The Intersections Podcast, created at McMaster University, explores issues at the intersection of race, religion, gender, media, and communications policy. In this episode, host Faezeh Daemi speaks with Dr. Alpha Abebe, an Associate Professor with the Faculty of Humanities and the Lead for Africa and Black Diaspora Studies at McMaster University. In their conversation, Faezeh and Dr. Abebe explore how universities can meaningfully involve students in shaping the role of AI in higher education. Dr. Abebe shares insights from her work in youth engagement, pedagogy, and equity, emphasizing the need for genuine student inclusion in AI-related decision-making. She critiques preformative engagement, highlights the risks of bias and digital divides in AI tools, and calls for a rethinking of higher education models. The conversation also touches on trust, academic integrity, and the importance of maintaining human connection in education. Their conversation builds on Dr. Abebe’s Op-ed, co-authored with Fenella Amarasinghe, titled ‘ChatGPT: Student insights are necessary to help universities plan for the future‘ which appeared in The Conversation

Dr. Abebe’s research interests include African diasporas (particularly the Ethiopian diaspora), Black community engagement, and critical pedagogies. At McMaster she teaches a range of interdisciplinary courses focused on equity and social justice, migration and diaspora studies, and critical inquiry and methods. She is also involved in a number of initiatives focused on advancing equity and amplifying student voice on campus. Dr. Abebe also has extensive experience as a community-based practitioner and researcher, and her work has largely focused on engaging and championing youth from Black/African, immigrant, and low-income communities.

The Intersections Podcast, created at McMaster University, explores issues at the intersection of race, religion, gender, media, and communications policy. In this episode, host Faezeh Daemi speaks with PhD Kojo Damptey, musician, a sessional instructor for the African & Black Diaspora Studies program and a PhD student in the School of Social Work at McMaster University. Kojo integrates his academic insights and artistic talents to challenge and dismantle systemic oppression. His academic work revolves around the broad discipline of African & Black Studies, particularly around governance, African Indigenous Knowledge Systems and politics in Africa. He approaches his work using theoretical frameworks of decolonization and Afrocentricity. In this episode Faezeh and Kojo discuss his PhD research project titled “Black Epistemologies of Solidarity, Reciprocity and Action for Black/African Canadians.” The project seeks to theorize/highlight/explore how Black/African civic and political leaders across Canada are addressing anti-Black/African racism when they are engaged civically in politics and public advocacy. The overarching research questions are: How do Black leaders cope with the effects of anti-Black/African racism? What theoretical and practical knowledge do Black leaders depend on to dismantle anti-Black/African racism? How are Black leaders creating spaces and environments free of anti-Black/African racism for current and future Black/African Canadians?

The Intersections Podcast, created at McMaster University, explores issues at the intersection of race, religion, gender, media, and communications policy. In this episode, host Faezeh Daemi speaks with Professor Richard Moon, distinguished University Professor and Professor of Law at the University of Windsor. His research focuses on freedom of expression and freedom of conscience and religion. He is the author of The Life and Death of Freedom of Expression (U of T Press, 2024). In this episode, Faezeh and Richard discuss freedom of expression in the context of the campus protests and the legality of encampments on university property.

The Intersections Podcast, created at McMaster University, explores issues at the intersection of race, religion, gender, media, and communications policy. In this episode, host Faezeh Daemi speaks with Dr. Karen Louise Smith, Associate Professor in Communication, Popular Culture & Film at Brock University, and Dr. Joanna Redden, Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Media & Information Studies at Western University, about Bill C-27. Bill C-27 is an act to “enact the Consumer Privacy Protection Act, the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act and the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts.” Drs. Karen Louise Smith and Joanna Redden, who are part of a group of scholars who submitted a brief to the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology (INDU) on Bill C-27, discuss what some of the major issues are with the proposed legislation and, if passed as it is currently drafted, how the bill will affect marginalized communities in Canada. They also share some of the recommendations they and other scholars have submitted to INDU regarding changes to improve Bill C-27.

Additional Show Notes:

• Collaboratively authored brief submitted to INDU that was discussed by Drs. Smith and Redden in the episode:
  Bannerman, S., Smith, K.L., Redden, J., Akanbi, O. Maqsood, S. and Obar, J. (2023). Submission to The Standing Committee on Industry and Technology on Bill C-27… [PDF brief submitted to INDU]. Parliament of Canada. https://www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Committee/441/INDU/Brief/BR12793483/br-external/Jointly8-e.pdf
• Groundbreaking research on facial recognition technology (FRT) noted in the episode:
  Buolamwini, J., & Gebru, T. (2018). Gender Shades: Intersectional Accuracy Disparities in Commercial Gender Classification. Proceedings of Machine Learning Research 81, 77-91. https://proceedings.mlr.press/v81/buolamwini18a.html
• CBC coverage on governmental use of AI in Canada: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/federal-government-used-ai-1.7170307
• Tracking Automated Government in Canada register: https://tagcanada.shinyapps.io/register/
• Background on Fair Information Practice Principles discussed in the episode https://www.fpc.gov/resources/fipps/
• Biggest Lie on the Internet research led by Jonathan Obar: https://www.biggestlieonline.com/
• Cambridge Analytica scandal outlined by The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/cambridge-analytica-facebook-influence-us-election
• Research on cancelled automated systems mentioned at the end of the podcast: https://carnegieuktrust.org.uk/publications/automating-public-services-learning-from-cancelled-systems/
• Patricia Hill Collins’s book on intersectionality citied in the episode:
  Collins, P. H. (2019). Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11hpkdj

Note: This interview was conducted in early April, 2024. There have been further developments with Bill C-27 since then. For more information about the timeline of Bill C-27 developments, please visit: https://www.parl.ca/legisinfo/en/bill/44-1/c-27

The Intersections Podcast, created at McMaster University, explores issues at the intersection of race, religion, gender, media, and communications policy. In this episode, host Faezeh Daemi speaks with Dr. Derek Woods, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies & Media Arts at McMaster University. Dr. Woods, with a background in forestry and biology, bridges the sciences and humanities to support anti-capitalist climate politics. Their conversation delves into Dr. Woods’ insights from his book, Calamity Theory: Three Critiques of Existential Risk, and explores critical perspectives regarding existential risks of hypothetical human extinction, such as the future of malevolent AI and AI’s impact on the environment and marginalized communities.

The Intersections Podcast, created at McMaster University, explores issues at the intersection of race, religion, gender, media, and communications policy. In this episode, host Faezeh Daemi speaks to Alexis-Carlota Cochrane, a Ph.D. Candidate in Communication, New Media & Cultural Studies at McMaster University. Their conversation focuses on Alexis-Carlota’s research which focuses on the intersection of identity, critical data, platforms, technology, and digital activism in Latin America and Latinx diasporas. Specifically, Alexis-Carlota researches how white digital (dis)affordance logics translate to platformed and technological spaces and the ways in which women and femmes of colour employ platforms alternatively, queering their functions in an act of resistance, refusal, and reclaiming. The conversation explores what user accounts can tell us about how platforms function, especially opaque, black-boxed technologies, and how a narrative approach to understanding users’ experiences with a platform and their data, real people’s experiences can influence platform policies, improve safety and transparency, and reshape platform cultures for a more inclusive digital future.

The Intersections Podcast, created at McMaster University, explores issues at the intersection of race, religion, gender, media, and communications policy. In this episode, host Faezeh Daemi speaks to Fatemeh Gharibi, a PhD candidate in Gender, Feminist, and Women’s Studies at York University. The interview focuses on Fatemeh’s research on how international students are treated in Canadian media, including the portrayal of the so-called international student involved in the attack on a gender studies class at the University of Waterloo in June 2023. Fatemeh also delves into the backlash against queer and trans people in Canada and the US.

Since this episode was recorded in June 2023, new restrictions on international education in Canada have been announced. These include cuts to spousal work permits for certain international students and a 35 percent reduction in the number of study permits issued. Experts believe this cap unfairly blames international students for housing and healthcare crises in Canada. This dramatic policy shift and its impact on both current and prospective international students highlight how media narratives can have real consequences for marginalized groups. Despite these challenges, international students have shown resilience, continuing to protest and resist their unfair treatment.

The Intersections Podcast, created at McMaster University, explores issues at the intersection of race, religion, gender, media, and communications policy. In this episode, host Faezeh Daemi speaks to Dr. Andrea Zeffiro, an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies and Media Arts and Academic Director for the Lewis and Ruth Sherman Centre for Digital Scholarship. Dr. Zeffiro explains the concept of reproductive data futurism and Dr. Zeffiro’s 2019 paper Towards A Queer Futurity of Data. Their conversation focuses on an important point raised in the paper about how data is a “political trope through which we are coerced into the promise that more data collection now will lead to a better and brighter future” (Zeffiro, 2019, p. 5). Dr. Zeffiro shares how the concept of reproductive data futurism is connected to artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT that have emerged in the past few years and how marginalized communities are impacted by algorithmic bias, as well as suggestions for how society can imagine and move towards a queer futurity of data.

In this episode, host Faezeh Daemi speaks to Dr. Dilyana Mincheva, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies and Multimedia at McMaster University. The conversation focuses on how far-right movements mobilize through social media and how social media policy on free speech allows for this to happen.

In this episode, host Faezeh Daemi speaks to Sonya Fatah, an Associate Professor at the School of Journalism at Toronto Metropolitan University, about her work on the demographics of Canadian newsrooms and the mandates to report this information. The conversation also touches on whether how Muslims are portrayed in Canadian news influences the Islamophobia Canadians face and what can be done to improve the diversity of Canadian newsrooms.

This podcast episode discusses the topics of Canadian cultural policy and sovereignty with regards to Bill C-11 by using insights from panelists who participated in the Communication & Cultural Policy in the Age of the Platform 2021 Conference. For more information about the Communication & Cultural Policy in the Age of the Platform 2021 Conference, please visit ⁠comcultpolicy2021.ca⁠.