Mediations Lecture Series



Mediations is a graduate student-run workshop and guest speaker series supported by the Faculty of Information and Media Studies (FIMS) at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada. The goal of the series is to establish a space in which to display the rich diversity of research and scholarship being pursued at FIMS to the broader Western community.

The Mediations Workshop sessions offer members of the FIMS community a venue in which to present any aspects of their work that engage with ‘Media Studies,’ defined as broadly as possible to incorporate many aspects of this rich, diverse, and loosely defined discipline. Sub-fields or approaches might include: Media and Cultural Theory, Political Economy, Technology/Technoculture, Media History, New Media, Journalism Studies, Library and Information Science, Popular Culture, Popular Music Studies, and Media Aesthetics, to name a few. We welcome both theoretically and empirically-based studies, as well as practice-based engagements with media. Each 1.5-hour session consists of one 30-40 minute presentation followed by two respondents (5-10 minutes each). The remainder of the sessions are devoted to questions from and discussion with the audience.

Logo for SHARP Mediations Presents, a guest speaker series, invites both FIMS and the broader Western community to engage with the work of leading scholars engaging with questions regarding media and mediation, across a variety of interdisciplinary intersections.

For questions please contact the mediations organising committee: mediationsFIMS@gmail.com.

Additional support provided by the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading & Publishing.

Previous Workshops and Lectures

Winter 2022

Mar: "By Women For Women": Communicating Gender Discourse in r/FemaleDatingStrategy
Presented by Brittany Melton, Media Studies PhD student.

Mar: Data collection during the pandemic: When the unwritten rules become the applied rules
Presented by Giada Ferrucci and Sanada Sahoo, Media Studies PhD students, Ebenezer Martin-Yeboah, Health Information Science PhD student and Eunice Annan-Aggrey, Geography and Environment PhD student.

Feb: Storytelling and the Phenomenology of Displacement
Presented by Akram Kangouri, Media Studies PhD student.

2020 - 2021

Oct: Big Data in the Digital Health Landscape: An exploration of apps within the transition to parenting context and the co-production of ethical practice in research with minors
Presented by Danica Facca, Health Information Science PhD student.

Nov: Social Media and 'The House of Fame'
Presented by Ellis Jones, Postdoctoral Researcher.

Nov: Amplifying women's concerns in a time of crisis: A study of women's rights organizations on Twitter during the COVID-19 pandemic
Presented by Charlotte Nau, Media Studies PhD student.

Dec: Interrogating 'Conspiracism:' Exploring Motivations Behind the Academic Treatment of Conspiracy Theories
Presented by David Guignion, Media Studies PhD student.

Feb: An Exercise with Hannah Arendt: Looking at Public and its Collective Responsibility for Government Violence
Presented by Sananda Sahoo, Media Studies PhD student.

Mar: Indigenous voices in the digital age: using digital storytelling to illustrate the lived experiences of urban Indigenous peoples
Presented by Percy Sherwood, Media Studies PhD student and Joy SpearChief-Morris.

Mar: Social Selection of Algorithms
Presented by Alex Mayhew, Library & Information Science student.

Apr: Value Sensitive Design in the Twitter API
Presented by Carolyn Sullivan, MLIS candidate.

Apr: Mapping #MeToo: A synthesis review of digital feminist research across social media platforms
Presented by Professor Anabel Quan-Haase and Darryl Pieber, Media Studies PhD student.

2019 - 2020

Feb: Filtered In/Filtered Out: Locative Media and Social Accessibility in Urban Spaces
Presented by Darryl Pieber, Media Studies PhD student.
Responses from Vicki O'Meara and Charlotte Nau

Dec: Appropriating Play: Twitch.tv, Live Streaming, and Platform Capitalism
Presented by Charlotte Panneton, Media Studies PhD student.
Responses from: Atle Mikkola Kjosen and Aidan Warlow

Nov: Health Justice Extended: Freedom from Aging
Presented by Alex Mayhew, Library & Information Science PhD student.
Responses from Zak Bronson and Kelsang Legden

Oct: Structural Violence: Fostering a Pluralistic View from the Middle
Presented by Eugenia Canas, Health Information Science PhD'19.
Responses from Dr. Jacquelyn Burkell and Warren Steele

2018 - 2019

Mar: Framing Climate Change: Why Does It Matter How We Frame Environment Challenges Today?
Presented by Giada Ferrucci, Media Studies PhD student.
Responses from Carol Hunsberger and Paul Mensink

Dec: Up Close and Impersonal: Locative Media and the Changing Nature of the Networked Individual in the City
Presented by Darryl Pieber, Media Studies PhD student.
Responses from: Mason Brooks

Nov: Re-Imagining Cataloguing: Evolution and Participation
Presented by Alex Mayhew.
Responses from Melissa Adler and Denise Smith.

2017 - 2018

Sept: Pandemic Fame and its Consequences: The Inattention Economy of Online Culture
Presented by: David Marshall, Visiting Scholar at FIMS and Chair in New Media, Communication and Cultural Studies, Deakin University, Australia

Sept: Human Dignity Between Declaration and Curation: The Human Rights Exhibition Album as Cultural Technique
Presented by: Amy Freier
Responses by: Katie Oates and Sonya de Laat

Nov: Prime-Time Minister: Politics, Entertainment and Justin Trudeau
Presented by: Tiara Sukhan

Jan: The Faked Death of Real News: Why Delusion is Here to Stay
Presented by: Andrew Woods, Centre for Theory and Criticism
Responses by: Victoria Rubin and Dylan Hughes

Feb: "I'm Not Evil. I'm Chaotic Neutral!": On the Classification of Internet Trolls
Presented by: Yimin Chen
Responses by: Chandell Gosse and kirstyn seanor

Apr: Capital and Post-Cybernetic Control: On Amazon's Patent for Anticipatory Package Shipping
Presented by: Atle Mikkola Kjøsen
Responses by: Warren Steele and Ryan Schroeder

2016 - 2017

Sept: Fake News or Truth? Using Satirical Cues to Detect Potentially Misleading News
Presented by: Victoria L. Rubin, Niall J. Conroy, Yimin Chen, and Sarah Cornwell
Responses by Vicki O’Meara and Darryl Pieber

Nov: The Entreprecariat: Recording Artists in Extreme Metal Music Proto-Markets
Presented by Jason Netherton
Responses by Norma Coates and Ryan Mack

Feb: Aspirations and Precariousness in the life of Indian IT support service workers
Presented by Indranil Chakraborty
Responses by Edward Comor and James Steinhoff

March: Lewis Hine’s First World War Photographs for the American Red Cross: Interpretations in/of the past for humanitarianism today
Presented by Sonya de Laat
Response by Amy Freier

March, Special Event with PMCP:
A Public Lecture by Dr. Kimi Karki, University of Turku, Finland on Metal Music and Nationalism