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Kenzie Burchell

Associate Professor, Department of Arts, Culture and Media
Director of the Specialist Program in Journalism
Faculty Lead for DH@UofT
Graduate appointment - Faculty of Information
Affiliated Faculty, Centre for European and Eurasian Studies
kenzie.burchell@utoronto.ca
@KenzieBurchell
Kenzie Burchell

Areas of interest

  • Digital journalism
  • Human rights
  • Open-source intelligence
  • Methods of witnessing and bearing witness
  • Censorship
  • Forensic media

Biography

Main bio

Kenzie Burchell is a media sociologist, surveillance studies and comparative journalism studies scholar. He holds a MSc from London School of Economics and a PhD from Goldsmiths, University of London, where he also served as a lecturer and visiting tutor. He also holds a BA from McGill University with a double major in Political Science & Russian and Slavic Studies. Prior to joining University of Toronto, Professor Burchell was the Research Associate of European Media Studies with the Department of Russian and East European Studies (REES) and the Division of Language-based Areas Studies at the University of Manchester.

Outside of academia, Kenzie has held roles with the BBC World Service, the BBC Russian Service, the Cabinet Office of the UK Government, and international press freedom organization Reporters Sans Frontières as their representative in Moscow. As a photographer, Kenzie’s work has been exhibited internationally at the Dublin Science Gallery, the Russian Polytechnic Museum, London Fashion Week and the 54th Venice Biennale as well as other venues in the UK, Italy, and Japan

Select publications

  • "Burchell, K. 2024. Constant Disconnection: The Weight of Everyday Digital Life. Redwood, CA: Stanford University Press.
  • Burchell, K. and Fielding, S.  2024. “What hits me the hardest…the Photojournalist Blog: Genres and Practices of Journalistic Witnessing.” In M. Lithgow and M. Martin eds. Eyewitness Textures: User Generated Content and News Coverage in the 21st Century. McGill-Queens University Press."
  • Burchell, K. 2020.  “Reporting, Uncertainty, and the Orchestrated Fog of War: A Practice-Based Lens for Understanding Global Media Events.” International Journal of Communication. Vol. 14(2020), 1-23.  Available at: https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/11205
  • Burchell, K., Driessens, O. and Mattoni, A. 2020. “Mediating Practice–Practicing Media: Introduction.”  International Journal of Communication. Vol. 14(2020), 1-14. Available at: https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/11202/3095
  • Burchell, K. 2018. “’Take my Picture’: The Media Assemblage of Lone-Wolf Terror Events, Mobile Communication, and the News” In Robin Anderson and Purnaka L. de Silva eds. Routledge Companion to Media and Humanitarian Action. New York: Routledge.
  • ISBN: 9781315538129. Available at: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315538129-47/tak...
  • Burchell, K. 2017. “Everyday Communication Management and Perceptions of Use: How Media Users Limit and Shape Their Social World.” Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. Vol. 23(4) 409-424.  doi: 10.1177/1354856517700382
  • Burchell, K. 2017. “Finding Time for Goffman: Where absence is more telling than presence” in: S. Rodgers and T. Markham eds. Conditions of Mediation: Phenomenological Perspective on Media. New York: Peter Lang. pp 186-195. Book Chapter. ISBN: 9781433137297. Available at: https://www.peterlang.com/document/1051847 
  • Burchell, K. 2015. “Infiltrating the Space, Hijacking the Platform: Pussy Riot, Sochi Protests, and Media Events”. Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies. Vol. 12 (1) 659-676.  Available at: https://participations.org/Volume%2012/Issue%201/36.pdf
  • Burchell, K., O’Loughlin, B.,Gillespie, M., and Nieto, E. 2015. “Soft Power and Its Audiences: Tweeting the Olympics from London 2012 to Sochi 2014”. Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies. Vol. 12 (1). 413-437.  Available at: https://participations.org/Volume%2012/Issue%201/27.pdf
  • Burchell, K. 2015. “Tasking the Everyday: Where Mobile and Online Communication takes Time” Mobile Media & Communication. Vol. 3(1) 36–52. doi:10.1177/2050157914546711

Professional Practice

  • Burchell, K., Ross, J., Tolz, V., Yu, S., Amundson, J., Ding L., Forgacs, H., Kindarji, V., Korotaev, R., Markelov, M., Rodriguez, S., Scarff, S. & Zabalueva, A., with Hutchings S. and Conduit, D.  (2025). Beyond Disinformation: Identarian Narratives meet Authoritarian Practices, Lawfare & Marketcraft.  A Knowledge Synthesis and Policy Report. Universities of Toronto and Manchester. Available at: https://hdl.handle.net/1807/142554
  • Burchell, K. April 2023. “Russia, Syria, and Ukraine: The Militarized Media Laboratories of Hybrid Empire.” Research and Policy Presentation to the G7 Rapid Response Mechanism on Foreign Interference, Ministry of Global Affairs Canada, Ottawa.
  • Hutchings, S. and Burchell, K. January 2015. “Approaches to the Reporting of Islam in Russian Television News: An Insight into Trends and Tensions within Official Discourse Under Putin” [Russian Language] Policy Report for the SOVA Center for Information and Analysis, Moscow. Available at: http://www.sova-center.ru/files/religion/islam-media.pdf
  • Hutchings, S. and Burchell, K. April 2014. “Comparative Approaches to Islam, Security and Television News: Implications for Editorial Policies and Practices of Public Service Broadcasters”. Policy Report for BBC Director of Editorial Policy and Standards.

 

Awards & recognition

  • “Beyond Disinformation: The Strategic Techniques and Transnational Contours of Evolving Narrative and Diasporic Information Orders” SSHRC Knowledge Synthesis Grant (2024-2025)
  • "Making Responsible Reporting Practices Visible: Humanitarian Crisis, Global Media, and the War in Syria” JHI-UTSC Early Career Digital Humanities Fellow (2019-2020);
  • “Conflict, Language and Diplomacy in a Hyper-networked World”, Joint Research Initiative, International Partnerships, University of Toronto and University of Manchester's Russian and East European Studies (REES) and the Division of Language-based Area Studies; Co-investigator and Toronto lead (2019)
  • "Exploiting the limits of Media Power: Censorship, Surveillance and Spectacle" SSHRC Insight Development Grant (2017-2019); 
  • "The Social Life of Information Abundance, Data-Mining, and News Production” Connaught New Researcher Award (2015-2017)