Centre for Social Innovation (CSI)

Desk Exchange Community Animator

Brighten peoples’ days; connect people and ideas; build social networks; bring things to life; contribute to a culture of inclusion and sharing; make people smile and laugh.

Centre for Social Innovation (CSI)

SPECIAL PROJECTS WRITER AND EDITOR (Consultant)

Working alongside the Communications Team and CEO to develop or rejig content for online and print audiences, from member profiles to working papers.

Bennett Design Associates

Communications and Workplace Strategy

Proposal writing, in-house editor, and workplace strategy research and analysis.

Freelance in sweat pants

Grant Writer

You name it: arts, social science, and non-profits; content creation; strategic planning; focus on clear messaging and compelling narratives.

Centre for Skills Development

Research and Program Evaluation (Consultant)

Developmental qualitative and quantitative research and program evaluation of the OAAP (Ontario Adult Apprenticeship Program) pilot. The evaluation appraises the effectiveness of using a shared apprenticeship model, with Centre for Skills acting as group sponsor, in training adult manufacturing skilled trades apprentices.

Self-employed

Researcher, writer, and editor

Joey worked at Self-employed as a Researcher, writer, and editor

North Toronto Cat Rescue

Once a week I spent a day with sick cats (FIV and other courageous diseases), cleaning, feeding, and playing.

What Remains of Abu Ghraib?: Digital Photography and Cultural Memory

Visual Studies

Ten years on, the photographs from the US-operated Iraqi prison Abu Ghraib have become synonymous with the war on terror for highlighting an unseemly combat culture. This article focuses on the ongoing functions of these viral photos as objects of cultural memory and also highlights their use as war trophies. Drawing on theories of digital photography, emotional and gestural communication, visual semiotics, and cultural memory, this article examines six of the circulated images. Focusing on the symbolic, the visual contents of the photos are contrasted with the rhetorical account from criminal investigator Brent Pack in the documentary Standard Operating Procedure. While Pack concludes that these images are in fact abusive, he nevertheless dismisses the relevancy of the emoting individuals within the photographs. The arguments here take a particular shape: the pictorial display of emotion is not only relevant, but is essential to the communication of group identity and the perpetuation of cultural memory, which is reinforced by the role that digital photographic technology plays in aiding the circulation of this cultural memory.

What Remains of Abu Ghraib?: Digital Photography and Cultural Memory

Visual Studies

Ten years on, the photographs from the US-operated Iraqi prison Abu Ghraib have become synonymous with the war on terror for highlighting an unseemly combat culture. This article focuses on the ongoing functions of these viral photos as objects of cultural memory and also highlights their use as war trophies. Drawing on theories of digital photography, emotional and gestural communication, visual semiotics, and cultural memory, this article examines six of the circulated images. Focusing on the symbolic, the visual contents of the photos are contrasted with the rhetorical account from criminal investigator Brent Pack in the documentary Standard Operating Procedure. While Pack concludes that these images are in fact abusive, he nevertheless dismisses the relevancy of the emoting individuals within the photographs. The arguments here take a particular shape: the pictorial display of emotion is not only relevant, but is essential to the communication of group identity and the perpetuation of cultural memory, which is reinforced by the role that digital photographic technology plays in aiding the circulation of this cultural memory.

Beyond Abu Ghraib: War Trophy Photography and Commemorative Violence

Media, War & Conflict

The commemoration of wartime often has emerged alongside brutal practices waged on the enemy, and the photographed events at Abu Ghraib are no exception. Indeed, the composition of these images builds upon a visual history in which certain dynamics are represented within more general and often innocuous combat photography. This article focuses on two things in order to articulate this premise. The first is to outline how ‘war trophy photography’ is the result of the entwined practices of war photography and trophy collection. Mapped using a combined comparative historical approach and visual semiotics, this research draws upon three images, one from WWI, another from WWII, and one from Abu Ghraib. Specifically to highlight how posing within these photos acknowledges the images as trophies, the second function of this article emerges with the concept of ‘commemorative violence’, as the representation is fused with emotional communication and cultural memory.

What Remains of Abu Ghraib?: Digital Photography and Cultural Memory

Visual Studies

Ten years on, the photographs from the US-operated Iraqi prison Abu Ghraib have become synonymous with the war on terror for highlighting an unseemly combat culture. This article focuses on the ongoing functions of these viral photos as objects of cultural memory and also highlights their use as war trophies. Drawing on theories of digital photography, emotional and gestural communication, visual semiotics, and cultural memory, this article examines six of the circulated images. Focusing on the symbolic, the visual contents of the photos are contrasted with the rhetorical account from criminal investigator Brent Pack in the documentary Standard Operating Procedure. While Pack concludes that these images are in fact abusive, he nevertheless dismisses the relevancy of the emoting individuals within the photographs. The arguments here take a particular shape: the pictorial display of emotion is not only relevant, but is essential to the communication of group identity and the perpetuation of cultural memory, which is reinforced by the role that digital photographic technology plays in aiding the circulation of this cultural memory.

Beyond Abu Ghraib: War Trophy Photography and Commemorative Violence

Media, War & Conflict

The commemoration of wartime often has emerged alongside brutal practices waged on the enemy, and the photographed events at Abu Ghraib are no exception. Indeed, the composition of these images builds upon a visual history in which certain dynamics are represented within more general and often innocuous combat photography. This article focuses on two things in order to articulate this premise. The first is to outline how ‘war trophy photography’ is the result of the entwined practices of war photography and trophy collection. Mapped using a combined comparative historical approach and visual semiotics, this research draws upon three images, one from WWI, another from WWII, and one from Abu Ghraib. Specifically to highlight how posing within these photos acknowledges the images as trophies, the second function of this article emerges with the concept of ‘commemorative violence’, as the representation is fused with emotional communication and cultural memory.

That Worries Me’: Affective and Rhetorical Framing in News Programming of The O’Reilly Factor

McMaster Journal of Communication

It is a political impossibility for the public sphere to be a place of neutral affect. With news media as a tool for political communication and its existence in the public sphere, there is a contradiction between its ability to be objective and its use of emotional language. This study uses an interview between Bill O’Reilly and Donald Rumsfeld on The O’Reilly Factor to illustrate how affective rhetoric is used to reinforce the value of coercive interrogation. Drawing from a methodology of affective and rhetorical framing, the language used during the interview – both verbal and bodily – is analyzed for goals, techniques, and effectiveness. Relying upon O’Reilly’s partisan audience, The O’Reilly Factor frames coercive interrogation as necessary, without the use of adequate logic. To this end, this paper illustrates how the news media pre-mediate and reinforce a public that accepts coercive interrogation by justifying anxiety about national security.

What Remains of Abu Ghraib?: Digital Photography and Cultural Memory

Visual Studies

Ten years on, the photographs from the US-operated Iraqi prison Abu Ghraib have become synonymous with the war on terror for highlighting an unseemly combat culture. This article focuses on the ongoing functions of these viral photos as objects of cultural memory and also highlights their use as war trophies. Drawing on theories of digital photography, emotional and gestural communication, visual semiotics, and cultural memory, this article examines six of the circulated images. Focusing on the symbolic, the visual contents of the photos are contrasted with the rhetorical account from criminal investigator Brent Pack in the documentary Standard Operating Procedure. While Pack concludes that these images are in fact abusive, he nevertheless dismisses the relevancy of the emoting individuals within the photographs. The arguments here take a particular shape: the pictorial display of emotion is not only relevant, but is essential to the communication of group identity and the perpetuation of cultural memory, which is reinforced by the role that digital photographic technology plays in aiding the circulation of this cultural memory.

Beyond Abu Ghraib: War Trophy Photography and Commemorative Violence

Media, War & Conflict

The commemoration of wartime often has emerged alongside brutal practices waged on the enemy, and the photographed events at Abu Ghraib are no exception. Indeed, the composition of these images builds upon a visual history in which certain dynamics are represented within more general and often innocuous combat photography. This article focuses on two things in order to articulate this premise. The first is to outline how ‘war trophy photography’ is the result of the entwined practices of war photography and trophy collection. Mapped using a combined comparative historical approach and visual semiotics, this research draws upon three images, one from WWI, another from WWII, and one from Abu Ghraib. Specifically to highlight how posing within these photos acknowledges the images as trophies, the second function of this article emerges with the concept of ‘commemorative violence’, as the representation is fused with emotional communication and cultural memory.

That Worries Me’: Affective and Rhetorical Framing in News Programming of The O’Reilly Factor

McMaster Journal of Communication

It is a political impossibility for the public sphere to be a place of neutral affect. With news media as a tool for political communication and its existence in the public sphere, there is a contradiction between its ability to be objective and its use of emotional language. This study uses an interview between Bill O’Reilly and Donald Rumsfeld on The O’Reilly Factor to illustrate how affective rhetoric is used to reinforce the value of coercive interrogation. Drawing from a methodology of affective and rhetorical framing, the language used during the interview – both verbal and bodily – is analyzed for goals, techniques, and effectiveness. Relying upon O’Reilly’s partisan audience, The O’Reilly Factor frames coercive interrogation as necessary, without the use of adequate logic. To this end, this paper illustrates how the news media pre-mediate and reinforce a public that accepts coercive interrogation by justifying anxiety about national security.