Dr. Michael Lithgow is an Associate Professor of Communication and Media Studies, in the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies, in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Athabasca University. His research focuses broadly on citizen engagement in public cultures and the implications of communication for subject formation. Current research is focused on critical technology practices and pedagogies including broadband initiatives in rural and remote communities in North and South America, and decoloniality applied to the material infrastructure of digital cultures. In other research, Dr. Lithgow is studying knowledge translation in artist-in-residencies and their implications for organizational and social transformation, and he is part of a SSHRC funded study investigating the implications for professional journalists, news organizations and audiences in response to the rise of user generated content (UGC) as an essential element in news production. In addition to various scholarly publications, Dr. Lithgow has published two collections of poetry: Who We Thought We Were As We Fell (Cormorant Books, 2021), and Waking in the Tree House (Cormorant Books, 2012).
Research interests
Communication Studies
Media Studies
Critical Technology Practice
Community Networks
Digital Literacy
Code Studies
Educational credentials
MA Media Studies
PhD Communication Studies
Garrison, Philip; Yang, Esther; Lithgow. Michael; Pace, Nico. 2021. “The Network Is an Excuse: Hardware Maintenance Supporting Community”. Proceedings of the ACM on Human Computer Interaction.
Lithgow, Michael. 2021. “Pedagogies of the datafied: material foundations for literacies of the subject in the 21st century”. Journal of Digital Culture & Education, 13.
Lithgow, Michael. 2019. “Translating the Public Imaginary: The Narrative Aesthetics of Public Engagement in Canadian Broadcasting Policy.” Canadian Journal of Communication 44(1): 89-110.
Lithgow, Michael. 2018. “The theatre of public engagement: Performativity and power at the Canadian Radio-Television & Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)” in Participatory Culture and the Future of Democracy, eds. Tadej Pirc and Marcin Pieluzek. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Lithgow, Michael and Michèle Martin. 2018. "The eye-witness textures of conflict: Contributions of amateur videos in news coverage of the Arab Spring." Global Media Journal 8(1).
Lithgow, Michael and Karen Wall. 2017. "Embedded Aesthetics: Artist-in-Residencies as Sites of Discursive Struggle and Social Innovation." Seismopolite 19.
Lithgow, Michael. 2017. “Lez Play! An ‘aesthetic discourse analysis’ of Allyson Mitchell’s Ladies Sasquatch”, Topia: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies 37: 137-156.
Lithgow, Michael. 2013. “Aesthetics of legitimacy: Resisting the effects of power with ‘grassroots news’ and queer sasquatches.” American Communications Journal, Vol. 14(3).
Lithgow, Michael. 2012. “Defying the news: New aesthetics of truth in popular culture”. Canadian Journal of Communications, Vol. 37(2): 279-302.