Ron Deibert to Deliver the 2020 Massey Lectures on Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society
Ronald J. Deibert is the founder and director of Citizen Lab, a research outfit based at the University of Toronto, which studies technology, surveillance and censorship. His Massey Lectures will focus on the societal impact of the internet and social media.
In the midst of a global pandemic when many of us are spending an increasing amount of time online, this year’s Massey Lectures argues that the internet, especially social media, has an increasingly toxic influence in every aspect of life.
Technology and security expert Ronald J. Deibert will deliver the series of lectures, titled Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society. The five lectures will also be published as a book by House of Anansi Press in September.
The announcement was made Tuesday during a virtual event featuring Deibert, which was hosted by the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto.
Drawing from his work as the director of Citizen Lab, which has made headlines for its cyber espionage research, Deibert will talk about the personal, social, political, economic and ecological implications of social media.
This year’s Massey Lectures will be delivered virtually, with details to be announced later this summer. As usual, the lectures will be broadcast in the fall on CBC Radio’s IDEAS and the CBC Listen App.
In the first lecture, Deibert will explore how the economic model of social media is organized around personal data surveillance. In the second, he will discuss how social media platforms are engineered to be “addiction machines.”
Then he will examine the role social media has played in the rise and spread of authoritarian practices worldwide.
In lecture four, he will review the negative environmental impacts associated with social media, from electronic mining to cloud computing’s contributions to CO2 emissions and the growing problem of electronic waste.
In the final lecture, he will explore what can be done to imagine a better world.
The Massey Lectures is an annual series of lectures delivered by distinguished writers, thinkers and scholars. Past lecturers include Margaret Atwood, Thomas King, Noam Chomsky and Northrop Frye.
The series is co-sponsored by CBC Radio, House of Anansi Press and Massey College in the University of Toronto. (Source: https://tinyurl.com/ya54yfxt)
Reclaiming Social Media for Civil Society
Ronald Deibert
Once, it was conventional wisdom to assume that digital technologies would enable greater access to information, facilitate collective organizing, and empower civil society. Rather than facilitating unity and the emergence of a common ideology based on science, the internet and social media have proven to be vehicles used to spread falsehoods, pollute the public sphere, and subject populations to wholesale surveillance. People are also spending an unhealthy amount of time staring at their devices, “socializing” while in fact living in isolation and detached from nature. As a consequence, there are pushes to regulate social media and to encourage tech giants to be better stewards of their platforms, respect privacy, and acknowledge the role of human rights. A prerequisite of any such regulation, however, is a complete understanding of the precise nature and depth of the problems.
Technology and security expert Ronald J. Deibert examines the scope and scale of the personal, social, political, economic, and ecological implications of social media. Drawing from the cutting-edge research of the Citizen Lab (which he directs), Deibert analyzes consumer compulsion and the information economy; the disturbing rise of authoritarian practices, cyberwarfare services, and social engineering campaigns; and the negative environmental impact of digital devices, data farms, and electronic waste. Ultimately, Deibert exposes social media’s disproportionate influence in every aspect of life to the detriment of society and of our humanity — so much so that we are now in urgent need of a wholesale shift in our lifestyles, a fundamental revision of culture, work, and politics. And not just in one country, but around the world. (https://houseofanansi.com/products/reset)
BIOGRAPHY
Ron Deibert, (PhD, University of British Columbia) is Professor of Political Science, and Director of the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto. The Citizen Lab is an interdisciplinary laboratory focusing on research, development, and high-level strategic policy and legal engagement at the intersection of information and communication technologies, human rights, and global security. He was a co-founder and a principal investigator of the OpenNet Initiative (2003-2014) and Information Warfare Monitor (2003-2012) projects. Deibert was one of the founders and (former) VP of global policy and outreach for Psiphon, one of the world’s leading digital censorship circumvention services.
As Director of the Citizen Lab, Deibert has overseen and been a contributing author to more than 120 reports covering path-breaking research on cyber espionage, commercial spyware, Internet censorship, and human rights. See the rest of his bio at (https://tinyurl.com/ya7478za)
Filed under: Academic, Announcement, Education, Ideas, Internet, Lectures, Media Ecology, Technology, university | Leave a Comment
Tags: academic, communication, culture, education, ideas, Internet, lectures, media, Toronto, university
PandeMedia & Folklores from the Lockdown Age
Join us for the eleventh Monday Night Webinar, Monday JULY 6, 8:00-10:00 PM EST: PandeMedia and Folklores from the Lockdown Age.
In a playful, relaxed, and experimental online format, a panel of participants will explore the mosaic of the metaphoric global village in light of the current global crisis, as a source of knowledge and inspiration.
Hosted by PAOLO GRANATA
With special guests Jody Berland, Gary Genosko, Izabella Pruska-Oldenhof.
LINKS to the live stream:
Marshall McLuhan Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1394898027486287
The McLuhan Institute YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXZzFSp2SCk
Biographies of the Guest Speakers
JODY BERLAND is a Professor of environmental humanities and media studies. Research and teaching in the areas of Canadian and modern culture, cultural studies, media theory, human-animal relations. Editor Emerita of TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, 1998-2015. Awarded the 2010 Gertrude J Robinson Book Prize, CCA for North of Empire: Essays on Cultural Technologies of Space, Duke University Press, 2009. Principal Investigator, “Digital Animalities: Media Representations of Nonhuman Life in the Age of Risk,” SSHRC 2016-2020. Author, Virtual Menageries: Animals as Mediators in Network Cultures, MIT Press 2019. Supervised 12 completed PhDs. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jody-berland-6667b762/?originalSubdomain=ca)
GARY GENOSKO is a Professor of Communication & Media Studies at Ontario Tech University in Oshawa, Ontario. He received his BA in Philosophy at University of Toronto and his MA in Philosophy at University of Alberta. He received his MES at York University and completed his PhD in Social and Political Thought at York University. He held a Canada Research Chair from 2002 to 2012 in Technoculture Studies, and has received SSHRC funding for a number of projects since 2001, as well as participating in a McConnell Foundation grant for community service learning. His most recent book is Remodelling Communication (UTP 2012), and he recently edited a special issue of the journal Deleuze Studies on ‘Felix Guattari in the Age of Semiocapitalism’ (2012). Recent articles by Dr. Genosko have appeared inCultural studies, Parallax, Cultural Politics, Ctheory; and chapters in The Cambridge Companion to Deleuze, Valences of Interdisciplinarity, The Guattari Effect, and Transforming McLuhan. His previous books include Felix Guattari: An Aberrant Introduction, and Felix Guattari: A Critical Introduction. His forthcoming book When Technocultures Collide is in press with WLUP, and he has contributed many entries to the forthcoming Deleuze and Guattari Dictionary (Continuum). (http://figureground.org/interview-with-gary-genosko/)
IZABELLA PRUSKA-OLDENHOF is a Toronto-based experimental filmmaker, scholar and Assistant Professor at the School of Image Arts at Ryerson University. She is a graduate of Media Arts at Ryerson University (BAA) and Communication and Culture at York University (MA) and (PhD). Her doctoral research concentrated on feminine aesthetics in avant-garde cinema and body art, and drew on Julia Kristeva’s theories on vanguard poetry and Luce Irigaray’s philosophy of ethics. Izabella’s writings on cinema, art, dance, technology and culture, have appeared in Parol, Canadian Journal of Film Studies, and in Ultimate Reality and Meaning Journal (Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in the Philosophy of Understanding), and in anthologies on media arts and on screen dance, including a chapter in the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Screendance. Izabella’s film and video projects have screened in numerous group programs at international film festivals, cinematheques, galleries and art centres in Canada and abroad. She is the co-founder and an active member of the Toronto-based experimental film collective, the Loop Collective (www.loopcollective.com, external link, opens in new window). Her work as an artist and scholar is interdisciplinary and often explores connections between art, bodies, and technology. (https://tinyurl.com/y7rv5gy9)
Filed under: Academic, Announcement, Education, Ideas, Media Ecology, New Media, Scholars, Technology, Webinar | Leave a Comment
Tags: academic, communication, culture, education, ideas, Internet, media ecology, technology, Webinar
Derrick de Kher
By Howard R. Engel
The Medium and the Light Award for 2020
The recipient of the ninth Medium and the Light Award, in recognition of the ecumenical dimensions of the life and work of Marshall McLuhan, was presented on Thursday, June 18 online as an integral part of the 21st Media Ecology Association (MEA) Conference hosted by Adelphi University, Garden City, New York with the overall theme “Communication Choices + Challenges”. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, organizers decided to pivot from the original face-to-face format, which would have been an impossibility, to mounting the MEA Conference entirely online, for the first time ever.
Dr. Derrick de Kerckhove is the recipient of this year’s Award. He is a longtime media ecologist, McLuhan studies scholar and researcher on the effects of media on the human being. He received it for his longstanding, indefatigable enthusiasm and energy in extending McLuhan’s work by probing our ever-changing world from his point-of-being that invites all of us to think about the effects of media technologies on all of us as human beings and for his ongoing “indepth research on the ability of the media to influence human perceptual and cognitive experience, starting from the assumption that the mass media can be defined as psychotechnologies, i.e. technologies that affect and modify ways of thinking and feeling.”
The Award is usually given annually by The Marshall McLuhan Initiative that was affiliated for its first decade (2007-2017) with St Paul’s College, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. The University of Manitoba is Marshall McLuhan’s first post-secondary alma mater, where he earned the Gold Medal in Arts for 1933 and an M.A. in English literature (1934).
The inaugural award, in 2011, was presented to the late Fr. Pierre Babin, omi (1925-2012), in Lyons, France. The unique Medium and Light obelisk statuette representing the award was unveiled by Dr. Eric McLuhan during Toronto’s McLuhan Centenary celebrations that summer. Originally conceived by the late Director of the Marshall McLuhan Initiative, Richard J. Osicki (1946-2012), and inspired by the book The Medium and the Light: Reflections on Religion by Marshall McLuhan and edited by Eric McLuhan and Jacek Szklarek (1999) was designed by The Initiative in collaboration with artist Matthew McMillan of Prairie Studio Glass, Winnipeg who uniquely recreates the glass obelisk for each year’s recipient.
Topic: MEA Convention 2.1: The Medium and the Light AwardDate: Jun 18, 2020 08:58 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)Click on the following to view a Zoom video of the award ceremony:
Filed under: Academic, Announcement, Award, Conferences, Education, Media Ecology, Scholars, university | Leave a Comment
Tags: academic, communication, conferences, culture, education, media ecology, religion, university
PandeMedia & Folklores from the Lockdown Age
Join us for the tenth Monday Night Webinar, Monday JUNE 29, 8:00-10:00 PM EST: PandeMedia and Folklores from the Lockdown Age.
In a playful, relaxed, and experimental online format, a panel of participants will explore the mosaic of the metaphoric global village in light of the current global crisis, as a source of knowledge and inspiration.
Hosted by PAOLO GRANATA
With special guests Marc Bélanger, Elaine Kahn, Junichi Miyazawa
LINKS to the live stream:
Marshall McLuhan Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1394898027486287
The McLuhan Institute YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqjqfwdArGk
Biographies of the Guest Speakers
MARC BÉLANGER is a labour union educator specializing in information technology and distance education via computer communications. He worked for the Workers’ Activities Programme of the training centre of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Turin, Italy, from 2000-2008. He was head of the Programme from 2007-2008. The Programme operates the largest international union education school in the world. Its objective is to help build the capacities of unions in developing countries. The ILO is a specialized agency of the United Nations. Bélanger is now the producer and host of RadioLabour news at http://www.radiolabour.net . He has a degree in journalism from Ryerson University, a Master’s in media studies from The New School and a PhD in computer communications from Simon Fraser University. His Master’s thesis was on “Marshall McLuhan and the art of work”. The subject of his doctoral thesis is “Online collaborative learning and the training of union staff in developing countries”. In 1995 Bélanger became the first person outside of the United States to earn a university degree (a Master’s in Media Studies) completely via computer communications through Connected Education‘s program with The New School headed by Paul Levinson. Also in 1995 he became a founding director of Canada’s Telelearning Network of Centres of Excellence (a national research network concerning distance education via computer communications funded by the Canadian government).
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_B%C3%A9langer_(trade_unionist))
ELAINE KAHN trained as a journalist at the Toronto Star and has written features, news, book reviews and op-eds for a variety of media outlets in the US, UK and Canada. Her university education includes a BA in English Lit from U of Toronto (University College), an MA in Liberal Studies, and PhD in Global Affairs from Rutgers University. She writes about how she met Marshall McLuhan when she was a Grade 12 student: “My interaction with McLuhan is episodic/odd/serendipitous. When I was in grade 12, I was one of about a dozen students in my high school allowed to skip class for the last month of the school year to work on a special project. My project was on media and, as part of it, I shadowed Lotta Dempsey at the [Toronto] Star for a day or two. During that time, she went to interview Harley Parker and I went with her. While we were waiting, McLuhan popped in to talk with us for about 15 minutes, explaining (among other things) the camera obscura and telling me that the generation gap is where the action is”. She recently published Been Hoping We Might Meet Again, an annotated collection of the entire correspondence –from 1968 to 1980– between Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Marshall McLuhan.
JUNICHI MIYAZAWA, PhD is a Japanese author, critic and professor at Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo. His work covers literature, music and media, with a special focus on Canadian studies. He is also one of the world’s leading Glenn Gould scholars. His Guren Gurudo ron (Glenn Gould: A Perspective, Tokyo, 2004) was awarded Yoshida Hidekazu Sho, Japan’s highest prize for music writing. He has translated sixteen books into Japanese from English and Russian, including the literature by and about Glenn Gould, a companion to Andrey Tarkovsky’s film The Mirror, and Timothy Findley’s classic novel The Wars (on account of his expertise, he was Director of the university’s Foreign Language Laboratory, 2014-2018). He is also the author of Makuruhan no kokei (McLuhan’s View, Tokyo, 2007). Junichi Miyazawa currently has several pending publications, including a book on Glenn Gould’s radio documentaries (in both English and Japanese) and Japanese translation of McLuhan’s works, all to be based on his research on the sabbatical leave (2018/2019) in Canada as Visiting Scholar at Massey College, The University of Toronto, Visiting Professor at St. Michael’s College, The University of Toronto, and Visiting Professor at Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies, York University.
Filed under: Academic, Announcement, Education, Ideas, Media Ecology, New Media, Scholars, Technology, Webinar | Leave a Comment
Tags: academic, communication, culture, education, ideas, Internet, media ecology, technology, Webinar
PandeMedia and Folklores from the Lockdown Age
Join us for the ninth Monday Night Webinar, Monday JUNE 22, 8:00-10:00 PM EST: PandeMedia and Folklores from the Lockdown Age.
In a playful, relaxed, and experimental online format, a panel of participants will explore the mosaic of the metaphoric global village in light of the current global crisis, as a source of knowledge and inspiration.
Hosted by PAOLO GRANATA
Special guests:
Julia Hildebrand, Luigi Ferrara, Mike Plugh, Corey, Anton
LINKS to the live stream:
Marshall McLuhan Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1394898027486287
The McLuhan Institute YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXNffV0J5hc
Biographies of the Guest Speakers
Dr. JULIA HILDEBRAND is an Assistant Professor of Communication at Eckerd College, Florida. Her research focuses on critical media studies and mobilities research with a special interest in mobile technologies, visual communication, and human-machine interactions. Her work has been published in journals such as Media, Culture, & Society, Explorations in Media Ecology, Mobile Media & Communication, and Mobilities. She is currently working on a book about camera drones as mobile media, titled Aerial Play: Media, Communication, Mobility, and Drones (Palgrave Macmillan). In 2019, she was awarded the John Culkin Award for Outstanding Praxis (with Barry Vacker) and the Walter Benjamin Award for Outstanding Article in the Field of Media Ecology (with Nick Grodsky and Ernest Hakanen). Just last week, she won the Harold A. Innis Award for Outstanding Dissertation in the Field of Media Ecology. Originally from Germany, Julia serves on the Executive Board of the Media Ecology Association. (https://tinyurl.com/ybzvboyw)
LUIGI FERRARA is the Dean of the Centre for Arts, Design and Information Technology at George Brown College in Toronto. He is a Registered Architect with seal, a member of the Ontario Association of Architects and the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada as well as an Honorary Member of the Association of Chartered Industrial Designers of Ontario. In 2002, Luigi was appointed the Director of the School of Design at George Brown College. In 2007, his portfolio was enlarged and he was appointed Director, Centre for Arts and Design. In 2014, Luigi was appointed Dean of the Centre for Arts, Design and Information Technology. He also leads the Institute without Boundaries, George Brown College’s interdisciplinary think and do tank. He has served on the Board of the International Council of the Societies of Industrial Design (now World Design Organization WDO) and was elected President from 2003–2005. He is currently a WDO Senator. In 1995, Luigi Ferrara founded the Architectural Literacy Forum (ALF), a non-profit organization composed of volunteer architects committed to promoting the public appreciation of the built environment. Early in his career, Luigi worked for the internationally recognized architectural firm Stirling, Wilford Associates, and with local firms Peter Turner Architects, Paul Reuber Architect and Russocki Zawadzki Architects. He is a graduate with distinction of the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Toronto.
(https://www.georgebrown.ca/bio/luigi-ferrara-0)
MIKE PLUGH completed his PhD in the Media and Communication program at Temple University, and was a Lecturer in the Department of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University for four years before taking a position as an Assistant Professor of Communication at Manhattan College. Mike’s scholarship is informed by the media ecology and general semantics traditions, particularly with respect to the writing of Neil Postman. His masters thesis “Progressive Political Identity Construction in Web-Based Social Network Environments”was completed at Fordham University. Mike has been teaching for over 9 years, including several years with children and teens, and with undergraduate students at Manhattan College, Fordham University, Akita International University, and Ursinus College. Mike is the President of the New York State Communication Association. (https://mikeplugh.wordpress.com/about/)
COREY ANTON is an award-winning teacher and author at Grand Valley State University in Michigan as well as a Fellow of the International Communicology Institute. His publications can be found in journals such as “Philosophy and Rhetoric”, “Communication Theory,” “Human Studies,” and “The American Journal of Semiotics.” His books include: Selfhood and Authenticity (2001, SUNY Press), Sources of Significance: Worldly Rejuvenation and Neo-Stoic Heroism (2010, Purdue University Press), Communication Uncovered: General Semantics and Media Ecology (2011, Institute of General Semantics) and the edited collections Valuation and Media Ecology: Ethics, Morals, and Laws (2010, Hampton Press), Korzybski And… (with Lance Strate, 2012, Institute of General Semantics) and Taking Up McLuhan’s Cause (with Lance Strate and Robert K. Logan, 2017, Intellect, Ltd). Anton currently serves on the Board of Trustees for the Institute of General Semantics, and on the editorial boards of The Atlantic Journal of Communication, Media Ethics, and Explorations in Media Ecology. (https://tinyurl.com/y7kypvjp)
Filed under: Academic, Announcement, Education, Ideas, Media Ecology, New Media, Scholars, Technology, Webinar | Leave a Comment
Tags: academic, communication, culture, education, ideas, Internet, media ecology, technology, Webinar
You are invited to a Webinar Sponsored by The Israeli Chamber of Information Technology
Monday, June 22 at 11 AM Eastern Time in North America on ZOOM
The ZOOM Link for REGISTERING for the webinar is below:-
https://forms.gle/yLWdj7A7rNXM5vjQ6
REGISTRANTS WILL RECEIVE A ZOOM LINK CLOSER TO THE EVENT.
This webinar is being offered to report on a highly successful educational project at Hamanchil School in the city of Ramat Gan in Israel that was based upon ideas found in the 1978 book City as Classroom: Understanding Language and Media (1977), co-authored by Marshall McLuhan, Kathryn Hutchon and Eric McLuhan.
The Speakers will be:-
ELI FRANK – Chairman of the Israeli Chamber of Information Technology – Opening and Greetings
EDNA PASHER, PhD – Founder & Chair of the Israel Smart Cities Institute will describe the Hamanchil School Project, the goal of which was to expose children ages 9-14 to the emerging “Smart Cities” phenomenon.
SHAI GERSHON – Head of Innovative Technology Center in Learning, The Israeli Chamber of Information Technology
AYALA ALBAZ – Principal of Hamanchil School – From theory to particular.
ROBERT K. LOGAN, PhD (University of Toronto) – The model of community of practice and knowledge management.
ANDREW MCLUHAN – Director, The McLuhan Institute – ‘(Smart) City as Classroom.’
ALEXANDER KUSKIS, PhD (University of Toronto) – Marshall McLuhan’s prescriptions for institutional learning in the post-literate era.
ADDENDUM: (June 26, 2020) – The link for viewing this webinar on YouTube: https://youtu.be/gvq_1S444F0
Filed under: Announcement, Education, Ideas, Media Ecology, New Media, Students, Technology, Webinar | Leave a Comment
Tags: communication, culture, education, Eric McLuhan, ideas, McLuhan, Webinar
PandeMedia and Folklores from the Lockdown Age
Join us for the eighth Monday Night Webinar, Monday JUNE 15, 8:00-10:00 PM EST: PandeMedia and Folklores from the Lockdown Age.
In a playful, relaxed, and experimental online format, a panel of participants will explore the mosaic of the metaphoric global village in light of the current global crisis, as a source of knowledge and inspiration.
Hosted by PAOLO GRANATA
Special guests:
Sandra Danilovic, Adam Lauder, Alessandro Colombi, Jean-François Vallée
LINKS to the live stream:
Marshall McLuhan Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1394898027486287
The McLuhan Institute YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuG9fR4l1dM
Biographies of the Guest Speakers
SANDRA DANILOVIC is an Assistant Professor, Game Design and Development, Faculty of Human and Social Sciences at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. She received a PhD in Information Studies from the University of Toronto, an MA in Media Production from Ryerson University, and a BFA in Film and Video Production from York University. Prior to my doctoral training, I was an award-winning documentary filmmaker and multimedia artist with over ten years of professional experience in the creative industries. About her research interests she writes: “The main focus of my humanistic research is personal storytelling through digital game design. I organize game jams and draw on arts-based methods to study the therapeutic processes of game designers making games about mental illness, emotional trauma and disability”… See https://tinyurl.com/ydx34wpj
ADAM LAUDER is a doctoral student at the University of Toronto. Formerly he was W.P. Scott Chair for Research in e-Librarianship at York University. Lauder has contributed articles to the journals Art Documentation, Future Anterior, The Journal of Canadian Art History, Technoetic Arts, TOPIA and Visual Resources (with Marcia Salmon) as well as features to magazines including Border Crossings, C, Canadian Art and Hunter and Cook. He is the editor of a book published by YYZBOOKS, H& IT ON (2012), and curator of the exhibitions It’s Alive! Bertram Brooker and Vitalism (2009-11) and Imaging Disaster (with Cassandra Getty, 2013).
(https://tinyurl.com/ybmomegj)
ALESSANDRO COLOMBI is an italian pedagogue, hypertext historian, technology educator, media ecologist. Associate professor at the Faculty of education of the Free university of Bolzano, enthusiast Mcluhanian and Postmanian, he is humbly but passionately promoting a new declination for Media Ecology called digital ecology, a pre-paradigm for the Media ecology pre-paradigm that should help us on better facing the Maelström, even more on relaunching the role of Me in the academic and public discourse.
(https://tinyurl.com/y7qafgtp)
JEAN-FRANÇOIS VALLÉE is a Professor at Collège de Maisonneuve, Lettres, arts et histoire de l’art where he teaches literature and communication in the French Department in Montreal. He is interested in issues relating to Renaissance literature (the dialogue genre, utopia, satire…), the history of communications, book history, media ecology and the fate of reading and writing in digital environments. I have co-edited a collection of essays on Renaissance dialogue (PRINTED VOICES: The Renaissance Culture of Dialogue, University of Toronto Press, 2004) and another on comparative literature (TRANSMÉDIATIONS, Presses de l’université de Montréal, 2012). I have also published book chapters and articles in scholarly journals on writers of the Renaissance and the 17th century … as well as on print culture and communication theory (on Marshall McLuhan especially).
(https://cmaisonneuve.academia.edu/jfvallee)
Filed under: Academic, Announcement, Education, Ideas, Media Ecology, New Media, Scholars, Technology, Webinar | Leave a Comment
Tags: academic, communication, culture, education, ideas, Internet, media ecology, technology, Webinar
PandeMedia and Folklores from the Lockdown Age
Join us for the seventh Monday Night Webinar, Monday JUNE 8, 8:00-10:00 PM EST: PandeMedia and Folklores from the Lockdown Age.
In a playful, relaxed, and experimental online format, a panel of participants will explore the mosaic of the metaphoric global village in light of the current global crisis, as a source of knowledge and inspiration.
Hosted by Paolo Granata
Special guests:
Richard Grusin, Andrey Miroshnichenko, David Nostbakken, Beatriz Polivinov
LINKS to the live stream:
Marshall McLuhan Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1394898027486287
The McLuhan Institute YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiKkTCebF34
Biographies of the Guest Speakers
RICHARD GRUSIN was re-named C21 Director starting with the 2017-18 academic year and is a Professor of English at University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee. He previously served as director from 2010-15. Professor Grusin received his Ph.D. from the University of California–Berkeley, and has held faculty appointments at the College of William and Mary, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Wayne State (where he chaired the Department of English from 2001 to 2008). He brings an outstanding record of institutional service and interdisciplinary scholarship to UWM, and is the author of four books: Transcendentalist Hermeneutics: Institutional Authority and the Higher Criticism of the Bible (Duke, 1991); Remediation: Understanding New Media (MIT, 1999), co-authored with Jay David Bolter; Culture, Technology, and the Creation of America’s National Parks (Cambridge, 2004); Premediation: Affect and Mediality After 9/11 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). (https://uwm.edu/c21/about/staff/richard-grusin/)
ANDREY MIROSHNICHENKO – I am a media futurologist and journalist with 20+ years in the print media. I had been working as an editor in the press for more than twenty years, then wrote the book “When newspapers die” and left the sport. Since 2010, I have worked as a media theorist, consultant and columnist on media for various outlets. I am a coordinator for the Russian Association of Futurologists, a Fulbright-Kennan scholar (Wilson Center in Washington, DC, 2012-13). Currently I am a PhD student in communication and culture at York University, Toronto with the focus on media ecology, impacts of new media, and fake news. My previous dissertation, in journalism and linguistics, focused on semantic and linguistic structures of propaganda (1996). My books explore a range of ideas related to media in the areas of linguistics, politics, PR, corporate communication, journalism, transhumanism, and singularity. My blog at https://human-as-media.com/ deals with old and new media.
DAVID NOSTBAKKEN, PhD is the President of N + N (Nostbakken and Nostbakken Inc) with a focus on Strategic Communication, Social Marketing, and Social Entrepreneurship. For more than thirty years, Nostbakken and Nostbakken Inc. (N&N) has provided strategic planning, research and evaluation, management auditing, concept development, interpretive planning, creative direction, production, facilitation and training services to a wide variety of clients in Canada and abroad. Dr. Nostbakken was Founding President of WETV Network International, a global network on sustainable development, carried worldwide through 50 broadcast partners. In his former role as Director of Communications with Canada’s International Development Research Centre, he inaugurated a teachers’ institute bringing educators to Costa Rica for a practicum in developing environmental curriculum. Dr. Nostbakken has a Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in educational theory, specializing in communication, from the University of Toronto, where he was teaching assistant to Marshall McLuhan. His research and teaching at university level have since focused on effective uses of new technologies for public education and social change. (https://www.wise-qatar.org/biography/david-nostbakken/)
BEATRIZ POLIVINOV is a tenured professor at the Media and Cultural Studies Department, and of the Graduate Program in Communication at Fluminense Federal University (UFF), Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She is currently a visiting professor at the AHCS Department at McGill University (March 2019 – March 2020), where she develops her new research entitled “Electronic music scenes and social network sites: feminine (in)visibility in Brazil and Canada”. She obtained her doctoral and MA degrees, with funding from Brazilian agency CAPES. She holds a BA in Arts (English and Portuguese Languages and Literatures) and a licentiate degree in Education from Rio de Janeiro Federal University (UFRJ), concluded “cum laude”. She is the author of the book “Identity dynamics in social network sites: a study with participants of electronic music scenes on Facebook” (published in Portuguese, in 2014, based on her PhD thesis).
(https://www.mcgill.ca/ahcs/people-contacts/postdocs/beatriz-polivanov)
Filed under: Academic, Announcement, Education, Ideas, Media Ecology, New Media, Scholars, Technology, Webinar | 1 Comment
Tags: academic, communication, culture, education, ideas, Internet, media ecology, technology, Webinar
PandeMedia and Folklores from the Lockdown Age
Join us for the sixth Monday Night Webinar, Monday JUNE 1st, 8:00-10:00 PM EST: PandeMedia and Folklores from the Lockdown Age.
In a playful, relaxed, and experimental online format, a panel of participants will explore the mosaic of the metaphoric global village in light of the current global crisis, as a source of knowledge and inspiration.
Hosted by Paolo Granata
Special guests:
B.W. Powe, Jaqueline McLeod Rogers, Carolin Aronis, Cathy Adams
LINKS to the live stream:
Marshall McLuhan Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1394898027486287
The McLuhan Institute YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CwNUkO4biw
Biographies of the Guest Speakers
B.W. POWE has been teaching in the English Department at York University in Toronto since 1995. He is a writer – poet, novelist, essayist, and critic. His influential writings on Marshall McLuhan, Northrop Frye, and Pierre Trudeau have been widely-praised, as have his poetry and novels, including Outage and These Shadows Remain, longlisted for the ReLit Prize. His current research has been into visionary and mystical traditions. He has also been involved in literacy initiatives involving both York University and Frontier College. He earned an MA degree from the University of Toronto, where he studied with Marshall McLuhan and Northrop Frye. He earned a PhD from York University in Toronto with a thesis on McLuhan and Frye, their crossings in history, their agon and complementarity (their conflicts and harmonies), and the stirring alchemy of their thought. (https://pennyspoetry.fandom.com/wiki/B.W._Powe)
JAQUELINE MCLEOD-ROGERS is a Professor, and Chair of the Department of Rhetoric, Writing, and Communications at the University of Winnipeg. She is a feminist scholar with a long-term commitment to developing and promoting writing and language-based education courses responsive to cultural diversity. Her central research interest is in urban rhetorics, which aims at developing the language of relationship and revealing complex relational networks – revealing the self in social and material contexts, amidst a spinning web of relational ties. Her research and publications are on urban media, rhetorics, and on Marshall McLuhan. She recently co-edited a special edition of the journal Imaginations on “McLuhan and the Arts” (published online December 2017; in print, 2018). She is currently completing a 5-chapter book on McLuhan’s city (under contract with Lexington Books). ( https://www.uwinnipeg.ca/class/researchers/jaqueline-mcleod-rogers.html)
CAROLIN ARONIS is an Affiliated Faculty member of Communication Studies at Colorado State University, and a Postdoctoral Scholar and a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Communication at Boulder. Her research is placed at the intersection of critical media studies, media ecology, gender studies, architecture, and rhetoric of racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism. Much of her work relates to innovative communicative perspectives on media, intimacy, urban life, motherhood, activism, and death. She holds a PhD in Media and Communication Studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2015). Her PhD research, “Mediated Public Intimacy,” earned the distinguished four-year Hebrew University Presidential Scholarship. She completed part of her doctoral work as a visiting scholar at the University of Colorado in Boulder. (https://www.libarts.colostate.edu.people.aronis)
CATHY ADAMS is affiliated with the Faculty of Education’s Technology and Learning Sciences Lab (TALS) at the University of Alberta. She is currently a Mitacs Research Council (MRC) board member, a member of the executive board of the Media Ecology Association, and part of the Pan-Canadian K-12 Computer Science Framework Advisory Group. She has served as Pedagogy Editor for Explorations in Media Ecology, and on the editorial executive of the open access journal, Phenomenology and Practice. Other projects include maintaining Max van Manen’s phenomenologyonline.com website, a popular resource for human science researchers. She recently headed up the research assessment team for the CanCode-funded Callysto project, a free, interactive, curriculum-based Computational Thinking and Data Science development tool for schools. Drawing on links between phenomenology, pedagogy, and philosophy of technology and media scholarship, Dr. Adams’ research program addresses digital technology integration across K-12 and post-secondary educational environments; ethical and pedagogical issues involving digital media in schools… (https://apps.ualberta.ca/directory/person/caadams)
B.W. Powe’s latest book, The Charge in the Global Membrane, which has received rave reviews. See
https://tinyurl.com/yclmz5zw
Filed under: Academic, Announcement, Education, Ideas, Media Ecology, New Media, Scholars, Technology, Webinar | Leave a Comment
Tags: academic, communication, culture, education, ideas, Internet, media ecology, technology, Webinar
Marshall McLuhan, the Man Behind Québec’s October Crisis? A Webinar
A Webinar Presented by the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada
Marshall McLuhan perhaps is best known for his contributions to communication theory and his precepts about the effects of technology upon culture and society. In the 1960s and 1970s – the height of McLuhan’s career as Canada’s preeminent media guru – McLuhan worked largely within the confines of the University of Toronto, far away from the social and political unrest fermenting in Québec during those years. Yet, from McLuhan’s writings and public pronouncements at that time and toward the end of his life, we know he had not been insensitive to the plight of Québec francophones. However, two of McLuhan’s contemporaries, his Toronto colleague Northrop Frye and Montreal author Hugh MacLennan, accused McLuhan of stirring up trouble in Québec. McLuhan’s open friendship with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau ostensibly was behind Frye’s assertion that McLuhan was interfering in Québec’s affairs. MacLennan believed McLuhan’s contentions about mediated environments were abetting French nationalist sentiment in the province.
Jonathan Slater is director of the Institute for Ethics in Public Life at SUNY Plattsburgh, where he chairs the Department of Journalism and Public Relations and directs the Jewish Studies program. Slater also is a faculty associate of the college’s Center for the Study of Canada. He currently is researching and writing a book about mass media’s role in the tumultuous years between Québec’s Quiet Revolution and the October Crisis. Slater completed his doctorate in media ecology at New York University.
This event was brought to you by the BMP Rotating Lecture Program in Canadian Studies, established in 2013 as a formal partnership among the Canadian Studies programs of McGill University, Bridgewater State University and SUNY College at Plattsburgh. The Lectureship is designed to strengthen connections between the programs, share expertise in the area of Canadian Studies, and to expand audiences and interests in the field.
The webinar will be followed by a Q&A. Simultaneous interpretation (English, French) will be provided.
Free, registration required.
Source: https://tinyurl.com/y865fl54
Filed under: 1960s, Academic, Announcement, Commentary, Education, Ideas, Media Events, politics, Scholars, Webinar | Leave a Comment
Tags: academic, communication, culture, education, ideas, media, Webinar