Arun Jacob

Arun Jacob

glumpenproletariat (noun): The melancholic stratum of the proletariat.

Arun Jacob, Ph.D.

I am a researcher and educator whose doctoral work in Information Studies (concentration in Media, Technology and Culture) at the University of Toronto, completed in 2026, asks how media technologies are built, funded, and normalized, and for whom. I use my interdisciplinary training to analyze how contemporary knowledge-control systems emerge from the convergence of publishing, evaluation, and surveillance by employing a media‑genealogical approach to read data models, search protocols, and software architectures as sites where power is exercised, and trace how technical affordances and administrative logics sediment into durable technical knowledge systems. I hold M.A. degrees in Cultural Studies & Critical Theory (2019) and Work and Society (2017) from McMaster University, a Master of Professional Communication from Toronto Metropolitan University (2011), and an Electronics Engineering Technology (Telecommunication) diploma from Mohawk College (2007). That engineering technologist background still shapes how I read infrastructures.

Research

My work draws on critical media studies, media genealogy, and media archaeology. Its main themes are:

  • Platform intimacies and geofencing
  • Surveillance studies and data violence
  • Military-industrial technologies and their media histories
  • Research information management systems, paywalls, and the political economy of scholarly publishing
  • Anti-colonial digital humanities pedagogy and open educational resources

Teaching

I have taught undergraduate courses at the University of Toronto (St. George and Mississauga) and graduate courses at the University of Alberta and McMaster University. I have also taught courses at Niagara College and Mohawk College. I design courses and workshops on technology, information, and society, as well as media archaeology, data practices, and anti-colonial approaches to digital humanities.

Recent Highlights

  • 2026, journal article: Ouellette, M. A. & Jacob, A. “Skimming off the top: associative searches, visual results and the end of reading.” Iowa Journal of Communication, 58(2), 53–72.
  • 2026, journal article: Richardson, M. & Jacob, A. “Mil-Tech Oligarchy and the Security State.” Science as Culture.
  • 2026, book chapter: “Anti-colonial Threads: Twine as a Tool for Critiques and Pedagogies in Digital Humanities,” in EnTwine (Amherst College Press).
  • 2026, book chapter: “HealthcAIre,” in The Need to Rename Tech (Springer Nature), with Christina Boyles.
  • 2026, book chapter: “Resisting BYOI (Bring Your Own Infrastructure) in Digital Humanities Learning Spaces,” in Critical Infrastructure Studies & Digital Humanities (University of Minnesota Press).

See Publications, Talks, Teaching, Service, or the full CV.