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Mediations Lecture Series

Mediations is a graduate student-run workshop and guest speaker series housed in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies (FIMS) at The University of Western Ontario 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.

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.

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2018/2019 Mediations Lecture & Workshop Series

Up Close and Impersonal: Locative Media and the Changing Nature of the Networked Individual in the City
Tuesday, December 11, 2018
4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
FNB 4110
Presented by Darryl Pieber, Media Studies PhD student.
Responses from: Mason Brooks and TBA.

Abstract: This presentation considers locative media apps – location-based apps on mobile devices – and their potential to change how individuals experience urban settings. Locative media further lead toward networked individualism. Networked individualism describes a shift toward multiple, shifting social networks rather than belonging to closely-bounded and often geographically based groups. Because locative media apps draw on how a person moves through an urban space, these apps can have a significant impact on the ways in which people interact with their cities and with each other. They mediate users’ relations with urban spaces by adding another layer to the sensorial overload common in urban spaces. They can also make visible formerly anonymous strangers nearby and facilitate ad hoc, transient relations. Locative media apps also have unintended social consequences linked to its location-based nature, such as heightened privacy concerns, negative experiences with strangers, invisibility through filtering, and a recalibrated sense of urbanity.

Re-Imagining Cataloguing: Evolution and Participation
Thursday, November 29, 2018
4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
FNB 4110
Presented by Alex Mayhew.
Responses from Melissa Adler and Denise Smith.

Abstract: This presentation applies the principles of phylogenetic classification and literary memetics to the phenomenon of bibliographic relationships in library catalogues. Current professional cataloguing uses hierarchies, and relies on top-down control. By implementing a system that supports associative relationships and encourages user participation, the library catalogue can become the site of unpredicted creativity.

Enter phylomemetics, the application of phylogenetic principles to memetics, the study of cultural inheritance, as a potential means of mapping the connections between texts that current catalogues don’t capture. Phylogenetic analysis does not follow the rigidly controlled hierarchies of traditional library catalogues; rather, it tracks relationships of kinship as they evolve over time. User contributed associative relationships can be infinitely divisible and can exist at any level of abstraction allowing for a significant enrichment of the catalogue as a means of exploring the information landscape.

I suggest three stages of applying phylogenetics in the future: enhancement of current cataloguing procedure, crowdsourcing user tags, and extracting relationship networks through big data analysis. Cataloguers will retain a more interesting curatorial role, users will have their voices heard, and Big Data will allow us to uncover even more connections.

Biography: Alex Mayhew is a PhD student in Library and Information Science in FIMS. He earned an MLIS in 2016 also at FIMS. Before that he earned an Undergrad degree in Philosophy at the University of Ottawa. He is interested in thinking tools and philosophical engineering, particularly knowledge organization.

The Wrong Story: Palestine, Israel, and The Media
Friday, November 16, 2018
3:00 p.m.
FNB 4110

Abstract: Media framing of Palestine-Israel frequently suggests that “both sides” have harmed each other to a comparable extent and are responsible for the absence of peace to a roughly equivalent degree. Another common perspective is that the bloodshed is because “extremists”—particularly those of a religious variety—have power and “moderates” do not. News outlets also explain violence in Palestine-Israel in terms of Israel’s supposed “right to defend itself” against Palestinian attacks. In the new book, The Wrong Story: Palestine, Israel, and The Media, Dr.Gregory Shupak dismantles these narratives and argues that any accurate version of the story of Palestine-Israel must begin with Israel’s violent colonization of the Palestinians. Join us for a discussion of Dr. Shupak’s book.

Bio: Gregory Shupak has a PhD in Literary Studies and teaches Media Studies at the University of Guelph in Toronto. His fiction has appeared in a wide range of literary journals and he regularly writes analysis of politics and media for a variety of outlets including Electronic Intifada, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, In These Times, Jacobin, Literary Review of Canada, Middle East Eye, Salon, This Magazine, and Warscapes. His book, The Wrong Story: Palestine, Israel, and The Media, can be purchased through OR Books’ website.

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