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Dr Melissa Avdeeff

Lecturer in Digital Media

Communications, Media and Culture Íæż½ã½ã

Dr Melissa Avdeeff

Contact details

About me

I am currently Lecturer in Digital Media at the Íæż½ã½ã, having completed a PhD in Musicology at the University of Edinburgh, an MA in Music Criticism at McMaster University, and a BMus at the University of Alberta.

My research engages with various topics within digital media and society, focusing primarily on critical internet/algorithmic cultures, social media analysis, and audience mediation through interactive digital media. My research focuses on two applications of these themes: (1) popular music and technocultural critical discourse analysis (CTDA) on social media platforms; and (2) critical approaches to computational creativity and artificial intelligence popular music (AIPM).

In 2018 I published one of the first theoretical discussions of the use of artificial intelligence as the primary means of production in popular music, from a non-practitioner perspective. This article explores the first AI-human collaborated pop music album, Hello World by SKYGGE, through my theory of the audio uncanny valley. I continue to develop this work through a wider research agenda in development of a Critical AI Popular Music field of studies. Current research includes a large-scale examination of the present and speculative discourse of AI popular music, as it exists across social media platforms.

The International Association for the Íæż½ã½ã of Popular Music (IASPM) is my primary academic organization. I was most recently the Communications Coordinator for IASPM-Canada and currently hold this role at the IASPM Journal in addition to being an active member of the editorial board.

I am originally from Sechelt and the Sunshine Coast on the traditional territories of the Squamish (skwxw¨²7mesh), Sechelt (sh¨ªsh¨¢lh), Sliammon (tla¡¯Amin) and Kla¡¯hoose First Nations. I acknowledge the significance of land-based epistemologies and recognize how land- and seascapes have shaped the ways in which I live, teach, research, and come to understand the importance of interconnectivity/relationality.

? computational creativity ? social media discourse ? popular music and society ? artificial intelligence and popular music ? feminist theory ? cultural theory

Outputs (19)

Book Chapter

¡°Say It in a Tweet, That's a Cop-Out¡± Problematizing the Journalistic Practice of Using Tweets as Public Opinion through an Exploration of Taylor Swift's ¡°You Need to Calm Down¡±

Avdeeff M (2025) ¡°Say It in a Tweet, That's a Cop-Out¡± Problematizing the Journalistic Practice of Using Tweets as Public Opinion through an Exploration of Taylor Swift's ¡°You Need to Calm Down¡±. In: Bentley CA, Galloway K & Harper PC (eds.) Taylor Swift: The Star, The Songs, The Fans. Routledge. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003299646-17/say-tweet-cop-melissa-avdeeff?context=ubx&refId=d2689c5c-09a8-4a05-9c31-be250023e762

Book Chapter

Lil Nas X, TikTok, and the Evolution of Music Engagement on Social Networking Sites

Avdeeff M (2023) Lil Nas X, TikTok, and the Evolution of Music Engagement on Social Networking Sites. In: Kannen V & Langille A (eds.) Virtual Identities and Digital Culture. Routledge. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003310730-26/lil-nas-tiktok-evolution-music-engagement-social-networking-sites-melissa-avdeeff

Blog Post

Eight Scholars on Art and Artificial Intelligence

Avdeeff M (2023) Eight Scholars on Art and Artificial Intelligence. [online publication] 02.11.2023. https://aestheticsforbirds.com/2023/11/02/eight-scholars-on-art-and-artificial-intelligence/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Book Chapter

Canadian Pop in the Digital Age: Pioneering Pathways to Stardom and Representation via Justin Bieber

Avdeeff M (2019) Canadian Pop in the Digital Age: Pioneering Pathways to Stardom and Representation via Justin Bieber. In: Kannen V & Shyminsky N (eds.) The Spaces and Places of Canadian Popular Culture. Toronto: Canadian Scholars. https://canadianscholars.ca/book/the-spaces-and-places-of-canadian-popular-culture/#:~:text=%22The%20Spaces%20and%20Places%20of,texts%2C%20forms%2C%20and%20practices.

Book Chapter

Kim Kardashian: I Made That B*tch Famous.

Avdeeff M (2018) Kim Kardashian: I Made That B*tch Famous.. In: Vaidya K (ed.) Celebrity for the Curious: Why Íæż½ã½ã Celebrity, Music, and Film Studies?. Franklin, TN: The Curious Academic Publishing.

Book Chapter

Beyonc¨¦: Social media, authenticity, and the presentation of self

Avdeeff M (2016) Beyonc¨¦: Social media, authenticity, and the presentation of self. In: Trier-Bieniek A (ed.) The Beyonc¨¦ Effect: Essays on Sexuality, Race, and Feminism. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, pp. 109-123. https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/the-beyonce-effect/

Book Chapter

The Music of Twilight: Battling for Authenticity

Avdeeff M (2016) The Music of Twilight: Battling for Authenticity. In: Aker L (ed.) Bristol: Intellect, pp. 64-74. https://www.intellectbooks.com/fan-phenomena-the-twilight-saga

Book Review

Radio in the Digital Age

Avdeeff M (2016) Radio in the Digital Age. Review of:
Andrew Dubber, Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2013, 208 pp. ISBN: 978-07456-6197-1. Popular Music and Society, 39 (1), pp. 139-141. https://doi.org/10.1080/03007766.2014.994302

Book Review

The Ringtone Dialectic: Economy and Cultural Form. By Sumanth Gopinath. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2013. 416 pp. ISBN 978-0-262-01915-6

Avdeeff M (2016) The Ringtone Dialectic: Economy and Cultural Form. By Sumanth Gopinath. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2013. 416 pp. ISBN 978-0-262-01915-6. Review of: The Ringtone Dialectic: Economy and Cultural Form. By Sumanth Gopinath. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2013. 416 pp. ISBN 978-0-262-01915-6. Popular Music, 35 (1), pp. 144-146. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0261143015000719

Book Review

Song Means: Analysing and Interpreting Recorded Popular Song

Avdeeff M (2014) Song Means: Analysing and Interpreting Recorded Popular Song. Review of:
Allan F. Moore Farnham and Burlington VT: Ashgate, 2012. ISBN: 978-1-4094-2864-0. IASPM@Journal, 4 (2), pp. 117-119. https://doi.org/10.5429/2079-3871%282014%29v4i2.9en

Research programmes

Research themes