Conference Sessions

See recordings of our 2021 conference proceedings below. Not all sessions were recorded.

Session 1A - Emerging Trends in Alternative Media

  • Andrew Ó Baoill, National University of Ireland, Galway:  Steward or agitator: alternative media, ideology, and sustainability   

  • Jeffrey Masko, Pennsylvania State, World Campus:  Unmasking Mystification Online: Education in Political Economic Realities Through the Leftist Filmmakers' Adam Curtis and Scott Noble.

  • Nolan Higdon, University of California, Santa Cruz, Jen Lyons, University of Nevada, Reno:  The Other Populist Media: An Exploratory Study of Prog-Left Media   

  • Michael Buozis, Muhlenberg College: When conservative became alt in Philly”: Reactionary journalism and the rhetoric of whiteness

 

Opening Plenary - Un/Masking Media Power: Journalism and Propaganda in the Age of COVID

  • Nolan Higdon, CSU East Bay

  • Allison Butler, UMass Amherst

  • Mickey Huff, Diablo Valley Community College

  • Steve Macek, North Central College

  • Robin Andersen, Fordham University

  • Andy Lee Roth, Project Censored

 

Platform Organizing: Digital Labour, Digital Activism

  • Enda Brophy, Simon Fraser University Seamus Bright Grayer, Independent Scholar: Co-research in the Techlash

  • Brian Dolber, CSU San Marcos; Mark Dunn, Simon Fraser University: Platform Organizing and Media Spectacles: Framing the 2019 Uber and Lyft IPO Strikes

  • Catherine Jeffery, Simon Fraser University: Flexibility at Stake?: Investigating Corporate Claims on Prop 22

  • Danny Spitzberg, Turning Basin Labs, Tamara Kneese, University of San Francisco: Building Solidarity from Afar: How are Workers Organizing During the COVID-19 Pandemic?

  • Lilly Irani, University of California, San Diego: “Workers’ Inquiry”: Rituals of Counter-hegemonic Organizing

 

Panel 2B: Structural Transformations in the Culture Industry and Global Political Economy

  • Tanner Mirrlees, University of Ontario Institute of Technology: Unmasking GAFAM’s Power: Marx and Foucault Go to Silicon Valley*

    • Only 1 presentation was recorded from this session

 

Book Launch Plenary: The Gig Economy: Workers and Media in the Age of Convergence

  • Editors: 

    • Brian Dolber, CSU San Marcos

    • Michelle Rodino-Colocino, Pennsylvania State University

    • Chenjerai Kumanyika, Rutgers University

    • Todd Wolfson, Rutgers University

  • Presenting Contributors: 

    • Aayush Rathi, Centre for Internet and Society

    • Ambika Tandon, Centre for Internet and Society

    • John L. Sullivan, Muhlenberg College

    • Randy Nichols, University of Washington-Tacoma

    • Tamara Kneese, University of San Francisco

 

2021 Dallas Smythe Lecture

  • 2021 Dallas Smythe Award Recipient: Dr. Chenjerai Kumanyika, Rutgers University

  • Introduction by: Matt McAllister

  • Poem - Welcome to the Terrordome - by Demetrius Noble

 

Panel 5A: Media Industries as Sites of Struggle

  • Nicole Cohen, University of Toronto: New Media Unions: Journalists Organize in a Time of Crisis

  • Alicia Kozma, Washington College: Masking MeToo in Hollywood: The Embeddedness of Abuse in Hollywood Labor Cultures

  • Jennifer Proffitt, Florida State University, Christopher Garcia, Florida State University: 

  • “UNIONIZE I DARE YOU:” Labor, Neoliberalism, and Hypermasculinity in the Case of Barstool Sports

  • Michelle Hurtubise, Temple University: Indigenizing with Kin Theory, making new tables in media industries

 

Session 5B - Digital Democracy?: Possibilities and Pitfalls in Politics and Finance

  • Aaron Heresco, California Lutheran University: New Financial Literacies : Gamestop, Dogecoin, and the Play of Financial Activism

  • Savannah Wilkerson, Florida State University: Weaponization of Social Media: How the financial interests of Facebook corrupts democracy

  • Monica Jean Henderson, University of Toronto: Unmasking digital citizenship: Digital infrastructure, literacies, and the practice of democratic freedom

  • Rhon Teruelle, Purdue University: The Lamplighter Project on Twitter: Tactical use of social media for police whistleblowers

 

Session 6B - Critical Pedagogy in Critical Times: What We Learned from Online Learning

  • Chris Demaske, Associate Professor, University of Washington Tacoma

  • David Gracon, Assistant Professor, Gonzaga University

  • Randy Nichols, Associate Professor, University of Washington Tacoma

  • Anis Rahman, Assistant Teaching Professor, University of Washington Seattle

  • Nicole Stewart, Doctoral Candidate, Simon Fraser University & Sessional Faculty, University of the Fraser Valley

  • Rachel Guldin, Doctoral Candidate, University of Oregon

 

Closing Plenary - A Return to Sut Jhally’s 2018 Dallas Smythe Keynote Address: Stuart Hall’s Legacy for Media Studies: Conjunctures, Critique, and Political Projects

  • Christina Ceisel, California State University, Fullerton: “The Popularization of Critique: Or how I learned to stop worrying and love Teen Vogue” 

  • William E. Yousman, Sacred Heart University: “‘Something nasty down below’: Stuart Hall and the contradictions of “so-called cultural studies” in the post-pandemic era”

  • Steve Macek, North Central College: "Making Knowledge Matter": The Academy, Cultural Studies, the Public and Politics.

  • Robert F. Carley, Texas A&M University, College Station: “Conjunctural Analysis, Political Organizations, and ‘Organic’ Concepts: Metaconjuncture”

  • Sut Jhally, University of Massachusetts, Amherst: Panel Respondent