Briefings, Conference Presentations & Workshops
Leaders of the Citizens and Technology Lab (CAT Lab) held a briefing in Albany, NY, for state agency and legislative staff on the subject of “Independent Evaluation of Technology Policy.” Presenters were Assistant Professor and Leader of the CAT Lab J. Nathan Matias, Research Associate and CAT Lab Research Director Sarah Gilbert, and Deputy CAT Lab Director Elizabeth Eagen.
Research Associate Sarah Gilbert co-presented the paper “Whose Knowledge is Valued?: Epistemic Injustice in CSCW Applications” at the Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing conference. While policies around knowledge are essential for targeting misinformation, they are value-laden; in choosing how to present information, we undermine non-traditional—often non-Western—ways of knowing. In this paper, the authors articulated how epistemic injustice in sociotechnical applications leads to material harm.
Sarah Gilbert attended a workshop led by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy on Operationalizing Ethics into Online Safety and AI Research.
Graduate Student Roxana Muenster and Maggie Foster delivered the paper “Breadwinner or Breadmaker: Contradictions in Tradwives’ Creator Labor, Religious Vernacular, and Aesthetics” at the Association of Internet Researchers conference. Their project examined how tradwives negotiate the seeming contradictions between their professed ideology and their public-facing, often lucrative job as creators.
Events
Join us for COMMColloquium Monday, November 18, at 1:30 pm in 102 Mann Library Building. Professor Jennifer Stromer-Galley (Syracuse University) will present “Disinformation and Deceit: Coordinated Sharing Behavior in Meta Ads around the 2024 Presidential Campaign.” The colloquium is followed by a reception, located in The Hub of the Department of Communication.
Publications
Senior Lecturer Michelle LaVigne published “Christopher Rudd’s ‘Lifted’ and Gia Kourlas’s Review: Turning a Mirror towards the White Gaze” in Dance Chronicle, October 2024. The article is a review of Chris Rudd’s piece for American Ballet Theater and Gia Kourlas’s New York Times review of the performance to investigate how white dance critics like Kourlas respond to work by Black ballet choreographers in traditionally white spaces. Michelle argues that Kourlas’s review exemplifies how dance reviews can foster ballet’s whiteness by ignoring the contexts, intentions, and identities of Black choreographers.
