Shana MacDonald is an Associate Professor in Communication Arts at the University of Waterloo, holding the O’Donovan Chair in Communication Across the Disciplines. Her research bridges feminist theory, media studies, and digital activism, focusing on social media’s role in gender-based violence, online resistance, and visual culture. She co-directs the SIGNAL Network addressing tech-facilitated gender violence and co-runs the @aesthetic.resistance Instagram archive and Feminist Think Tank. MacDonald earned a PhD in Communication and Culture (2013) from York University, an MA in Cinema and Media Studies (2005), and a BFA in Image Arts (2001) from Ryerson University. She has authored/co-edited multiple volumes, including *Networked Feminisms* (2022) and *Stories of Feminist Protest* (2023), with her recent book *The Art of Memes in Feminist Digital Culture* (2025) examining memes as tools of resistance. Her work interrogates digital platforms’ impact on feminist praxis, including studies of meme culture, viral public health communication, and feminist archiving methods. As former President of the Film and Media Association of Canada (2020-2022), she advocates for interdisciplinary dialogue. Her research emphasizes collaborative, care-oriented methodologies to counteract structural inequities in digital spaces.












