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How social media has become a critical tool for advancing the interests of the Canadian oil industry
 

Petroturfing presents an incisive look into how Canada’s pro-oil movement has leveraged social media to rebrand the extractive economy as a positive force. Adapting its title from the concept of astroturfing, which refers to the practice of disguising political and corporate media campaigns as grassroots movements, the book exposes the consequences of this mutually informed relationship between social media and environmental politics.

Since the early 2010s, an increasingly influential network of pro-oil groups, organizations, and campaigns has harnessed social media strategies originally developed by independent environmental organizations in order to undermine resistance to the fossil fuel industry. Situating these actions within the broader oil culture wars that have developed as an outgrowth of contemporary right-wing media, Petroturfing details how this coalition of groups is working to reform the public view of oil extraction as something socially, economically, and ecologically beneficial. 

By uncovering these concerted efforts to influence the “energy consciousness,” Jordan B. Kinder reveals the deep divide between Canada’s environmentally progressive reputation and the economic interests of its layers of government and private companies operating within its borders. Drawing attention to the structures underlying online political expression, Petroturfing highlights the limitations of social media networks in the work of promoting environmental justice and contributing to a more equitable future.

Phantom Politics develops a new framework for understanding how humans, bots, and AI systems interact on social media platforms and structure political communication. Focusing primarily on X (formerly Twitter), it analyzes three cases: the 2017 Women’s March, the 2019 “Build the Wall” discourse, and U.S. federal election discourse in 2024, to demonstrate how X functions not only as a mirror of political trends but also as a driver of change in the digital public sphere. The book shows how political participation is shaped by both authentic political expression and bot-driven narratives. It introduces new concepts to explain how AI-generated political speech can appear human while remaining detached from a human speaker, raising urgent questions about agency, accountability, and political voice. At a time when AI technologies are becoming increasingly integrated into public life, the book examines how emerging forms of automation are reshaping democratic discourse, challenging traditional understandings of participation, and transforming the ways political ideas circulate, gain visibility, and influence public debate.

Poets as Public Scholars is a multimedia project that interrogates how poet-scholars use digital platforms to expand access and visibility for underrepresented voices, but also to critique the commodification, extraction, and erasure practices embedded in neoliberal literary circulation. Framed by two core questions—how poets teach public scholarship through networked media, and how to support underrepresented poets without reinforcing market-driven erasure—the collection offers videos for student and public engagement, essays for scholarly audiences, and discussion questions for classroom use.

Structured around seven video dialogues and seven critical essays, the book features contributions from poet-scholars including Camea Davis, A.D. Carson, Tyrone Williams, Patrick Milian, Stevi Costa, Cameron Awkward-Rich, and Woogee Bae. Each chapter examines the material and affective economies that shape poetic production and reception, while proposing alternative, community-rooted infrastructures for literary and cultural labor. Designed for layered audiences, the video interviews model public-facing discourse, while the companion essays situate the work within critical conversations in literature, cultural theory, and media studies. With included discussion questions by Dr. Molly Ubbesen (University of Minnesota Rochester) and open access availability, Poets as Public Scholars functions as both a teaching tool and a theoretical intervention for scholars and educators seeking to integrate anti-racist, anti-capitalist approaches to literary and digital humanities pedagogy.