Associate Professor

T:778-782-5273
E: sganter@sfu.ca
Room: K9672

Sarah Anne Ganter (PhD, University of Vienna, 2017) is an Associate Professor of Communication and Cultural Policy in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University. She is an expert in the areas of media governance and media policy in the digital era, journalism and other content industries, comparative and cross-border research. Her expertise includes analyzing media and digital policy transformations from a theoretical perspective that focuses on the dynamics and interactions shaping institutional fields. Dr. Ganter’ s work is influenced by a cosmopolitan approach to academic work, integrating scholarly work from different cultural, linguistic and geographical academic settings.

Dr. Ganter is the co-author of The Power of Platforms: Shaping Media and Society (Oxford University Press) and co-editor of Media Governance: A Cosmopolitan Critique (Palgrave/IAMCR series). Her research has appeared in leading journals including New Media & Society, Digital Journalism, The International Journal of Communication, and The European Journal of Communication. Sarah won the FCAT Researcher of the Year award in 2023.

Currently, she leads two major research projects: An Exploration of Independent Journalism’s Epistemologies: Enhancing Democratic Resilience in the Age of Disinformation (EDIT), funded by the Transatlantic Partnership Platform, and the SSHRC Insight Grant Laws Regulating the Use of News Content and their (Un)intended Consequences for Journalism.

Additionally, Sarah is a Research Associate at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford and serves on the Editorial Boards of The International Journal of Press/Politics and the Palgrave Global Media Policy and Business book series and the Global Media Journal/the German edition.

Dr. Ganter is also a member of several communication studies associations, such as the German Communication Association (DGPuK), the International Communication Association (ICA) and Global Internet Governance Academic Network (GigaNet).

For a complete overview over Dr. Ganter ́s research, please consult her Google Scholar and Research Gate profiles or her personal website.

Prospective students:

If you are interested in pursuing graduate studies at Simon Fraser University in the fields of communication and cultural policy, platform governance, journalism, media structures or de-westernization of media and communication studies please contact me at sganter@sfu.ca.

At the moment, I am specifically interested in working with candidates (MA and PhD) in the following thematic areas:

• platformed journalism and disentanglements from digital platform dependencies (see e.g. my book)
• independent journalism and ‘positive dependence’ (see e.g. my article)
• platform policy discourses (see e.g. this and this article and ongoing work from my SSHRC grant)
• academic cosmopolitanism and epistemic transformation (see several of my articles and book chapters and my book)
• cultural industries in acute crisis and digital acceleration (see e.g. forthcoming work)

Read here for more information on the application process and graduate studies in the School of Communication at the SFU. Please note that I can voice support for a candidate (and I am happy to do so if it’s a good fit and the candidate has a strong profile!), however, candidates are ultimately selected by a committee at school level.

• PhD in Journalism and Communication (Universität Wien, Austria)
• MA in International Communications (University of Leeds, UK)
• MA in Intercultural Business Management (Universidad del Salvador, Buenos Aires, Argentina)
• MA in Cultural Area Studies, Economics and Applied Languages (Universität Passau, Germany)

• Media and communication governance in the global content industries
• Platforms and challenges for content industries and regulatory power
• Academic cosmopolitanism