- 2009 NCI Summit New Media Spotlight: Megan Boler
- New media scholar and feminist theorist to speak on "Rethinking Media, Citizenship and Democracy: Digital Dissent after 9/11"
- Posted January 22, 2009
Megan Boler, Associate Professor of theory and policy studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, is coming to give a talk at Tulane's Newcomb College Institute Leadership Summit. An educator, activist, and scholar, Boler will discuss her current research project, "Rethinking Media, Citizenship and Democracy: Digital Dissent after 9/11" at the 2009 Newcomb College Institute Summit: Powerlines: Women Transform the Grid. As a dedicated observer of the new digital culture and an Associate Faculty member at the Knowledge Media Design Institute, Boler focuses her research on the methods and motivations of today's producers of alternative digital media - and its efficiency in countering the influence of the mainstream. Those interested in new media, social networking, and the advent of the internet era should be sure to attend Boler's discussion, beginning at 10:15 on Saturday, February 7th in the Kendall-Cram Room of the Lavin-Bernick Center for University Life on the Tulane Uptown Campus.
Boler's academic work has led her to the study of media products ranging from "The Daily Show" to "Borat", analyzing their deeper effects on the culture at large. Her most recent book, Digital Media and Democracy: Tactics in Hard Times (MIT Press, 2008), investigates exactly who has the power to define reality in this age of new media and the internet, incorporating essays and interviews from media activists, journalists, and artists. "Digital Media's" commentary looks at the changing and dynamic relationship between truth and power today, laying out an invaluable map of the modes and methods by which a new generation is organizing their social and political movements. Boler's book contrasts the Internet's incredible power as an agent of media democracy with the blatant falsehoods of the mainstream media, producing an invaluable resource for the ever- changing world of social media.
In her first book, Feeling Power: Emotions and Education, (Routledge 1999), Boler investigates how emotions have been suppressed and repressed in systems of education and educational theory, tracing how these methods of control have molded conflict arising from gender, class, and race. Boler ultimately outlines a "pedagogy of discomfort," which investigates the skills and emotions involved in solving issues of difference and ethics. Boler has also edited Democratic Dialogue in Education," an exploration of the limits of classroom speech and the role of the classroom as a public space, casting an eye in particular to gender, racial, and sexual identity.
More information about the Newcomb College Institute Leadership Summit may be found at our website.
