No. 466 - March 29, 2021

  • Coming Events:

    - "Online Activism and Decolonizing Minds"
    - "Indigenizing the Academy with Marie Battiste"
    - FIMSwrites - Virtual Edition
    - "Repair Stories: Why a Right to Repair matters for our things, for ourselves, and for our world"
    - "Value Sensitive Design in the Twitter API"
    - "Design Justice: Practices for Reshaping the Future"
    - "Making Poverty Pay: Digital Creditors, Gentrifying Landlords & Financial Capitalism Today"
    - "Mapping #MeToo: A synthesis review of digital feminist research across social media platforms"

  • Important Dates:

    - Friday, April 2, 2021 - Good Friday holiday (no classes, FIMS offices closed)
    - Monday, April 12, 2021 - Undergraduate classes end
    - Wednesday, April 14 - Friday, April 30, 2021 - Undergraduate Exam Period
    - Friday, April 16, 2021 - Last day of FIMS graduate classes

  • News & Announcements:

    - Susan Knabe named to new EDI advisory council

    Awards & Accomplishments:

    - Marni Harrington
    - Bethany Paul

  • Publications & Presentations:

    - Karen Nicholson
    - Effie Sapuridis
    - Niel Scobie

  • In the Media:

    - James Compton
    - Matt Stahl
    - Luke Stark
    - Sam Trosow

  • Additional Activities of Note:

    - Project PPPR - new publication

  • News from the FIMS Graduate Library:

  • FIMS Undergraduate Round-Up:

    - Annual Media Arts Festival live on MakerThinker.org

  • News from Western Libraries:

  • Next Issue:


Coming Events


"Online Activism and Decolonizing Minds"
Monday, March 29, 2021
4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Zoom Webinar 
With Alicia Elliott, Haudenosaunee Writer-in-Residence at Western University.
In a world that is increasingly convincing people that we must "earn" survival through capitalism and colonialism, how do we fight back? How do we change minds? How can we utilize social media to not only speak back to power, but also convince others that radical social change is in all of our best interests? Join Alicia Elliott for a discussion of ways that Indigenous groups have utilized social media to do just that, and why individual contributions to this cause do matter (more information).

"Indigenizing the Academy with Marie Battiste"
Tuesday, March 30, 2021
12:30 p.m.
Zoom Webinar 
Western University's Office of Indigenous Initiatives, in partnership with the President’s Office and the Equity Diversity and Inclusion panel, are pleased to present Marie Battiste. Moderated by Candace Brunette-Debassige. This session aims to provide an overview of contemporary efforts and promising practices for tackling the key concepts involved in the decolonization of education and its core units of antiracism and anti-oppression and Indigenous resurgence and reconciliation.

FIMSwrites - Virtual Edition
Every Wednesday
9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Via Zoom
Do you expect to have paper, story, article, report, thesis, or book deadlines coming up? Does having other people writing around you help keep you on-task? Then join FIMSWrites, an informal initiative to provide some solidarity in the sometimes-solitary writing process. All FIMS graduate students, staff and faculty are welcome to bring their favourite writing devices and join us to write and check in. If you're interested, contact Pam McKenzie or Lola Wong for further information.

"Repair Stories: Why a Right to Repair matters for our things, for ourselves, and for our world"
Wednesday, March 31, 2021
12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Zoom (by registration)
Presented by Alissa Centivany as part of the FIMS Seminar Series.
All are welcome to attend. Contact Karen Kueneman for the Zoom link at kueneman@uwo.ca.
Abstract: Everything breaks, deteriorates, and falls apart eventually. This is not a condemnation, a failure, or a fluke but rather a simple, inescapable fact of existence. Within cycles of creation and destruction, repair is nestled like a dormant little balloon – if we breathe life into it, we can expand and prolong the cycle, keep things aloft a little longer and, perhaps, make the landings a little gentler (continue reading).

"Value Sensitive Design in the Twitter API"
Thursday, April 8, 2021
4:30 p.m.
Zoom (by registration) Contact the mediations Facebook team for the Zoom link.
Presented by Carolyn Sullivan, MLIS Candidate, as part of the mediations Lecture Series. All are welcome to attend. 
Abstract: The scraping of information from social media using tools such as the Twitter API has implications for user privacy.  Yet as the details of how big data research functions may be obscure to those without a background in computer science, policy makers may be hampered in providing ethical oversight. Value-sensitive design (VSD) is a framework advanced by Batya Friedman for interrogating how human values are integrated into technology throughout the design process (continue reading).

"Design Justice: Practices for Reshaping the Future"
Friday, April 9, 2021
3:00 p.m.
Zoom Webinar
An open roundtable discussion with members of the Design Justice Network, an organization at the forefront of design justice, work aimed at community-led design for social justice. Featuring a conversation with Sasha Costanza-Chock, Denise Shanté Brown, and Wesley Taylor, with remarks from Professor Alison Harvey and responses from York graduate students Mina Momeni, Brianna I. Wiens, and Dayna Jeffrey (more information).

"Making Poverty Pay: Digital Creditors, Gentrifying Landlords & Financial Capitalism Today"
Wednesday, April 14, 2021
7:00 p.m.
Zoom Webinar
Featuring Rob Aitken (Political Science, University of Alberta) and Susanne Soederberg (Tier 2 CRC in Global Political Economy, Queens University). How is finance capitalism today “making poverty pay”? For several years now, corporations and governments have been developing systems for accessing and capturing the details of impoverished people’s everyday lives, and for extracting profit out of their day-to-day activities (continue reading).

"Mapping #MeToo: A synthesis review of digital feminist research across social media platforms"
Thursday, April 22, 2021
4:30 p.m.
Zoom (by registration) Contact the mediations Facebook team for the Zoom link.
Presented by Professor Anabel Quan-Haase, Charlotte Nau, and Darryl Pieber, Media Studies PhD Candidates, as part of the mediations Lecture Series.
Abstract: A tweet by Hollywood actress Alyssa Milano using Tarana Burke’s phrase “me too” sparked a global movement. Despite the media attention #MeToo has garnered, not much is known about how scholars have studied the movement. Through a synthesis review covering sources from 2006 to 2019, we learned that in this time period only 22 studies examined participation on social media such as Twitter and Facebook.


Important Dates

- Friday, April 2, 2021 - Good Friday holiday (no classes, FIMS offices closed)
- Monday, April 12, 2021 - Undergraduate classes end
- Wednesday, April 14 - Friday, April 30, 2021 - Undergraduate Exam Period
- Friday, April 16, 2021 - Last day of FIMS graduate classes


News & Announcements


Susan Knabe named to new EDI advisory council
Susan Knabe, Associate Dean, Undergraduate, was one of eight people recently named to Western's newly created Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Council. The creation of the council is part of the university's commitment in response to the final report of the Anti-Racism Working Group (ARWG) and the group will advise and support Western's future associate vice-president of equity, diversity and inclusion. Find out more in the Western News article "Western establishes first EDI advisory council", published on March 25.


Awards & Accomplishments


Marni Harrington, FIMS Librarian, was awarded the Fantastic FIMS award for the Winter 2021 term. The Fantastic FIMS is awarded to a member of the MLIS staff or faculty to acknowledge and celebrate the contributions that they bring to the program in terms of social support and administrative savvy. It is awarded to the individual who best exemplifies the spirit of collaboration and professional progression in their daily life as a member of faculty or staff. View a list of previous winners.

Bethany Paul, MLIS student, received the Spirit of Librarianship award for the Winter 2021 term. The Spirit of Librarianship Award is given to a Master of Library and Information Science student by the MLISSC to celebrate the contributions they bring to the program. The award is meant to recognize the student who best exemplifies "the spirit of librarianship" in their daily life as a student. View a list of previous winners.


Publications & Presentations


Assistant Professor Karen Nicholson, Alison Hicks (University College London), and Maura Seale (University of Michigan) have an article forthcoming in College & Research Libraries (Jan. 2022) entitled "Toward a Critical Turn in Library UX."

Library UX continues to be seen as a toolkit of value-neutral approaches for evaluating and improving library services and spaces to enhance user satisfaction and engagement. We contend that UX would benefit from a deeper engagement with user-centered theories emerging from Library and Information Science (LIS) and critical and feminist perspectives on practice, embodiment, and power. The pre-print is available from https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/fimspub/355/

Effie Sapuridis, Media Studies PhD student, contributed a multimedia poster titled "Wealth and Heternormative Romance Tropes in Harry Potter Fan Fiction" to a special issue about Fan Studies Pedagogies in the journal Transformative Works and Cultures, published on March 15, 2021.

Niel Scobie, Media Studies PhD student, published the article "Starting at the Bottom - Recognizing Jay W. McGee and his role as a Canadian Hip-hop pioneer" on Medium.com on March 19. The article touches on the origins of Canadian hip-hop and how it has been largely overlooked by music historians.


In the Media


Associate Professor James Compton was interviewed for a Canadian Press article titled "Canadian news outlets close physical offices, codifying remote work" on March 22, 2021.

In an article titled "Anita Baker wants fans to stop listening to her music. It's important that we do what she says," author Noah Berlatsky draws on Associate Professor Matt Stahl's 2012 book Unfree Masters, along with collaborative work done by Stahl and Professor Olufunmilayo Arewa (Temple University). The article was published in The Independent on March 16.

Assistant Professor Luke Stark was featured in an article on CNN.com titled "Google offered a professor $60,000, but he turned it down. Here's why." Published on March 24, the article was authored by Rachel Metz, Senior Writer for CNN Business. Professor Stark was also interviewed for an article titled "A researcher turned down a $60K grant from Google because it ousted 2 top AI ethics leaders: I don't think this is going to blow over," published (behind a paywall) in BusinessInsider.com on March 19.

Associate Professor Sam Trosow, who holds a joint appointment with the Faculty of Law, was interviewed by the CAUT Bulletin in March. In this interview he addresses several copyright-related issues around remote teaching which are of importance to educators. Professor Trosow was also featured in the interactive story "Proctortrack: How Western quietly started watching students," published by the Gazette on March 17.


Additional Activities of Note


Project PPPR - new publication available
Professor Nick Dyer-Witheford announced that the featured essay "Tremor: Will, Difficulty, and Antagonism", selections from Estallido: La Rebelión de Octubre en Ecuador, by Leonidas Iza, Andrés Tapia and Andrés Madrid (Quito: Ediciones Red Kapari, 2020), is now available on the Project PPPR website, translated by Jaime Brenes Reyes.


News from the FIMS Graduate Library


Visit us!
The FIMS Grad Library is open Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays 11:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Come by to use our quiet, bright, and socially-distanced study space!

Contact us
When our physical location is closed, we are still here to help you with any library-related questions.
We can help with access to resources and services for your teaching, learning and research.
You can email us (fimslib@uwo.ca) or call and leave a message (519-661-2111 x88488).
We are available to offer assistance Monday to Friday, 9am to 4:30pm.
If you require assistance after these hours, please use Ask a Librarian service available through Western Libraries.

Virtual Drop-In Hours
Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays - 12:00 p.m. 1:00 p.m.
On Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, Kendall, Carolyn or Sara will be staffing our virtual service desk from 12-1pm. Ask us anything: from citation help to finding the best resources for your assignments. Whether you have a library-related question or just want to check in and see a friendly face, we hope you'll join us. A Zoom link will be sent to your email before drop-in hours, reminding you to drop in!


FIMS Undergraduate Round-Up


Annual Media Arts Festival live on MakerThinker.org
Exhibits submitted to this year's FIMS Media Arts Festival are now available for viewing on the FIMS MakerThinker website at https://makerthinker.org/media-arts-festival. Enjoy student work including image series, videos and creative essays.


News from Western Libraries


Western Libraries invites you to share your thoughts about open access at Western, as the Provost's Task Force on Open Access and Scholarly Communication continues its consultations for the development of a university-wide open-access policy.

Register for an upcoming consultation session:

  • Thursday, April 8, 1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.
  • Friday, April 9, 1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.

You can also provide feedback in a collaborative, online document available on the Provost's Task Force webpage.


Next Issue


The Grad Bulletin is your source for news, announcements, and events pertaining to FIMS graduate programs. Submissions from the FIMS community are always welcome and may be sent via e-mail to bblue@uwo.ca.

The final issue of the FIMS Graduate Bulletin for the Winter 2021 term will be published on Monday, April 12, 2021. The deadline for submissions is noon on Friday, April 9, 2021.