Stream - Inspiring Critical Thought (E-Journal)
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‘Creator gave us two ears and one mouth’: Soundscapes as signifiers of environmental crisis at the intersections of Indigeneity and Acoustic Ecology
Get PDFAcoustic ecology has served as a foundational theoretical field for many sound scholars to understand the soundscape as a signifier for environmental crisis. While sound theorists like R. Murray Schafer and those in the World Soundscape Project have developed ways in which to critically analyze environmental soundscapes, these methods have often excluded Indigenous narratives which offer complex understandings of sound through embodied experience. In this paper I employ a brief description of acoustic ecology, drawing attention to its benefits as a methodological approach to sonic ordering, while also demonstrating the possibilities for expansion of this field when examined in conversation with Canadian Indigenous perspectives and notable sonic activist movements. I address how Indigenous knowledge systems, futurisms, art, and activism can provide critical perspectives within the field of acoustic ecology, which lends well to understanding soundscapes of crisis. I identify a few case studies of sonic forward Indigenous environmental movements which include game design by Elizabeth LaPensée, Rebecca Belmore’s Wave Sound sculpture, and the Round Dance Revolution within the Idle No More movement. In sum, this paper works to bridge the work of acoustic ecology and Indigenous sonic movements to encourage a complex and nuanced relationship to sound, and to explore moments for understanding sonic intersections at the forefront of environmental crisis
Graduate Students’ Exploration of Opportunities in a Crisis: A White Paper
Get PDFThe following white paper details the University of Calgary’s 2021 graduate student conference titled, ‘Opportunities in a Crisis.’ This white paper works to describe how graduate students explore the terms ‘opportunities’ and ‘crisis’ within their research interests. These research interests were interdisciplinary to various fields such as telecommunications policy, algorithmic studies, critical race theory, and video game studies to list a few. Through this conference, we observed an acute awareness of the ways in which the COVID-19 crisis has impacted research in media activism, feminist media studies, internet infrastructure, and teaching and learning, to mention a handful. This white paper is divided by panel sections, thereby allowing readers to connect with this graduate student conference and help inform future research on topics in communication and media studies, as they are framed in working through these crisis moments in our global history. Our white paper set out to achieve two goals: first, document the presentations and emerging scholarly work of graduate students; and second, reflect on how research can, and very well does, pivot in times of crises, specifically using our current global COVID-19 pandemic as an ongoing, lived experience. This white paper achieves these goals which we believe helps in the preservation of this unique moment in time to be a graduate student
Alexa, Please: Babysit My Child
Get PDFAccording to the Statistics Canada report from 2019, when it comes to the amount of time spent online, Canada beats out every other country in the world. This has likely been amplified due to the stay-at-home order caused by the COVID-19 crisis, hence why the new Bill C-11 will strengthen the current policies defending Canadians from corporate digital overstep. Alexa, Please: Babysit My Child will explore, analyze, and evaluate Amazon's neuro-capitalistic technologies, specifically pertaining to the technologies made for child-use. Neuro-capitalism is dangerous as it speaks to controlling the mind through the current hyper-technological society. Jurisdictional complexity surrounding A.I. and cybersecurity can be mitigated by government-funded education. Therefore, my research explores the question: From a neuro-capitalistic & digital-colonial standpoint, to what extent are Amazon's child-targeted technologies' (such as Kindle 4 Kids) consistent with the privacy policies of the new, proposed Bill C-11? This policy analysis will consist of three sections—first, an analysis of Amazon's Kindle 4 Kids Terms and Conditions (Site 1). Second, an evaluation of Bill C-11’s ability to protect children from the pernicious aspects of neuro-capitalism (Site 2). Lastly, a compare and contrast section of the two entities, ending with a discussion of the findings. Particularly during the COVID-19 crisis, we must be sure that the Government of Canada is doing everything in their power to aid the youth of the country that spends the most time online and the most time with their babysitter: Alexa. 
Looking in from the outside: The case of the excluded self-publisher
Get PDFA significant portion of books on Amazon are self-published using Kindle Direct Publishing. Self-publishers are given an opportunity to share their work with the world with a few clicks of their mouse. However, traditional publishing infrastructures are not as welcoming to the self-publisher. This paper undertakes to perform a policy analysis of government funding frameworks available to workers of the Canadian publishing industry. Through performing a discourse analysis, the study finds that the self-publisher is ineligible to apply for funds and grants from the government both on the provincial and the federal levels. The self-publishing business model is not recognized as a legitimate one and is often equated with vanity publishing, which comes with a stigma. Furthermore, traditional publishing industry workers act as gatekeepers who also exclude the self-publisher from the conversation around the changing landscape of the Canadian publishing industry. Even though the self-publisher should be recognized as a legitimate worker of the cultural industries, they are not acknowledged as such both by government officials who distribute grants and traditional publishers. This study adds to the limited scope of research conducted on self-publishing in order to break the boundaries that self-publishers encounter. The study concludes with recommendations to assess the process of the distribution of government funds and grants in order to incorporate the changing practices of the cultural industries and incorporate new business models such as self-publishing
Re-writing history: Oral history as a feminist methodology
Get PDFFeminist historians (Kelly, 1984; Scott, 1998) have argued that documented History is inherently ‘masculine’ and marginalizes women’s life experiences. In order to bridge this gap in History, feminist oral historians in the 1970s began collecting women’s oral testimonies to highlight their subjective experiences (Patai and Gluck, 1990). Building on existing scholarship, this paper argues that oral history as a methodology is indispensable in a feminist re-writing of history. It analyzes oral histories conducted by Indian feminist historians with women survivors of India’s Partition. The first section uses a gendered historical lens to argue that feminist oral history is crucial to writing a women’s history. The second section outlines what constitutes as a feminist methodology to envision what women’s history should look like. The final section examines the difficulties of working with oral testimonies. The objective of this study is two-fold: examining non-hierarchical ways of researching through feminist oral history and drawing attention to oral narratives in the global south
The X-factors: Exploring the reception of the cross (X) in Get Out the Vote campaign materials
Get PDFThis paper asks to ground the scholarly knowledge about the role and reception of the X (or cross) as a visual cue for elections in Canadian political visual culture. While the character X (or the symbol of a cross as it is often referred to) is one of the most prominent visual cues used in visual voting encouragement materials in Canadian visual culture, little, if at all, is known about its reception by audiences. This paper asks to contribute to the understanding of the symbol and its reception by citizens. The paper is divided into three sections: 1) establishing the status of the character X as a symbol of elections in Canada, 2) examining ideal uses and occasional misuses of the X, 3) exploring the possibility of replacing the X with an alternative - the checkmark (✔). In conclusion, this work suggests that there is a growing need to reconsider the use of the X in Get Out the Vote posters, and it offers alternatives to it
The social construction of blockchain privacy platforms
Get PDFOur current internet environment is characterized by online conglomerates, predictive computing and data mining. With this, there is a growing concern among users on how to protect their privacy and manage their identities online. Advocates for blockchain, the newest large-scale wave of internet based platforms, argue it is highly useful for privacy protection. Blockchain is an encrypted and decentralized public ledger that verifies and stores information through a peer-to-peer network. Using the social construction of technology (SCOT) as a theoretical framework, I deploy a comparative discourse analysis of three blockchain platforms - Brave, Civic and Oasis Labs - along with user discourse on Reddit and Medium. This paper explores how users socially construct this emerging technology by comparing privacy discourse between blockchain platforms and motivated social agents. I found blockchain privacy platforms and its users both value data ownership, ad-blocking and safety and security. However, there is also friction and disagreement about themes of trust and ethics as well as usability
Same as it ever was: The Canadian and American music industries’ responses to digitization and the circulation of “piracy panic narratives”
Get PDFIn this paper, I outline how the “piracy panic narrative” (Arditi, 2015) has repositioned the fan/musician dynamic in the digital era, from one between maker and listener to one between labourer and thief. The paper questions if the press has fairly assessed the fan/musician dynamic in the digital era and examines who has directly benefited from the reorganization of the relations between producer and consumer. The article provides a contemporary history of the American and Canadian music industries’ response to file sharing, crisis and piracy. Drawing on data from the 2017 Music Canada report on the Value Gap, the essay ultimately concludes that those most affected by the repositioning of the producer/consumer dynamic are not the various stakeholders whose voices are most frequently heard, but actually the musicians. The piracy panic narrative is thus nothing but an exercise in creating smoke and mirrors; music industries depict themselves as victims, all the while quietly rearranging their business practices to maintain a long-held position as gatekeeper
Finalizing a journal volume during a global pandemic / Finaliser un volume de journal durant une pandémie mondiale
No full textWhere to begin? Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and the social restrictions that followed, our perceptions of and relationship to work have been shaken to their core. Indeed, we live in a society where consistent and constant production is part of our daily reality. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has acted as a mirror, showing us our obsession with productivity and exacerbating the dangers associated with a system that has been known to be dysfunctional for several decades: capitalism. The pandemic and what has followed have also resulted in the whole world living an experience of collective ambiguity. This experience of ambiguity is felt differently depending on our privileges, be they social, economic, political, or racial. Despite this ambiguity, our politicians across the political spectrum have continued to insist on the relaunching of the economy and incited the population to continue to produce in order to ultimately to save the capitalist system. Even at university, we continue to adapt—for good or bad—to this new reality that is supposedly “temporary”
Exploring Middle-Class Malaysian Parents' Perceptions and Concerns About Children's Internet Usage
Get PDFThe growing number of children internet users are causing parents to worry. While there are many researches in the Global North, very few studies are done in the Global South. The study aims to bridge this gap with a study of Malaysia, a Global South country. Using a contextual approach, this research investigates middle-class Malaysian parents’ perceptions and concerns about their children’s internet usage. Qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with seven parents, whose children – aged from five to eighteen – are active internet users. The analysis of the interviews revealed three major themes; firstly, parents make evaluative judgments about internet contents and platforms; secondly, children’s age determines use and device ownership; and thirdly, Malaysian parents used mediation strategies unique to Malaysia: they employ spies among their children and enlist help from older children. The analysis further revealed two generalized Malaysian parents’ fears about the internet: foreign culture influencing the dominant culture and apprehensions about new technologies