Alessandra Renzi
Alessandra Renzi is Associate Professor of Communication Studies, Concordia University. Her interdisciplinary work explores the linkages and relays between media, art and civic engagement through community-led research, ethnographic studies and media projects. She has studied pirate television networks in Italy, the surveillance of social movements in Canada after 9-11 and housing and data justice in Indonesia and Canada. Her current research investigates how society’s increasing reliance on platforms, algorithms and AI is changing urban landscapes and community organizing alike. She is the PI of a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Grant titled "On the Margins of the Platform Economy: Community-led Responses to Technical Gentrification," with focus on Montreal's Parc Extension neighbourhood.
Selected Publications
Baumann, Y., Renzi, A., Shahamati, S., & Vukov, T. (2026). Contested data: Data flows and data struggles in the rapidly gentrifying neighbourhood of Parc-Extension, Montréal. In A. Smets & P. Ballon (Eds.), Handbook of platform urbanism. London: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Renzi, A. (2025). Alternative/activist media and practice. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.1537
Renzi, A., & Frenzel, J. (2025). Localized processes of platformization: The example of Surabaya. Big Data & Society, 12(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517251338776 (external link)