Government of Canada announces $5.5m to create Canadian Digital Media Research Network at McGill, UofT

Montreal, QC (June 7, 2023) — The Government of Canada has announced $5.5 million to create the Canadian Digital Media Research Network (CDMRN), a first-of-its-kind research community in Canada aimed at strengthening our information resilience and safeguarding our democracy. CDMRN will be coordinated by the Media Ecosystem Observatory (MEO), which is a collaboration between McGill University and the University of Toronto.

CDMRN will seek to bolster Canada’s information resilience and support strategies for improving Canadians’ digital literacy. Disinformation is just one challenge in the information space: the effect of hate speech and harassment, increased affective polarization through algorithmic amplification and human-hacking are all features of Canada’s information ecosystem, and CDMRN has set out to understand its impact on Canadians’ behaviours and attitudes.

The project’s co-principal investigators are Peter Loewen at the University of Toronto, and Taylor Owen, at McGill University. CDMRN will be led by MEO Director Aengus Bridgman.

“We are bringing together the best Canadian researchers to collectively tackle emergent challenges associated with the intensifying pervasiveness of digital media in all aspects of our cultural and political life,” says Bridgman. "The Network will build Canada's capacity to address digital threats such as disinformation and platform-induced polarization and through doing so, promote a healthier, more balanced digital sphere.”

Over the next three years, CDMRN will bring together world-class Canadian researchers and research institutes, along with Canadian civil society organizations and journalists, to analyze Canada’s information ecosystem health and respond to threats against it. CDMRN builds upon model organizations like the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) and NYU’s Center for Social Media and Politics, whose activities include large-scale surveys, research and reporting on how quality of the information circulating in digital spaces, including disinformation narratives, impacts citizens’ attitudes and behaviours.

MEO has run numerous Canadian information ecosystem health studies since its founding in 2019, working with a wide range of Canadian and international partners to deliver a variety of initiatives. The CDMRN will host its first symposium of Canadian and international experts this fall.

Quotes

“Our lives are increasingly shaped by digital technologies, from our politics and democratic engagement to our economy and our personal relationships, and this is happening at a time when the reliability of the information flowing through our digital world is being eroded. It is all the more important during this period of declining societal trust and challenges to our democratic ways of life, that Canadians better understand how this information ecosystem functions and how what we see and do online impacts our attitudes and behaviours in society.”

— Taylor Owen, McGill University

“We are thrilled that the Government of Canada has committed to resourcing a national community of researchers to help all Canadians better understand the impact of the digital world on our everyday lives. The CDMRN will produce world-class research on the behaviours, attitutdes, and desires of Canadians to better support Canadians and the government in understanding their use of digital media and respond in an evidence-based way.”

— Peter Loewen, University of Toronto

About the CDMRN

The Canadian Digital Media Research Network (CDMRN) is a pioneering initiative committed to fortifying and fostering resilience within Canada's unique information ecosystem. Its mission is to understand the dynamics of information production, dissemination, and consumption across digital media with the goal of empowering Canadians to navigate the complexities of the modern digital age.

About MEO

The Media Ecosystem Observatory (MEO) is a joint initiative between McGill University and the University of Toronto. MEO has been delivering large-scale information ecosystem research projects in Canada since 2019. MEO combines large-scale online data analysis with survey research to study how information flows impact citizen’s attitudes and behaviours and the overall strength of our democracy. Its model has been successfully implemented to study Canadian federal and provincial elections.