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Graduate Program in Communication & Culture

Faculty Profiles

Gene Allen

Technology in Practice

University   Ryerson University
E-Mail Address   gene.allen@ryerson.ca
Phone Number   (416) 979-5000, ext. 6393
Office Location   RCC-327
Office Hours   TBA


Education

B.A. (Toronto); M.A. (York); Ph.D. History (Toronto)

Biography

Professor Allen joined Ryerson's School of Journalism faculty in 2001. He was previously the director of research and a senior producer of the award-winning CBC television series Canada: A People's History. During his 10-year CBC career, he was also a producer and writer on the award-winning television documentary series Dawn of the Eye, assignment desk producer for CBC Radio's Morningside, assignment editor for CBC national TV news, and a writer on The National. Between 1979 and 1991 he worked at The Globe and Mail, holding positions as foreign editor and Queen's Park reporter. Gene Allen is currently conducting research on the history of the Canadian Press news agency, and on the historical relationship between news and ideas of national identity in Canada.

Research Interests

The history of journalism; the evolution of news in response to changes in technology, markets, audience demand and business organization; news agencies; news and national identity; the popularization of history in film and television.

Selected Publications

"Business, Culture and the History of News," in Elsbeth Heaman, Alison Li, and Shelley McKellar, eds., Science, Polity and Society in the Canadian Historical Imagination: Essays in Honour of Michael Bliss
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, forthcoming [2006])

"Monopolies of news: Harold Innis, the telegraph and wire services," in Menahem Blondheim and Rita Watson, eds., The Toronto School of Communication: Interpretations, Extensions, Applications (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, forthcoming)

"News Across the Border: Associated Press in Canada, 1894-1917," Journalism History 31:4 (Winter 2006), 206-216 "Debate: Transcending National Boundaries: Towards an International History of Journalism", Journalism Studies 4:1 (2003), 121-131 (synopsis of paper presented at regional meeting of the American Journalism Historians Association/Association for Education in Journalism and Mass
Communication, New York, March 2001)

"The Professionals and the Public: Responses to Canada: A People's History". Social history/Histoire sociale, 34 (Nov. 2001), 381-391 CHR Forum: "Canadian History in Film", Canadian Historical Review 82:2 (June 2001), 331-346.

Editor of Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 of Canada: A People's History. (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2001-2002).

 

 

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Harold [Innis] taught us how to use the bias of culture and communication as an instrument of research. By directing attention to the bias, or distorting power of the dominant imagery and technology of any culture, he showed us how to understand cultures.
~ Marshall McLuhan