No. 521 - July 10, 2024


Coming Events


Western Farmers Market
Every Wednesday
10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
Kent Drive (on campus)
Support local and shop fresh products, baked goods, flowers and more. Follow @westernufood on Instagram to stay in the know!
 


Important Dates

- Monday, August 5, 2024 - Civic Day holiday (no classes, FIMS offices closed)


News & Announcements

Nominations open for the Spirit of Librarianship and Fantastic FIMS awards
You have until July 19th at midnight to submit nominations for the Spirit of Librarianship and Fantastic FIMS awards. Check your Western email for information on how to nominate someone. Your nominations should include a short explanation as to why you are nominating that individual. You can submit multiple nominations. Please note: The Spirit of Librarianship award cannot be awarded to the same person more than once. However, the Fantastic FIMS award can be awarded to the same individual more than once, but not more than one time in a 5-year period.


Awards & Accomplishments


Olawale Fadare, MHIS candidate, successfully defended his thesis titled Closing the Know-Do Gap in Global Health in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Critical Scoping Review of Knowledge Translation Practices in Global Health Research Partnerships on June 17.

Amber Matthews, PhD'24 (LIS), has been appointed Assistant Professor, Library and Information Studies (tenure track) in the Darden College of Education and Professional Studies at Old Dominion University (Norfolk, Virginia). Her appointment is effective on July 25.

Sananda Sahoo, PhD in Media Studies candidate, successfully defended her thesis titled Media Representation of Muslims in Lynching Violence: Construction of Political Subjectivity in Three Cases 2015-2017, on July 4.


Publications & Presentations


Janelle Allan (BA'24 and incoming MA Media Studies student), Associate Professor Joanna Redden, and Meghan Voll (PhD Media Studies) presented their research on Data Harms and Aging at the Canadian Communication Association Conference held at the Université de Montréal on June 18. They participated in a panel with Professor Kim Sawchuk and PhD student Francis Léveillé (Concordia University).

Professor Redden also co-authored the following article:

Georgia van Toorn, Joanna Redden, Lina Dencik and Jess Brand, "Labour's AI vision: Can technology really end poverty?" in Transforming Society as part of a blog series by Academics Stand Against Poverty on June 26.

Media Studies PhD candidate Revna Altiok published an article titled Unveiling Ken: the Healing Journey of a Manic Pixie Dream Monster in a special issue of M/C Journal focused on Barbie. Revna also presented the research at the conference "You Can Be Anything": Imagining and Interrogating Barbie in Popular Culture, held online on March 27-28.

Adjunct instructor Julie Lowe presented a paper entitled "Islamic Knowledge Transmission Practices: A Users' Rights Regine?" at the Symposium on Copyright in the Islamic Legal Tradition in Istanbul on June 28. The conference was organized by the Copyright in Islamic Law group at the ISAR Research Centre.

Charlotte Nau, Media Studies PhD candidate, presented the following paper:

Nau, C., Dietzel, C., Dodge, A., Dunn, S., & Mendes, K. Technology-Facilitated Sexual Violence: The Struggle to Define. Annual meeting of the Canadian Communication Association, Montreal, Canada, June 18-21.

The paper was also presented by Charlotte's co-authors at the 74th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association, Gold Coast, Australia, June 20-24.

Shelby Paulgaard, MMJC student, authored an article titled "Local stories, told with integrity, should matter to us all," published in The London Free Press on June 23. The article is the winning essay for this year's HaakSaan Responsible Journalism Scholarship, awarded annually to a full-time student in Western University's MMJC program.

Lecturer Mark Rayner published a short story titled "A Milkshake Apocolypse" in The Dance, An Anthology of Speculative Fiction, edited by Ira Nayman. 

Media Studies PhD student Sina Torabi presented a paper titled "Beyond Pixels: Ethical Explorations of Language Models in Game Development" at the Canadian Communication Association in Montreal, June 18-21.

Sina also presented papers titled "Some wounds do not heal: Trauma representations in Naughty Dog's The Last of Us and HBO's adaptation" at the 45th annual SWPACA Summer Salon Conference, and "Gaming the future: How games help us play what's to come" at DiGRA24 in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Lastly, Sina published the following article:

Torabi, S. (2024). A tragedy at the ends of time: Applying Aristotle’s Poetics to The Last of Us Part II. Acta Ludologica, 7(1). https://doi.org/10.34135/actaludologica.2024-7-1.4-17 

André Wolmer, PhD student in Media Studies, presented research at the following two events:

"AI and traditional communities: communication and environmental justice"- I International Colloquium on Media and Technology - UFRN (online) - May 22nd

"Emerging environmental narratives: independent journalism and Indigenous ethnomedia" - Brazilian Conference of Citizen Communication - São Paulo, Brazil - June 12th


In the Media

Assistant Professor Alissa Centivany is quoted in an article titled, "Break your iPhone again? Apple will finally let you fix its products yourself," published by CBC News on July 1.

PhD in HIS candidate Eden Hoffer was quoted in an article titled "What to know about intimate partner violence in Canada after Ontario mom and kids shot dead," published in The Courier Press on July 8.

Rachel Manes, MLIS candidate, was featured in a profile titled "Freshly Minted: Rachel Manes," published on Librarianship.ca on June 27.

Assistant Professor Selma Purac appeared in numerous news sources this month, participating in discussions following up on her recent article in The Conversation titled "Sick of Reboots? How 'nostalgia bait' profits off Millennial and Gen Z's childhood memories".

"Nostalgia-Bait." Mornings with Sue & Andy, Global News Calgary, July 2.

"Welch's wants to grow up with '90s kids by turning juice into vodka." Yahoo Finance, June 25.

"Everything old is new again." London Morning with Andrew Brown, CBC, June 17.

"Sick of reboots? How 'nostalgia bait' profits off Millennial and Gen Z's childhood memories." A Little More Conversation with Ben O'Hara-Byrne, CBC, June 14.

"Nostalgia is great for companies, bad for us." Midday on 630 CHED with Courtney Theriault, June 14.


Associate Professor Joanna Redden was quoted in an article titled "City testing AI in bid to smarten up services," published by the Winnipeg Free Press on June 28.

Scott Russell (MA'85, Journalism) was featured in an article titled "CBC sports broadcaster is new Nipissing University Chancellor," published in Bay Today on June 27. Russell is an award-winning broadcaster and author who has been with CBC since 1985 and has announced he will retire later this summer.

CBC covered Russell's retirement announcement in an article titled, "CBC Sports broadcaster Scott Russell to retire from hosting duties after Paris Paralympics," published on June 27.

Professor Romayne Smith Fullerton discussed how media outlets in different countries report on crime on The John Oakley Show in AM640 Toronto on July 2.

Assistant Professor Luke Stark was featured in a Q&A titled "Western prof Luke Stark appointed CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar," published in Western News on June 14.



Additional Activities of Note

Lecturer Mark Rayner has launched the third season of Re-Creative, and arts podcast he hosts with CBC alum Joe Mahoney. This outing includes such well-known writers as John Scalzi, Bruce Sterling and this week's guest, Candace Jane Dorsey. They also talk to many working artists in other fields about the art that inspired them. Find this season's episodes at: https://re-creative.ca/current-season and the first two seasons at: https://re-creative.ca/past-seasons. 



News from Western Libraries


You're invited to join us for these upcoming Research Skills Workshops, hosted by Western Libraries. From data collection to publishing, get expert help at all stages of the research cycle with free workshops.

July 23 - Publishing your work: let's de-mystify the process (online)
July 25 - Publishing your work: let's de-mystify the process (in-person)

To find more upcoming Western Library events and workshops visit the Western Libraries Events page. If you have questions about workshops, please email rsclib@uwo.ca. 


Next Issue


The FIMS 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 fims-communications@uwo.ca.

This is the third of four summer issues of the Bulletin. The final summer edition will be published on August 7.