Delia Dumitrica

I am a term-limited instructor in the Department of Communication and Culture, University of Calgary. My current areas of teaching are: 1). the social context of new media; 2). introduction to communications theory; 3). critical media studies.

My research interests cover 1). ideology, discourse and meaning-making; 2). theories of communication and their treatment of ideology/ discourse; 3). the social construction of new media; 4). power structures in virtual environments; 5). nationalism, transnationalism and globalization discourses in relation to mass media and ICTs.

I have a PhD in Communications Studies from the University of Calgary. My doctoral thesis mapped the 'social imaginaries' through which the internet has been introduced and conceptualized in Canadian policy, media and everyday life. It sought to understand how discourses of nationalism and globalization have been used in the discursive construction of this technology.

Prior to my doctoral studies, I have received an MA in Southeast European Studies from the Central European University and an MPhil in Peace and Conflict Transformation from the University of Tromsoe. In my theses, I have focused primarily on the question of the reproduction and maintenance of nationalism through media and education.

Current projects:
- Special issue editor, Graduate Journal of Social Science, topic: Methodologies for the study of virtual worlds and online social networks (http://www.gjss.org/index.php?/Methodological-approaches-to-the-study-of-virtual-environments-and-online-social-networks.html).

- Developing a course on representations of the internet in popular culture (Spring 2011, Winter 2012). I am now working on transforming this course into an undergraduate advanced research seminar. Course outline & blog: http://imaginethenet.wordpress.com/. In relation to this course, I am chairing a panel on this topic for the 2012 Annual Conference of the Canadian Sociology Association, where I will present a paper on the articulation of class and computer technologies in the movie Hackers (1995).

- I am currently working on a research project on the discursive construction of social media in the case of the 2010 mayoral elections in Calgary. In conjunction with this research, I am organizing a panel on social media and elections in Canada at the upcoming 2012 iConference (http://www.ischools.org/iConference12/alternative_events/#AE3)

- Developing a paper on the possible contribution of Niklas Luhmann's systems theory to the study of nationalism(this is an ongoing project, but it has faded into the background for the time being).