the-modern-state/>

Editor, Media, Structures, and Power: The Robert E. Babe Collection. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011. 436pp.
<https://utorontopress.com/9780802095763/media-structures-and-power/>

Author, Consumption and the Globalization Project: International Hegemony and the Annihilation of Time. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan Press, 2008. 211pp. <https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9780230582996>

Author, Communication, Commerce and Power: The Political Economy of America and the Direct Broadcast Satellite, 1960-2000. Basingstoke and New York: Macmillan and St. Martin's Press, 1998. 253pp.  <https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-349-26235-9>

Editor, The Global Political Economy of Communication: Hegemony, Telecommunication and the Information Economy. Basingstoke and New York: Macmillan and St. Martin's Press, 1994 (re-published in pb 1996). 193pp. <https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-349-24926-8>

Recent articles in peer reviewed Journals:

‘Law as a Mediating Institution of History: the approach and strategy of Harold Innis' in University of Toronto Quarterly. Vol. 91 Issue 2 (May 2022), pp. 1-32.

'Harold Innis and the Greek Tradition: an Essay Concerning his Ontological Transformation’ in University of Toronto Quarterly. Vol. 89 Issue 2 (Spring 2020), pp. 239-264.

‘Technological Fetishism and US Foreign Policy: a speculative paper on the mediating role of digital ICTs’ in The Political Economy of Communication. Vol. 5 No. 2 (December 2017), pp. 3-21.

‘Data-Driven Public Diplomacy: A Critical and Reflexive Assessment’ (co-authored with Hamilton Bean) in All Azimuth: Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace. Vol. 7 No. 1 (December 2017), pp. 5-20.

‘Journalistic Labour and Technological Fetishism’(co-authored with James R. Compton) in The Political Economy of Communication Vol.3 No.2 (2015), pp. 74-87.

‘Marx’s Value Theory: a Critical Response to Analyses of Digital Prosumption’ in The Information Society Vol.31 No.1 (January 2015), pp. 13-19.

Other (selected) peer reviewed publications:

'Harold Innis's Concept of Bias: Its Intellectual Origins and Misused Legacy' in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication. Oxford University Press (2021). 23 pp.

'Introduction to Political Economy in the Modern State' and 'Chapter Introductions' (co-authored with Robert E. Babe) in Harold A. Innis, Political Economy in the Modern State. Toronto: University of Toronto Press (2018), pp. IX-XCV.

‘Ubiquitous media and monopolies of knowledge: the approach of Harold Innis’ in Michael Daubs and Vincent Manzerolle (eds.), From Here to Ubiquity: Critical and International Perspectives on Mobile and Ubiquitous Media. (New York: Peter Lang, 2018), pp. 183-200.

‘Hegemony’ for International Encyclopedia of Political Communication (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015), pp. 463-470.

‘Value, the Audience Commodity and Digital Prosumption: A Plea for Precision’ in Lee McGuigan and Vincent Manzerolle (eds.), The Audience Commodity in a Digital Age (New York: Peter Lang 2014), pp. 245-65.

‘America’s “Engagement” Delusion: Critiquing a Public Diplomacy Consensus’ (co-authored with Hamilton Bean) in International Communication Gazette Vol.74 No.3 (April 2012), pp. 203-220.

‘Contextualizing and Critiquing the Fantastic Prosumer: Power, Alienation and Hegemony’ in Critical Sociology Vol.37 Iss.3 (May 2011), pp. 309-327.

‘New Technologies and Consumption: Contradictions in the Emerging World Order’ in James Rosenau and J.P. Singh (eds.), Information Technologies and Global Politics: The Changing Scope of Power and Governance (Albany: State of New York University Press, 2002), pp. 169-85.

‘The Role of Communication in Global Civil Society: Forces, Processes, Prospects’ in International Studies Quarterly Vol.45 Iss.3 (September 2001), pp. 389-408. 

‘Media Corporations in the Age of Globalization’ in William Gudykunst and Bella Mody (eds.), Handbook of International and Intercultural Communication, Second Edition (London: Sage, 2001), pp. 309-23.

‘Governance and the Nation-State in a Knowledge-Based Political Economy’ in Timothy J. Sinclair and Martin Hewson (eds.), Approaches to Global Governance Theory (Albany: State of New York University Press, 1999), pp. 117-34.

 

Additional academic work published in:

  • American Political Science Review
  • Canadian Journal of Communication
  • European Journal of Communication
  • Global Media and Communication
  • Information, Communication & Society
  • Global Governance
  • Journal of Canadian Studies
  • Journal of Economic Issues
  • Journal of Visual Studies
  • Journalism Studies
  • Media, Culture & Society
  • Millennium, Journal of International Studies
  • New Political Science
  • Prometheus, Critical Studies in Innovation
  • Review of Policy Research
  • Topia, Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies

 

 



MIT 2158 Foundations of Global Communication 2024 Winter , 2023 Fall , 2022 Fall , 2020 Fall , 2019 Fall , 2018 Fall , 2015 Fall , 2014 Fall MIT 2211 Foundations of Global Communications 2013 Fall , 2012 Fall , 2011 Fall , 2010 Fall , 2010 Winter , 2009 Winter MIT 265 Foundations of Global Communications 2007 Fall , 2007 Winter , 2006 Fall , 2005 Fall , 2004 Fall MIT 3110 Global Political Economy of Communication 2024 Winter , 2023 Winter , 2022 Winter , 2021 Winter , 2020 Winter MIT 3216 The Culture of Consumption 2019 Winter , 2018 Fall , 2016 Fall , 2016 Winter , 2015 Fall , 2015 Winter , 2014 Fall , 2013 Winter , 2012 Winter , 2011 Winter , 2010 Winter , 2009 Winter MIT 339 The Culture of Consumption 2008 Winter , 2007 Winter , 2006 Winter , 2005 Winter MIT 3436 Special Topics in MIT: Environment, Animals, Culture, and Communication 2023 Fall , 2023 Winter , 2022 Winter MIT 4032 Special Topics in MIT: Environment, Animals, and Communication 2021 Winter MIT 4038 Medium Theory 2016 Fall , 2012 Winter , 2011 Winter MIT 404 Honors Seminar: The Political Economy of Globalization 2004 Fall MIT 4102 Special Topics in MIT: Environment, Animals, Culture and Communication 2020 Winter MIT 435 Medium Theory and the Political Economy of Globalization 2006 Fall , 2005 Fall MS 787 Political Economy of Communication 2007 Fall , 2006 Winter , 2005 Winter MS 9100 Interdisciplinary Foundations of Media Theory 2008 Fall MS 9275 Political Economy of Communication 2022 Fall , 2020 Fall , 2019 Fall , 2019 Winter , 2017 Winter , 2016 Winter , 2015 Winter MS 9601 PhD Interdisciplinary Foundations of Media Theory 2013 Fall , 2012 Fall , 2011 Fall , 2010 Fall