Education

MA (Direct Entry) North American Studies, 2004, Free University of Berlin, Germany

PhD Sociology and Equity Studies, Centre for Media, Culture and Education, OISE, University of Toronto

Research Interests 

Alessandra’s current research focuses on the design and socio-cultural impact of participatory networks and social media platforms for collaboration. She received her PhD from the University of Toronto. Her dissertation From Collectives to Connectives: Italian Media Activism and the Repurposing of the Social focused on Telestreet, a network of Do-It-Yourself pirate television channels that repurpose media and technology to strengthen communities and reshape grassroots political intervention. As part of her past research at the Infoscape Centre for the Study of Social Media, Ryerson University, Alessandra helped produce the collaborative documentary film Open Sourcing Secrecy on government surveillance after 9-11. She also co-authored with Dr. Greg Elmer the book Infrastructure Critical: Sacrifice at the Toronto G8/G20 Summit. This book explores the shifting relationship among media, urban infrastructure and the biopolitical government of civil society after the 2008 financial crash. Alessandra’s research interests include critical media theory, digital cultures and emerging technologies, media democracy and information policy, political theory and continental philosophy. She is the co-creator with Dr. Roberta Buiani of Activism beyond the Interface: The Sandbox Project, a community art project located at the intersection between face-to-face and interface.

Courses Taught

120 Information Technology Ethics
691 Introduction to the Social Studies of Information

Sample Publications

A. Renzi and Greg Elmer (forthcoming) “Property Must Be Defended. Investing in the Bio-political City-Sacrifice”, in Theory, Culture and Society.

A. Renzi and Greg Elmer (2012) Infrastructure Critical: Sacrifice at Toronto’s G8/G20 Summit. Winnipeg: Arbiter Ring Publishing.

Renzi, A. (2011) “What Is the Politics of Platform Politics?” in: Television & New Media. Volume 12, Issue 5 September 2011, pp. 483 - 485.

Renzi, A. (2008) “The Space of Tactical Media”, in Megan Boler (ed). Tactics in Hard Times: Practices and Spaces of New Media. Cambridge: MIT Press, pp. 71-100.