Inaugural FIMS Graduate Student Research Day

Graduate Student Research Day posterGraduate students in the Faculty of Information & Media Studies held their inaugural FIMS Graduate Student Research Day last term on April 14, 2016.

With two panel discussions, poster presentations and lunch, the event was very well attended and successfully integrated students from Library & Information Science, Media Studies, and Health Information Science.

With a focus on interdisciplinary research and collaboration, a representative from each program was included in both panels.

Panel 1 was titled “Virality” and was facilitated by Professor Sarah Roberts. It featured HIS PhD student Jill Veenendaal, MS PhD student Chandell Gosse, and LIS PhD student Yimin Chen. Discussions centred around digital virality and memes on the Internet, and included concepts like the spread of misinformation, fraudulent viral campaigns, the positive outcomes of campaigns, slacktivism/clicktivism, trolling, and how to verify the legitimacy of online information.

Panel 2 was titled “The Digital Self & Digital Shadow” and was facilitated by Lecturer John Reed. It featured HIS PhD student Tanaz Javan, LIS PhD candidate Ramon Diab, and MS PhD student Vicki O’Meara. Discussions ranged from the datafication and quantification of the self, to issues of mass surveillance by governments and corporations, personal surveillance through social networks, mental health as it relates to the digital self, and using Big Data in the context of better health care and research.

Dr. Jacquelyn Burkell, the Dean of Research at FIMS, pronounced the event a “tremendous success”, noting that “We had a terrific audience for the first annual FIMS Graduate Student Research Day and everyone – audience and participants alike – was thrilled at the opportunity to share our research and research interests. By the end of the second panel, the room was ‘buzzing’ with energetic discussion, and the same excitement was evident in the lunch/poster session. This is a great start to what we hope will become an annual tradition at FIMS.”