FIMS Undergraduate Fellowship Program · FIMS Undergraduate Fellowship Program We are excited to announce the FIMS Undergraduate Fellowship program, which provides FIMS Undergraduate

Western University, North Campus Building, Room 240, London, ON, Canada N6A5B7 t. 519.661-2111 f. 519.661-3506 www.westernu.ca

FIMSUndergraduateFellowshipProgramWe are excited to announce the FIMS Undergraduate Fellowship program, which provides FIMS Undergraduate students with the opportunity to work with faculty members and graduate students on exciting new research initiatives. This year, we have two great projects that together provide 4 to 6 undergraduate students with paid Undergraduate Research Fellowships. Paulette Rothbauer, Marni Harrington, Heather Hill, and Janice Forsyth are heading up the “Smoke Signals” Radio Show Archives Project" and Anabel Quan-Haase is collaborating with Kimberly Verwaayen, Juan Luis Suarez, Kaitlynn Mendes, and Jessica Ringrose on a study of Digital Feminist Activism: The Social and Informational Affordances of Twitter. Details of the Undergraduate Fellowship Program, information about how to apply, and descriptions of each of the projects and the associated Undergraduate Research Fellowship positions are attached. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me ([email protected]), or our Research Officer, Karen Kueneman ([email protected]). Welookforwardtohearingfromyou.

Jacquelyn Burkell, PhD, Associate Professor and Assistant Dean, Research

Revised January 31, 2019 1

Undergraduate Research Experience Fellowship Program

Description

The FIMS Undergraduate Research Experience Fellowship Program provides FIMS undergraduate students with an opportunity to obtain research experience by working with faculty members who are undertaking new, innovative, and collaborative research projects. During this 2019-20 pilot year, we are funding two (2) teams of researchers led by FIMS faculty members, Anabel Quan-Haase and Paulette Rothbauer. Descriptions of their projects are attached.

The FIMS Undergraduate Research Experience Fellowship program aims to nurture a close-knit, multi-disciplinary, and intergenerational community of scholars. Grants have been awarded to the Principal Investigators named above to support undergraduate and graduate students working together with faculty researchers on their collaborative research projects. Students involved in the program will benefit from an opportunity to develop hands-on research skills. Students (in their non-RA time) will also be invited to participate in research-focused workshops, and other activities.

The Fellowship Program provides students with an opportunity to acquire advanced research skills and experience while collaborating with an intellectually vibrant community of peers, professors, and research professionals. Undergraduate students who participate in the program will receive the designation of ‘Undergraduate Research Fellow’.

Fellowships are available for several undergraduate students (see project descriptions). Students will be contacted for interviews shortly after the application deadline.

Undergraduate Research Fellows

KEY STUDENT BENEFITS

FIMS Student Fellowships offers several benefits to participants, including:

x Stipend as a Research Assistant o Undergraduate $1250 per term (4-5 hours of work per week for 13 weeks – 2

terms) x The opportunity to contribute to original faculty research projects, develop skills, and

build supportive relationships with peers and professors x Designation of “FIMS Fellowship” – may be added to your resume

Revised January 31, 2019 2

HOW TO APPLY

Eligibility: Undergraduate Research Fellows: FIMS undergraduate students with a minimum 75% average on the last 10 courses who are currently in second year or higher are eligible to apply.

In general, students who do not meet the basic eligibility requirements will not be considered for the program. There may be specific project-related reasons why researchers might require an exception to these eligibility requirements (e.g., the project requires Undergraduate Research Fellows with fluency in a particular language). If there are no FIMS undergraduates with the particular requirements, undergraduates from other Western programs may be considered.

Students must apply via email.

Selection criteria include academic achievement, commitment to the research project, and suitability for team-based research as shown by the application material and references. Enrolment is limited.

The Application: Applications consist of:

x transcripts (screenshots from your student record are acceptable, but you must show all academic activity beginning from your first year of university, so that we will be able to determine your current year of study.)

x resume (include the names and email addresses of 2 academic referees whom we may contact)

x one-page letter of interest outlining how the Fellows Program furthers your educational or career aspirations. Speak directly about your preferred project. See attached project descriptions for details.

x indication of your preferred project.

Submission: Applications must be submitted as an email attachment to Karen Kueneman, [email protected]. In the subject line of the email please type FIMS Undergraduate Fellowship.

DEADLINE for applications: February 28, 2019, 4:00 pm EST.

Questions: Karen Kueneman, [email protected] or Jacquie Burkell, [email protected] .

Title of Project: “Smoke Signals” Radio Show Archives Project Undergraduate Students 2 - 4 students will be hired for 1-2 terms at $1,250 per term;

Indigenous undergraduate students from MIT and First Nations Studies are especially encouraged to apply

Required Skills: Suggested Skills: Term of Employment: May – August 2019; September – December 2019 FIMS Principal Investigator:

Paulette Rothbauer: https://www.fims.uwo.ca/people/profiles/paulette_rothbauer.html

Co-Investigators Affiliation Marni Harrington Associate Librarian, Faculty of Information and Media Studies Heather Hill Associate Professor, Faculty of Information and Media Studies Janice Forsyth Associate Professor, Sociology, Director, First Nations Program

Graduate Student Danica Pawlick-Potts, FIMS LIS PhD, Year 1

Description of Project Background Archival materials belonging to Mary Lou Smoke and Dan Smoke (First Nations hosts of a long-running CHRW radio show called Smoke Signals, and instructors in various programs at Western, including the MIT program at FIMS) are available through Western’s First Nations Studies Centre (audio materials are stored off site). These materials provide a unique and exciting opportunity to work with a significant radio archive (dating back to the first episode in 1991) featuring interviews with several notable indigenous artists, musicians, writers, scholars, spiritual leaders, and politicians. Mary Lou Smoke and Dan Smoke: Radio Broadcasters, Producers, Teachers, Community Leaders, Archive Donors The Smokes have a long affiliation with Western and the first episode of their long-running radio news magazine show aired on CHRW 94.7 Radio Western in 1991 as part of Jeremy Price’s environmental

2|P a g e

show Green Waves. The show still airs on Sundays from 6:30-8:00 pm. Mary Lou Smoke is a member of the Ojibway nation from Batchawana Bay and her husband, Dan Smoke, is a member of Seneca Nation of the Iroquois Confederacy. Mary Lou Smoke was recognized with a 2013 YMCA Woman of Excellent award for her work in education. Dan Smoke has long-term involvement with reporting, broadcasting and governance with indigenous news associations, including presentations to various Royal Commissions on Aboriginal Peoples on behalf of the Native News Network. Since 2006 the Smokes have also taught a course on and representations of First Nations Issues in News Media (FIMS cross listed with First Nations Studies) at Western and since 2009 a course on indigenous spirituality (Brescia). Short term research objectives

1. exploration, organization, and assessment of Mary Lou and Dan Smoke archival materials

2. creation of archival finding aid

3. establishing partnerships with relevant people and agencies to support and sustain the archive

4. critical reflections and reports on the project with emphasis on its possibilities as a research, learning and professional site for reconciliation and decolonization

Long term research objectives

1. create a work plan for a future second phase of the project: a) determining digitization strategy, b) strategy for creating and populating a stable website to promote and provide access to the archive, and c) creating additional content using integrated multimedia including primary interview(s) with the Smokes and others

2. stimulating and inviting original research projects using the materials

3. Using an open access model to encourage unrestricted engagement with the material for

scholarly and non-scholarly communities Methodology There are 4 main research methods that we will be using for this project. Our overall timeline is May 2019-December 2019.

1. Researching the Context of the Smoke Signals collection: through consultation and interviews with Mary Lou Smoke, Dan Smoke, others; researching published materials on the Smokes, on indigenous radio and broadcasting [1 undergraduate x 2 terms, Graduate Student x 2 terms]

3|P a g e

2. Archival Arrangement and Description: the intellectual and physical arrangement of the archive, archival description, creation of an archival finding aid [1 undergraduate x 2 terms, Graduate Student x 2 terms]

3. Gathering Research Stories: these regular meetings are conceived of as a way to bring together

all research team members in a non-judgmental way that supports the sharing of, and reflection on, our research experiences, and the exploration of our emerging sense of the significance of the collection and of the work (monthly)

4. Qualitative research writing: ongoing project notes (Graduate RA, faculty leads, culminating

reflections and reports from the undergraduate RAs). Timeline: May to August 2019 (Summer), September to December 2019 (Fall)

Term Research Activity HQP Summer 2019

Consult and interview Smokes Graduate student Research published materials on Smokes

Undergraduate student(s)

Review and organize audio and print materials

Undergraduate student(s)

Summer & Fall 2019 (monthly)

Gather research stories Graduate and undergraduate students

Summer & Fall 2019 (ongoing)

Develop contextually relevant First Nations controlled vocabulary

Graduate and undergraduate students

Create project notes Graduate and undergraduate students

Fall 2019 Create archival finding aid Graduate and undergraduate students

Plans for support and development of Undergraduate Student Fellows Undergraduate Research Assistant #1 [Researching the context]

• One undergraduate research fellow per term will be hired to work with us on researching the

context of the Smokes’ archive. This will involve working with the records (both textual and audio materials), researching news and current events archives and databases, and collecting primary data from the Smokes themselves through consultation and interviews. Research skills development will include searching primary, secondary and tertiary information sources including databases, archives, libraries, and the internet, producing annotated bibliographies, writing reports, developing interview schedules, interviewing skills, and transcription. They will also assist with writing up reports and presenting details of this project as it develops.

Undergraduate Research Assistant #2 [archival arrangement and description]

• One undergraduate research fellow per term will be hired to work with us in sorting and assessing the archival materials, with the intellectual and physical arrangement of the materials,

4|P a g e

archival description, and the creation of an archival finding aid. A significant aspect of this work will be developing a contextually relevant and culturally informed controlled vocabulary which in turn, involves researching First Nations controlled vocabulary schemes recommended or in use with existing archives and collections.

Title of Project: Digital Feminist Activism: The Social and Informational Affordances of Twitter

Undergraduate Students 2 MIT students will each be hired for 2 terms at $1,250 per term Required Skills: web searching, literature searches, good writing skills, good communication skills, team work. Suggested Skills: qualitative research methods, feminist theory, digital skills. Term of Employment: May – August 2019; September – December 2019 FIMS Principal Investigator:

Anabel Quan-Haase: https://www.fims.uwo.ca/people/profiles/anabel_quan-haase.html

Co-Investigators Affiliation Dr. Kimberly J Verwaayen Associate Professor, Women’s Studies and Feminist Research,

Western University Dr. Juan Luis Suarez Professor, Hispanic Studies, Digital Humanities, Western

University Dr. Kaitlynn Mendes Associate Professor in Media and Communication

University of Leicester Dr. Jessica Ringrose Professor of the Sociology of Gender and Education

UCL Institute of Education, University College London Graduate Student Darryl Pieber, Media Studies PhD Description of Project #MeToo is a hashtag that has drawn much attention and part of a larger social movement that started with the use of the words “Me Too” by Tarana Burke, an African-American social activist whose aim was to expose black girls’ stories about sexual violence. #MeToo began trending on Twitter in 2017 as a result of the rise of sexual assault allegations against American movie producer Harvey Weinstein and it quickly became a focal point of a global online discussion of sexual violence against women (Mendes, Ringrose, & Keller, 2018). While research looking into #MeToo has started, related hashtags in other languages have been largely ignored. To our knowledge, the proposed project is the first to take a comparative approach by looking at three hashtags simultaneously and developing comparative

2 | P a g e

insights across contexts. Of particular interest for our proposed study is the ways in which women who engage in the #MeToo, #Cuéntalo, and ##BalanceTonPorc discussions negotiate both the challenges and opportunities of such discussions as well as the affordances and limitations of the main platform on which these discussions have taken place. Research objectives The project has four short-term objectives. First, to examine how Twitter users participate in feminist activism. Second, to conduct a synthesis review of the current literature. One key advantage is that our team is able to read in three languages, this will help do a much more complete literature review. Third, to compare engagement and participation across three hashtags--#metoo; #Cuéntalo, and ##BalanceTonPorc. The research questions (RQ) include:

RQ1: How are girls and women using Twitter to document experiences of sexual violence, harassment, and sexism? RQ2: How are girls’ and women’s narratives of sexual violence, harassment, and sexism being co-created with a larger community through the user of Twitter’s features? RQ3: To what extent does this co-created narrative function as a community of social support?

Plans for support and development of Undergraduate Student Fellows

x The study’s Undergraduate Fellows will gain hands-on experience of the thematic and affective

analysis as it applies to social media research. x They will learn key qualitative activities such as how to conduct initial, in vivo, and focused

coding of the collection of tweets, cross-coder verification methods, the processes and uses of memoing, and how to identify the theoretical saturation point.

x They will also gain experience using Discovertext (https://discovertext.com), an online datamining, coding, and analysis software service for use by researchers in working with large online datasets.

x They will gain hands-on experience with developing an annotated bibliography of existing research relevant to the study, as well as gaining practice in writing the literature review in the form of a systematic review.

x They will gain a solid understanding of the nascent study of digital feminism, as well as relevant theories of social media use and how these theories are deployed.

MIT LEARNING OBJECTIVES The proposed project is specifically designed to align with the MIT learning objectives and will be a unique opportunity for the MIT students to be directly involved.

1. Gain an understanding of the practical, theoretical, historical, social and cultural contexts of media, information, and technology

x Undergraduate Fellows will develop these theoretical competencies through o Developing a comprehensive annotated bibliography that includes all relevant theoretical

contributions toward the topics of digital feminism and women’s and girls’ online activism through social media platforms

3 | P a g e

o Developing a comprehensive literature review from the texts identified in the annotated bibliography

2. Become aware of information as a resource, understand the range of information sources available in an area of interest, and be able to find, retrieve, and critically evaluate information and information resources. They will

x Through hands-on experience, Undergraduate Fellows will develop an understanding and working knowledge of

o How to conduct a systematic review of existing literature on a subject. o How to develop a comprehensive annotated bibliography of all relevant theoretical and

academic research resources. o How to conduct a methodical and comprehensive literature review.

x Undergraduate Fellows will develop an understanding of social media posts as a source of academic information and as data to be studied.

o Undergraduate Fellow s will develop an extensive understanding of the grounded theory method through hands-on experience in working with the project’s dataset.

3. Learn how the media of information, communication, news and entertainment are related to culture, ideology, and identity formation

4. Explore cultural responses to technology, the forms they may take and the way relations between humans and technology create different kinds of cultures or "technocultures"

5. Examine patterns of thought, cognition, interaction, culture, or power embodied in the design and use of information technologies

6. Gain an understanding of the processes and institutions involved in creating and disseminating information, entertainment, and knowledge

7. Explore the connections between the control of information/communication technologies and democracy, the public sphere, capital accumulation, labour and occupations, and the environment

x Undergraduate Fellows will gain an understanding of the extent to which Twitter can serve as a public sphere, the ways in which the affordances of the platform are implicated in shaping public discourse to amplify voices and/or to silence and diminish them.

x Undergraduate Fellows will build extensive knowledge of the affordances, gratifications and limitations of Twitter as a platform for digital activism.