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- Announcing the winners of the Fall 2020 FCAT Photo Contest
- Announcing the 2020 FCAT Research Excellence Award recipients
- The one and only: Jo-Anne Ray recognized for 25 years of service to SFU publishing program
- Stephen Collis receives $20,000 grant to host geopoetics symposium and residency
- SFU’s Digital Democracies Institute led by Wendy Chun works to advance new technology and cultural democracy
- Interdisciplinary degree sets dance grad on unique artistic path
- Carman Neustaedter named dean of Faculty of Communication, Art and Technology
- Chantal Gibson's Senate artwork raises social awareness for Black Canadian voices
- Bernhard Riecke works with SFU PhD students to launch their VR installation Body RemiXer
- SIAT professor Carman Neustaedter shares what he has learned about online teaching during the pandemic
- Steve DiPaola of SIAT collaborates with an International team to develop VR training simulations
- Teaching in a digital world: Introducing FCAT’s new Teaching Fellow, Hannah McGregor
- SIAT alumnus partners with Mechatronic Systems Engineering professor to produce 3D-printed ventilators
- Untold internet histories: A research partnership between SFU and the London School of Economics
- Wendy Chun receives $200,000 research grant to combat fake news
- SIAT MA student Meta Vaughan receives the 2020 Terry Fox Gold Medal
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School of Communication, Technology & Society
SFU’s Digital Democracies Institute led by Wendy Chun works to advance new technology and cultural democracy
The evolution of technology has altered how information is processed, with globalization enabling education and technological advancement – but also falling prey to issues of privacy violation and disinformation.
SFU’s new Digital Democracies Institute (DDI), formerly the Digital Democracies Group, aims to tackle those issues. Led by Wendy Chun, SFU’s Canada 150 Research Chair in New Media, the institute’s goal is to create global partnerships and integrated research in humanities, social sciences, network and data sciences to address questions of equality, justice, and democratic dialogue.
“We want to rethink the relationship between technology and democracy and work towards how technology can be part of a holistic solution to combat polarization,” says Chun. “Our long-term goal is to combat the proliferation of online polarization, abusive language, and discriminatory algorithms by producing alternative data literacies and paradigms for connection.”
The institute aims to support SFU as a global leader in the field of humanities and data sciences, create new opportunities for faculties, build connections with not-for-profit organizations and expand global collaborations.
“It will also become a hub for data collaboration on social media research,” says Svitlana Matviyenko, the institute’s associate director and assistant professor in SFU’s School of Communication. “The institute will host and maintain an advanced research computing infrastructure that can accommodate the shared needs of our affiliates and collaborators, and provide a stable and reliable environment for digital social sciences research.” she says.
The institute has launched the following research streams, with more to follow:
1) Beyond Verification: Authenticity and the Spread of Mis/disinformation
2) From Hate to Agonism: Fostering Democratic Exchange Online
3) Desegregating Network Neighborhoods
4) Discriminating Data
For more information about the Digital Democracies Institute at SFU, go to https://digitaldemocracies.org
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