Peter West
M.A. (Media Studies) Candidate, Faculty of Information and Media Studies, University of Western Ontario

Peter West is currently enrolled at the University of Western Ontario’s innovative new Media Studies MA program offered by the Faculty of Information & Media Studies.

Peter’s undergraduate experience was also at the University of Western Ontario, where he received an honors B.A. in Media, Information & Technoculture (MIT) in 2002. President of the MIT students’ council in his final year, Mr. West served on numerous committees and provided his faculty with valuable student input during the creation of the new Media Studies M.A. Program.

As a Graduate Teaching-Assistant, Peter has mentored students enrolled in courses exploring the history of communications technologies, as well as more contemporary topics such as: artificial intelligence, expert systems, robotics, computer vision, computer speech, information visualization, learning technologies, and virtual reality.

What started as a summer course, "Understanding Media & McLuhan" at the University of Toronto’s McLuhan Program in Culture & Technology, has led to an ongoing academic relationship with one of the program’s founding members, Dr. Liss Jeffrey. Peter was a volunteer at the Association of Internet Researcher’s (AoIR) "broadening the band" conference in Toronto, chaired by Dr. Jeffrey in December of 2003. He continues to be actively involved with Dr. Jeffrey’s eCommons/Agora project, which aims to create a “not for profit public space network that bridges digital divides and contributes to digital democracy by supporting civic engagement, community development and cultural content creation.” Among other things, this includes promoting civic participation in activities related to The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).

Research

Under the supervision of Dr. Jacquelyn Burkell, Peter is currently working on his master’s thesis called: Experienced Anonymity: Exploring the Concept of Anonymity in an Online Context from the Perspective of the Individual Experiencing it. By Interviewing online participants, Peter hopes to gain a better understanding of the concept of anonymity and to determine some of the situational cues that might contribute to (or reduce) a feeling of ‘being anonymous’ in an online context. Although this thesis project is directly related to Phase I of the AnonEquity project which aims to better understand the nature and value of anonymity in an information society, it has been independently funded by SSHRC in the form of a CGS Master’s Scholarship for a proposal submitted under the title, "Perceptions of Anonymity: Towards Recognizing Anonymity as a Personal Experience."

Research

Works in progress

Names, Nyms, Addresses and Reputations: The Experience of Anonymity in the Wired World (with Jacquelyn Burkell)