What is the impact of social media on our societies, democracies, rights and communities? Join a global workshop series exploring these issues and engage in dialogue with faculty and students from around the world.
Overview
This two-part series will bring together students and faculty from Indiana University (IU), O.P. Jindal Global University (Jindal), the University of Toronto, and other partner universities of Hart House Global Commons, empowering participants to use social media in effective and responsible ways. Through interactive workshops and discussion, students will explore the challenges and opportunities that arise through the use of social media, paying particular attention to the differences and commonalities that characterize their local and national contexts. Guided by the expertise of faculty, teams of students will discuss and present strategies for effective and responsible social media use in three major areas: privacy and rights, community and citizenship, and belief and truth.
Content
Questions that will inform presentations and discussion in each area may include the following:
Privacy and Rights
- How does social media allow for the acquisition and dissemination of information on individual users?
- How is this process monetized?
- How is individual privacy and confidentiality protected and/or compromised? Through what authorities and practices?
- What can individual users do to protect their privacy?
- How can private or public entities help?
Community and Citizenship
- How does social media allow for new forms of community to take shape?
- How do these kinds of community relate to more traditional forms?
- What challenges and opportunities do these new forms pose?
- How can individual users take advantage of these opportunities and prepare themselves for the challenges they pose?
Belief and Truth
- In what distinctive ways does social media influence users’ beliefs and attitudes about politics, society and other matters of public concern?
- How does social media spread misinformation and disinformation?
- How can individuals use social media to best educate themselves and others?
- How can individual users respond most effectively to misinformation and disinformation?
- What role should private and public entities play in regulating the flow of information?
Format
The series will take place through two virtual, synchronous sessions via Zoom. Through a combination of faculty presentations and commentary, global student dialogue in breakout groups and in plenary, personal reflection, and development of personal and collective strategies, students will identify common themes, and collective takeaways and goals. Participating students will have the opportunity to contribute to and develop a final report, to be published by Indiana University Observatory on Social Media.
Audience
Interdisciplinary—All students, regardless of campus, location, year of study, or level of study, are welcome to participate.
About the Global Commons
The Hart House Global Commons is an international dialogue space that connects students participating from multiple global locations by inviting them to engage in real-time conversations about issues that are pressing and pertinent to everyone, regardless of place. We hope you will join us for a unique opportunity to connect across contexts, exchange dialogue and perspectives, and learn from each other—all without leaving your living space!
Guest Bios
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Shruti Rana
Assistant Dean for Curricular and Undergraduate Affairs, Indiana University Bloomington
Assistant Dean for Curricular and Undergraduate Affairs; Diversity Officer; Director, International Law and Institutions Program; and Professor, International Law; Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Affairs, Indiana University Bloomington
My research interests focus on international and comparative law, specifically in the areas of corporate governance and social responsibility, gender, and human rights, business and technology policy, and immigration and refugee law. I have also been involved in advocacy and legal reform efforts in these areas, including testifying before the Indiana legislature and filing Supreme Court and other federal court amicus briefs. Before coming to Indiana University, I served as Of Counsel at Brooks Pierce LLP, helping grow the international law practice. Previously, I was also an Associate Professor at the University of Maryland Law School and was a Visiting Associate Professor at the University of California, Berkeley Law School. Prior to entering academia, I was a Social Affairs Officer at the United Nations, working for the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women during the Committee’s 38th and 39th Sessions. I also worked at Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, DC, and Quinn Emanuel LLP in San Francisco, CA, where I focused primarily on international, corporate, and administrative law. I clerked for the Hon. James R. Browning at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. I have lived and worked in Japan, the U.K., Finland, Malaysia, and China.
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Sameer Patil
Associate Professor, School of Computing, University of Utah
Sameer Patil is an Associate Professor in the School of Computing at the University of Utah. Previously, he has held several appointments in academia and industry, including Vienna University of Economics and Business (Austria), Helsinki Institute for Information Technology (Finland), University of Siegen (Germany), Yahoo Labs (USA), New York University (USA), and Indiana University Bloomington (USA). Sameer's research interests focus on human-centered investigations of cybersecurity, covering the fields of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW), and social computing. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and Google.
He received the NSF CAREER award in 2019. Sameer’s work has been published in top-tier conferences and journals, and he holds eight US patents related to mobile technologies. Sameer obtained a Ph.D. in Computer and Information Science from the University of California, Irvine and holds Master’s degrees in Information (HCI) and Computer Science & Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
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Lipika Kamra
Associate Professor, Politics and Anthropology, O.P. Jindal Global University
Associate Professor, Politics and Anthropology, O.P. Jindal Global University
Dr. Lipika Kamra researches on democracy and development in India from an ethnographic perspective. Her research and teaching interests crisscross political and social anthropology, gender studies, international development, comparative politics, and South Asian studies. She completed a doctorate from the University of Oxford in 2016, and has previously taught at Georgetown University’s campus in Qatar.
Her current book project examines counterinsurgency, statemaking, and development in modern India. Drawing on archival and ethnographic research on the Jungle Mahals of West Bengal, she examines how counterinsurgency recurs as a primary driver of colonial and postcolonial statemaking in regions associated today with the Maoist insurgency. In this book, Kamra pays particular attention to the relationships between state actors and rural women that emerge in a counterinsurgency context, and how women navigate citizenship and development in rural India. This book draws on her doctoral research, and parts of it have been published in peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes. Kamra has also been conducting research on two new projects. The first project, funded by a WhatsApp Misinformation and Social Science Award, examines the role of digital media in shaping everyday politics. It is a collaborative project with Dr. Philippa Williams (Queen Mary University, London). For more details, see the project website: [url=https://www.qmul.ac.uk/geog/research/research-projects/socialmedia]https://www.qmul.ac.uk/geog/research/research-projects/socialmedia[/url]. Kamra’s second project looks at women voters in India, and how they relate to the ideas and processes of democracy.
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Rukmini Pande
Associate Professor, Literary Studies and Writing, O.P. Jindal Global University
Associate Professor, Literary Studies and Writing, O.P. Jindal Global University
Dr. Rukmini Pande is an Associate Professor in Literary Studies at O.P Jindal Global University, India. She is currently part of the editorial board of the Journal of Fandom Studies as well as Mallorn: The Journal of Tolkien Studies. She has been published in multiple edited collections including the Wiley Companion to Media Fandom and Fan Studies and The Routledge Handbook of Popular Culture Tourism. She has also been published in peer reviewed journals such as Transformative Works and Cultures and The Journal for Feminist Studies. Her monograph, Squee From The Margins: Race in Fandom, was published in 2018 by the University of Iowa Press. Her latest edited collection, Fandom, Now In Color: A Collection of Voices, brings together cutting-edge scholarship on race/ism in fandom. It was published at the end of 2020 by the University of Iowa Press.
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Mike Gruszczynski
Assistant Professor, The Media School, Indiana University Bloomington
Assistant Professor, The Media School, Indiana University Bloomington
Mike Gruszczynski (PhD, University of Nebraska, 2013) is an Assistant Professor of Communication Science in The Media School at Indiana University. His research has been published in Public Opinion Quarterly, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Mass Communication and Society, Journalism and Communication Monographs, and Political Behavior, among others. His research is inclusive of political communication, political psychology, and research methodology, and focuses particularly on how changes in political and communication domains influence agenda-setting processes, framing effects, and journalistic decision-making.
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Kerry Mitchell
Director, Living-Learning Centre, Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, Indiana University Bloomington
Director, Living-Learning Centre, Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, Indiana University Bloomington
Kerry Mitchell received a BA from Indiana University and an MA/PhD in Religious Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara, with research interests focused on spirituality and the secular in contemporary American life. Kerry joined the faculty of Global College, Long Island University (LIU Global) in 2007 and served as the Director of the Comparative Religion and Culture Program, taking students to Taiwan, Thailand, India, and Turkey over the course of the semester or year. He most recently served as LIU Global Director of Academic Affairs and of the Capstone Program in Brooklyn, engaging students experientially in global issues as they manifest in New York City. Kerry enjoys connecting HLS education to experiences far outside the classroom.
Co-presented by
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