No. 546 - February 4, 2026

  • Coming Events:

    - Starling Centre Brown Bag: Grad Student Open House
    - Covering Trump in a remarkable moment of change: the concerns and challenges ahead through a Canadian lens
    - Meet the Author Event with FIMS alum Oren Weisfeld (BA'17, MIT)
    - How Right-Wing Populism Came to Canada: Lessons for Journalism in the Rise of the Freedom Convoy
    - Save the Date: Screening of The Librarians documentary

  • Important Dates:

    - Thursday, February 5, 2026 - Meeting of the Board of Governors (10 AM, WIRB)
    - Tuesday, February 10 - Thursday, February 12, 2026 - Elections for Senate and BOG (faculty, staff, grad student)
    - Wednesday, February 11, 2026 - FIMS Faculty Council
    - Friday, February 13, 2026 - Senate (1:30 PM, Great Hall)
    - Monday, February 16, 2026 - Family Day Holiday (no classes, FIMS offices closed)
    - Monday, February 16 - Friday, February 20, 2026 - Western Reading Week

  • News & Announcements:

    - Call for Proposals - Hot Topics: Smouldering Scholarship at FIMS
    - Winter Programming at McIntosh Gallery
    - Canadian Identities Focus Group project seeking participants

  • Awards & Accomplishments:

    - Juan Escobar-Lamanna

  • Publications & Presentations:

    - Chris Arsenault
    - Juan Andrés Bello
    - Grant Campbell
    - Nick Dyer-Witheford
    - Levon Enns-Kutcy (MMJC'25)
    - Angeline Gisonni (MMJC'25)
    - Sarah Marcotte (MLIS'07)
    - Myrna Moretti
    - Alessandra Mularoni
    - Sarah Smith

  • In the Media:

    - Melissa Adler
    - Chris Arsenault
    - Scott Russell (MA'85, Journalism)
    - Luke Stark

  • Activities of Note:

    - Juan Andrés Bello
    - Sarah Smith

  • News from the FIMS Grad Library:

    - Reading Week Hours
    - Upcoming Events at the Library
    - Make of the Month

  • News from Western Libraries:

    - Upcoming Research Skills Workshops

  • Next Issue:


Coming Events

Starling Centre Brown Bag: Grad Student Open House
Wednesday, February 4, 2026
12:00 p.m. - 1:15 p.m.
FNB 4070
Members of the Starling Centre will be available to answer questions about the Centre, their activities, and opportunities for involvement. Light refreshments will be provided, and all interested grad students and postgraduate students are warmly encouraged to attend.

Covering Trump in a remarkable moment of change: the concerns and challenges ahead through a Canadian lens
Thursday, February 5, 2026
5:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. (reception to follow lecture)
Attend in person: Register (McKellar Room, UCC)
Attend online: Register
The 2026 Clissold Lecture is presented by Katie Simpson, CBC News foreign correspondent based in Washington.
Description: What's it like trying to cover news coming out of the Whitehouse as a Canadian journalist on the ground in Washington, DC? Katie Simpson, CBC News' foreign correspondent based in Washington, will share her experiences and shed some light on challenges that could arise for Canadian journalism in the days and months ahead.

Meet the Author Event with FIMS alum Oren Weisfeld (BA'17, MIT)
Thursday, February 12, 2026
1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Dellelce Family Bookstore, UCC Lower Level
Join FIMS alum Oren Weisfeld (MIT'17) as he discusses his recent book publication The Golden Generation: How Canada Became a Basketball Powerhouse. Oren will be joined by Brad Campbell, Western Men's Basketball Coach, and Nate McKibbon, Western Women's Basketball Coach. All are welcome. Hosted by the Dellelce Family Bookstore.

How Right-Wing Populism Came to Canada: Lessons for Journalism in the Rise of the Freedom Convoy
Thursday, February 12, 2026
4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Attend in person: FNB 4130
Attend online: Register on Zoom
Presented by Alanna Acchione, PhD candidate in Media Studies, and Professor Tom Streeter, as part of the FIMS Mediations Lecture Series 2025/25. All are welcome.
Abstract: In December of 2021, some hard right wing activists used social media to organize a demonstration in Ottawa against vaccine mandates, less than 100 participants showed up, and it was ignored. A month later, some of the same individuals helped organize what would become known as the "Freedom Convoy," which became a major news story and transformed Canadian politics. What had changed? There is no evidence that the politics of the organizers had suddenly gained more adherents (continue reading).

Save the Date: Screening of The Librarians documentary
Monday, February 23, 2026
6:30 p.m. - 8:45 p.m.
Wolf Performance Hall
Central Library - 251 Dundas St.
Join the Faculty of Information and Media Studies (FIMS) and the London Public Library for a screening of the 2025 film The Librarians as part of Freedom to Read Week (February 23 - March 1). The film will be followed by a panel discussion about censorship. All are welcome (read more).


Important Dates

- Thursday, February 5, 2026 - Meeting of the Board of Governors (10 AM, WIRB)
- Tuesday, February 10 - Thursday, February 12, 2026 - Elections for Senate and BOG (faculty, staff, grad student)
- Wednesday, February 11, 2026 - FIMS Faculty Council
- Friday, February 13, 2026 - Senate (1:30 PM, Great Hall)
- Monday, February 16, 2026 - Family Day Holiday (no classes, FIMS offices closed)
- Monday, February 16 - Friday, February 20, 2026 - Western Reading Week


News & Announcements

Call for Proposals - Hot Topics: Smouldering Scholarship in FIMS
Our fields are awash in polarizing topics. Issues such as the rapid growth of generative AI, the spread of misinformation, and ever-increasing instances of censorship have led to hostility, mistrust, and exhaustion, both within our fields and in the world writ large. These matters reflect a range of cultural, social and technological challenges that require interrogation.

For the FIMS 2026 Graduate Conference, we invite students and faculty to propose papers on these subjects, which we designate as ‘hot topics:’ the simmering, smouldering, or downright scorching issues we face at the intersection of media studies, library and information science, and health information science. Conference date: March 27, 2026. We invite all FIMS graduate students to submit proposals—if there is a hot-button issue in your area of research, we want to hear about it. No topic is too niche!

Winter Programming at McIntosh Gallery
McIntosh Gallery invites you to join them for upcoming Winter programming. Enjoy current exhibitions Atmospheric Shifts: Wall Dion, Lisa Hirmer, David Spriggs, and *(s)twerH: Andrew Maize, or attend a number of other scheduled events including:

  • Mindful Mondays - Feb 23, March 23, April 20
  • A Space of Cloud/Not Cloud - Feb 9
  • McIntosh Gallery and Art Now! present: Atmospheric Shifts and Turbulent Times - Feb 26
  • The Reciprocal Benefits of Interdisciplinary Collaboration - March 2
  • Curatorial Talk and Tour - March 21

For full event details, visit the McIntosh Gallery online calendar.

Canadian Identities Focus Group project seeking participants
"Interrogating Canadian Identities / Les identités canadiennes — une interrogation (ICI)" - PI: Professor Anne F. MacLennan. Students and faculty are invited to participate in a focus group discussion as part of a research study. Participants will talk about what being Canadian means or what living in Canada means to them. These insights will help the research team gain a deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities in representing Canadian identity in the media.

If you are interested in participating or have any questions about the study, please contact: canadianid2024@gmail.com. Focus groups over Zoom and in person will run until April. For more information about the project and our research team, please visit our website: https://www.yorku.ca/laps/research/ici/ 


Awards & Accomplishments

Media Studies PhD candidate Juan Escobar-Lamanna successfully defended his thesis titled Playing Against Ableism: Disabled Player and Developer Approaches to Videogame Accessibility on January 30, 2026.


Publications & Presentations

Assistant Professor Chris Arsenault, Levon Enns-Kutcy and Angeline Gisonni (both MMJC'25), authored the following publication:

Enns-Kutcy, L. W., Lafleur, J., Gisonni, A., & Arsenault, C. (2026, January 23). Mapping the tradecraft behind the investigation that saved Ontario’s Greenbelt. J-Source. https://j-source.ca/mapping-the-tradecraft-behind-the-investigation-that-saved-ontarios-greenbelt/


Assistant Professor Juan Andrés Bello was the Archive Producer for 'The Legacy Lounge', a series that premiered this (last) week on CBC Gem. The series will also be available during Black History Month on CBC’s YouTube channel with weekly episodes beginning Monday, February 2; and on CBC TV at 7:30 p.m. (8 p.m. NT) on Fridays beginning February 27.

Professor Emeritus Grant Campbell is excited to announce the publication of his book, Surviving Dementia Care: the Realities of Caregiving. Copies are arriving in bookstores in February and will be available through Indigo, Amazon, and other bookstores. See happy Grant.

A lightly-edited extract from Nick Dyer-Witheford, Professor Emeritus, and Alessandra Mularoni's (PhD'24, Media Studies) book Cybernetic Circulation Complex: Big Tech and Planetary Crisis was published in the Socialist Project's segment "The Bullet" on January 21, 2026.

Sarah Marcotte (MLIS'07) co-authored a new book with Katherine Scott titled From the Ground Up: Prospect Research for Nonprofits in January 2026. The book is currently the #1 bestseller in Amazon's Nonprofit Marketing & Communication category.

FIMS Postdoctoral Associate Myrna Moretti published the following article:

Moretti, M. (2026). Here Comes the Future: Black Women and Early Digital Culture in Essence. Television & New Media, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/15274764251408733


Associate Professor Sarah Smith shared her research on museum diplomacy as part of the panel “Global Engagement in Museums” organized by ICOM Canada on January 26, 2026. This event was the first in their five-part Global Engagement Webinar Series, which continues through February.

Professor Smith also spoke at the January 28 film screening of Spring in Kangiqsualujjuaq. This event was part of the film series Dis:connected Stories hosted at Werkstattkino with the Katë Hamburger Research Center global dis:connect in Munich, Germany.


In the Media

Melissa Adler (Associate Professor) was interviewed for the New Books Network podcast series to discuss her book, Peculiar Satisfaction (Fordham): https://newbooksnetwork.com/peculiar-satisfaction 

Her book was also featured in the Author's Corner of The Way of Improvement Leads Home: https://thewayofimprovement.blog/2026/01/19/the-authors-corner-with-melissa-adler/ 

Professor Adler was also interviewed by CBC London to talk about the solidarity/memorial ride for Alex Pretti held in London on Saturday, January 31.

Assistant Professor Chris Arsenault is quoted in an article titled "Doug Ford bars reporters from PC convention; journalism professors slam move," published in Now Toronto on January 29, 2026.

Professor Arsenault also participated in an interview published by the Michener Awards on January 28 titled, "What does it take to win a Michener Award?"

Lastly, a Q&A with Professor Arsenault titled "Teaching Investigative Journalism by Showing, Not Telling" in which he discusses his Michener Award project How They Did It was published on the FIMS website on January 19.

FIMS Journalism alumnus Scott Russell (MA'85) was featured in an article titled "After working 17 Olympics, retired broadcaster Russell will watch Milan Games as a fan," published in the Toronto Star on January 31.

Assistant Professor Luke Stark is quoted in an articled titled "New platform Moltbook lets AI agents run free," published by CTV News on February 3.


Activities of Note

Assistant Professor Juan Andrés Bello participated on a panel discussion on the film ‘Once Upon a Time in Venezuela’ at Huron’s College Frank Holmes Centre for Leadership, Ethics & Entrepreneurship’s Theater. This was organized by Huron’s Center for Global Studies and Western’s WE Collab (Department of Anthropology).

Associate Professor Sarah Smith is co-convening the upcoming workshop Agonistic Museum Diplomacy: How do museums deal with conflicts? The workshop will be hosted by the Agentur für Internationale Museumskooperation/Agency for International Museum Cooperation in Berlin, Germany on February 11, 2026. This event is a part of an ongoing research collaboration between Sarah Smith, Joachim Baur, Friederike Landau-Donnelly, and Sascha Priewe funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft/German Research Foundation.



News from the FIMS Grad Library

Reading Week Hours

The Grad Library will be closed from Saturday, February 14th, to Friday, February 20th. If you would like access to the library during this time, please feel free to email fimslib@uwo.ca to discuss arrangements.

  • Regular hours will resume Saturday, February 21st at 12:00pm.

Upcoming Events at the Library

The FGL hosts workshops, lectures, and community events each term to support graduate teaching, learning, and research. Events are posted to our website (https://lib.fims.uwo.ca/events/) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/fimsgradlib/)

Freedom to Read: A Screening of The Librarians

Join us during Freedom to Read week for a screening of The Librarians, a documentary about book banning. Two hours of free parking at Citi Plaza is available. Pick up a parking voucher from the main desk at Central Library.

https://www.uwo.ca/events/2026/02/the-librarians.html 

Monday, February 23, 2026
6:30 pm – 8:45 pm
The Wolf Performance Hall
251 Dundas St, London, ON N6A 6H9

Book Bans and Beyond: Navigating Intellectual Freedom in the Digital Age

This panel explores how intellectual freedom is being challenged across research, public discourse, and digital environments, and what academic communities and information professionals can do in response. The discussion connects freedom to read with freedom to research, data integrity, privacy, and democratic participation.

Thursday, February 26, 2026
1:00 pm – 2:30 pm
Scholars Lab, The D. B. Weldon Library (ground floor)

Register here: https://forms.office.com/r/0RJnHH333i 

More information here: https://www.uwo.ca/events/2026/02/navigating-intellectual-freedom-panel.html 

Make of the Month – February – Spring Festival/Lunar New Year Word Decor

The Mandarin Chinese character for spring is 春, pronounced chūn, and it visually combines the sun (日) and sprouting plants (艸), symbolizing new life and growth after winter. This character is often found in decorations celebrating Chinese/Lunar New Year (February 17, 2026) and Spring Festival (February 17 – March 3, 2026).

This month, in the library, we’re making 3D paper word decor featuring this special character. Spring might seem like an eternity away, but Spring Festival is right around the corner. So, brighten up your space with this cute design which you can place on any surface or hang with string. Takes only a few minutes, and all materials are provided. Drop in anytime in February and ask at the service desk for supplies.


News from Western Libraries

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.


To find more upcoming Western Library events and workshops visit the Western Libraries Events page. Western Libraries has also launched a new newsletter which brings you timely updates on services, programs, and resources at Western libraries—designed to support your academic work, if you'd like to subscribe, please visit: Western Libraries Newsletter. 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.

The next issue of the FIMS Bulletin will be published on Wednesday, February 18, 2026. Please submit any items by noon on Tuesday, February 17, 2026.