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I received my PhD in Communication Studies from Concordia University in 2008. My MA was in Educational Technology from Concordia University. My BA was in English (Film and Communication) from McGill University. I was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Ryerson University from 2008-2009.
My research analyzes intersections of the cultures of digital and social media, commodification and surveillance. Grounded in critical theories of biopolitics and the political economy of communication, my published work takes up questions of privacy, digital property, personal information, and digital labour. In the last years my research has also taken up the promotion of digital literacy and the development of privacy education.
- SSHRC Insight Grant, Co-Investigator. “Opening the Door on Privacy: Practices, Policies and Pedagogies”. Administering Institution: University of Guelph (Mark Lipton, PI) (2016-2020).
- SSHRC Insight Development Grant, Principal Investigator, "Auto-biopolitics: Privacy, Surveillance and Self-Representational Forms of Digital Media". Administering Institution: Wilfrid Laurier University (2011-2013).
I am willing to supervise graduate students in areas relating to digital and social media, social movements, privacy, surveillance, digital labour, digital media and journalism, and critical theory involving biopolitics and the political economy of communication.
- Werbin, Kenneth C. The List Serves: Population Control and Power. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Institute of Network Cultures, 2017.
- Werbin, Kenneth C., Lipton, Mark and Matthew J. Bowman. “The contextual integrity of the closet: Privacy, data mining and outing Facebook’s algorithmic logics”. Queer Studies in Media & Popular Culture. 2(1): 29-47, 2017
- Werbin, Kenneth C. "Social Media, Commodification and Surveillance" in Shade, Leslie R. (ed) Mediascapes: New Patterns in Canadian Communication Fourth Edition. Canada: Nelson. pp.258-278, 2014.
- Werbin, Kenneth C. "The Social Media Contract: On the paradoxes of digital property in this digital land." The Journal of Canadian Studies. 46(2): 245-262, 2012.
- Werbin, Kenneth C. "Auto-biography: On the immanent commodification of personal information." The International Review of Information Ethics. 17(July): 46-53, 2012.
- Werbin, Kenneth C. "Spookipedia: Intelligence, Social Media and Biopolitics." Media, Culture & Society. 33(8): 1254-1265, 2011.
- Werbin, Kenneth C. "Fear and No-Fly Listing in Canada: The biopolitics of the 'war on terror.'" The Canadian Journal of Communication. 34(4): 613-634, 2009.
- Werbin, Kenneth C. "Sometimes a Great Notion: A reflection on cybernetics, isolated systems and open beings" in Bansal, L., Keller, P. & G. Lovink (eds) In the Shade of the Commons: Towards a Culture of Open Networks. (Waag/Sarai Press, 2007) pp. 133-140.
- Lovink, Geert and Kenneth C. Werbin. "Critique of Ranking and Listing" in Armand, L. and A. Bradley (eds) TECHNICITY. (Litteraria Pragensia, 2007) pp. 225-243.