Research
Contact Information
Research Officer
Chantal Lemire
clemire2@uwo.ca
519-661-2111x85383
FIMS & Nursing Building
Rm 4054
Assistant Dean Research
Isola Ajiferuke
iajiferu@uwo.ca
519-661-2111x81364
FIMS & Nursing Building
Rm 4025
Rogers Chair
Current Chair holder: Professor Amanda Grzyb, July 1, 2025 - June 30, 2027
Speaker Series Topic: Media and the New Fascism
This speaker series focuses on the global rise of authoritarianism, white supremacy, right-wing populism, and ultranationalism – as well as organized resistance to these movements – through the lenses of journalism, big tech, social media, and information studies. It brings together scholars, journalists, information professionals, and social movement leaders to foster interdisciplinary dialogue and public engagement about how twenty-first century authoritarian movements operate through cultural production, digital infrastructure, and epistemic control. Each session examines a distinct facet of this transformation: the rise of a techno-oligarchic elite; the expansion of the carceral state through anti-immigrant policy; the weaponization of disinformation, censorship, and chaos; the global battle over historical memory; and attacks on educational institutions. The series also explores democratic and anti-fascist resistance — what it looks like today, who is leading it, and how media and information professionals are contributing.
2025-2027 Research Themes
Media and the New Fascism: Right-Wing Populism and Authoritarianism
This theme explores the rise of fascism around the globe by comparing historical and contemporary examples of nationalism, propaganda, and manufactured grievance. It will focus, in particular, on cultural productions, media spectacles, and the normalization of extremism.
Tech Bros and the New Oligarchy
This theme explores the rise of billionaire technocrats, techno-libertarianism, artificial intelligence, and the privatization of governance and digital infrastructure. It also explores the role of social media, infrastructure monopolies, and algorithmic power, highlighting the overlap between Silicon Valley, crypto, and right-wing authoritarianism.
The New Gulag: White Supremacy, Anti-Immigrant Racism, and the Carceral State
This theme explores white nationalism, anti-immigrant scapegoating, mass deportations, and mass incarceration. From media narratives about crime and “invasion” to mega-prisons, this theme examines incarceration as a primary tool of authoritarian regimes.
Digital Authoritanariansim, Censorship, and "Flooding the Zone"
This theme focuses on disinformation and propaganda strategies, surveillance, censorship via chaos, and the erosion of public discourse.
Memory Wars: Archives, Algorithms, and the Battle of Historical Narrative
This theme explores historical revisionism and curricular bans; algorithmic erasure and digital memory; and decolonial archives, counter-memory, and collective resistance.
The University Under Siege: Authoritarianism and the Politics of Knowledge
This theme explores attacks on academic freedom and critical pedagogy; “anti-woke” legislative assaults on critical race theory and gender studies; as well as the defunding and disciplining of public institutions, K-12 education, and the university sector.
The New Insurgency: Resisting the Erosion of Democracy
This theme explores grassroots movements, democratic renewal, and radical hope through social movements, direct action, digital organizing, legal challenges, and activist media.
More information
Upcoming Events
Black Muslim Refugee: Militarism, Policing, and Somali American Resistance to State Violence in Minneapolis and Beyond
Wednesday, February 25, 2026
4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Spencer Engineering Building (SEB) 2202
Register now.
Everyone is welcome to attend!
Presented by Dr. Maxamed Abumaye, Ohio State University, Department of African American and African Studies.
Speaker bio: Maxamed Abumaye, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor in the Department of African American and African Studies at The Ohio State University. He is the author of the book Black Muslim Refugee: Militarism, Policing, and Somali American Resistance to State Violence (University of California Press, 2025). This multisited project, the first of its kind, exposes the links between US military violence abroad and police brutality at home through a profound exploration of Somali refugee lives. Black Muslim Refugee traces the globe-spanning journeys of these refugees, from civil war–era Somalia to the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya to their eventual arrival in San Diego, and Maxamed Abu-maye analyzes their experiences through the dual lenses of anti-Blackness and Islamophobia. He situates their displacement within the larger context of East Africa's colonial history, as well as the policy consequences of the American-backed war on terror and war on drugs. Throughout, Abu-maye's centering of Somali subjectivity underlines this community's critical and creative capacity to defy the mechanisms that seek to "manage" and ultimately control them.
This public talk is sponsered by the FIMS Rogers Chair of Studies in Journalism and New Information Technology and the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies.
Previous Events
Risk Capital: The Right-Wing Origins of Venture Capital
January 15, 2026
Featuring M.R. Sauter, University of Maryland College of Information. Co-hosted by the Starling Centre for Just Technologies and Just Societies and the FIMS Rogers Chair of Studies in Journalism and New Information Technology.
Dying for Something: Notes for the Study of Modern Martyrdom in an Authoritarian Age
Friday, December 5, 2025
Featuring Marisol Lopez Menendez, Professor of Political and Social Studies, Iberoamerican University, Mexico City. Co-hosted by the Transitional Justice Centre's Speakers Series, the FIMS Rogers Chair of Studies in Journalism and New Information Technology, the Department of Sociology, the Centre for the Study of Theory and Criticism and the Hispanic Studies Program in the Department of Languages and Cultures.
Reactionary Futurism: The Rise of Technofacism in Silicon Valley
October 30, 2025
Featuring Becca Lewis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Co-hosted by the FIMS Rogers Chair and the Starling Centre for Just Technologies and Just Societies.
Threads that Unite Us | Hilos que Nos Unen
October 2 & October 3, 2025
A collective embroidery gathering led by Salvadoran embroiderer and visiting artist Teresa Cruz. Co-sponsored by the FIMS and the Rogers Chair of Studies in Journalism and New Information Technology, the Department of Anthropology, the Department of Visual Arts, the Department of Languages and Cultures, the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies, the Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador project, the Liberia CRSV project, and Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen. It was also supported by the Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
About Amanda Grzyb
Amanda Grzyb is a professor in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at Western University. Her primary teaching and research interests include documentation of state violence, comparative genocide studies, media and the public interest, memory studies, oral history, social movements, memorials and commemoration processes, and social justice. Professor Grzyb is the project director for Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador (2017-2028), an international, interdisciplinary, cross-sector research partnership founded in 2017. She is also a co-applicant on SSHRC-funded partnership project titled Commemorating the Experiences of Liberian Women Survivors of Conflict Related Sexual Violence for Collective Healing (2024-2027). Grzyb has previously served eight years as an elected Senator in Western University's Senate, and as a member of the University of Western Ontario Faculty Association (UWOFA), she has also held various positions, including board member, communications officer, and FIMS union steward. She is currently one of UWOFA's directors on the CAUT Defence Fund. In 2022, she received a CAUT Dedicated Service Award to recognize her work with the union. Read Professor Grzyb's full profile.
Previous Rogers Chair Appointees
- James Compton, Associate Professor, Faculty of Information and Media Studies, The University of Western Ontario, July 1, 2023 - June 30, 2025
- Anabel Quan-Haase, Professor, Faculty of Information and Media Studies and the Faculty of Social Science, The University of Western Ontario, July 1, 2021 - June 30, 2023.
- Matt Stahl, Associate Professor, Faculty of Information and Media Studies, The University of Western Ontario, July 1, 2019 - June 30, 2021.
- Sharon Sliwinski, Associate Professor, Faculty of Information and Media Studies, The University of Western Ontario, July 1, 2017-June 30, 2019.
- Nick Dyer-Witheford, Associate Professor, Faculty of Information and Media Studies, The University of Western Ontario, July 1, 2015-June 30, 2017.
- Grant Campbell, Associate Professor, Faculty of Information and Media Studies, The University of Western Ontario, July 1, 2013-June 30, 2015.
- Alison Hearn, Associate Professor, Faculty of Information and Media Studies, The University of Western Ontario, July 1, 2011-June 30, 2013.
- Daniel Robinson, Associate Professor, Faculty of Information and Media Studies, The University of Western Ontario, July 1, 2010-June 30, 2011.
- Jonathan Burston, Associate Professor, Faculty of Information and Media Studies, The University of Western Ontario, July 1, 2009-June 30, 2010.
- Edward Comor, Associate Professor, Faculty of Information and Media Studies, The University of Western Ontario, July 1, 2007-June 30, 2009.
- Sasha Torres, Associate Professor, Faculty of Information and Media Studies, The University of Western Ontario, July 1, 2005-June 30, 2007.
- David Spencer, Professor, Faculty of Information and Media Studies, The University of Western Ontario, July 1, 2003-June 30, 2005.
- Anantha Babbili, visiting professor from Texas Christian University, Forth Worth TX, September 1, 2000-April 30, 2001.
- John Downing, visiting professor from The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX, May 1, 2000-August 31, 2000.
- John Lent, visiting professor from Temple University, Philadelphia PA, January 1, 2000-April 30, 2000.
About the Rogers Chair
The Rogers Chair of Studies in Journalism and New Information Technology reflects a commitment to interdisciplinary studies in media and information technology, with a base in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies. Support for the Chair is provided by an endowment from Rogers Communications Inc., announced in the summer of 1994, and from a long-standing commitment by the Office of the Secretary of State, Government of Canada. The first appointment to the Rogers Chair occurred in January 2000. Exciting new research and teaching possibilities have been created for the University, the Faculty, and its students.
Each term, a public panel, sponsored by the Rogers Chair of Studies in Journalism and New Information Technology, is organized featuring faculty from the three disciplines that make up FIMS: Journalism, Media Studies and Library & Information Science.
The goal of these panels is to encourage faculty and students to discuss how they are thinking about a topic of mutual concern; more specifically, how their professional backgrounds and personal biographies are shaping their views and thoughts.
