We’re thrilled to announce that Dr. Kathy Dobson will be spending her academic year of 2023-2024 with the ALiGN Media Lab as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow.
An award-winning author, journalist, and scholar, Dr. Dobson’s research interests are in the area of media, justice, and political action, particularly focusing on political usages and implications of new technologies and media for social justice among marginalized groups, notably those experience homelessness and poverty.
Kathy earned a Ph.D. in Communication Studies from Carleton University with a dissertation titled “Living in Algorithmic Governance: A Study in the Digital Governance of Social Assistance in Ontario.” It examines the Ontario government’s Social Assistance Management System (SAMS), a type of algorithmically powered software that social assistance agencies use to categorize, sort, and manage the individuals who use social assistance. In particular, she explores how it feels for those individuals who depend on this system to pay for rent, food, and other life essentials.
At ALiGN Media Lab, as a postdoctoral researcher, Kathy Dobson works with Dr. Merlyna Lim in an SSHRC-funded research project on how social media is utilized in the production of alternative spaces for activism and counter-hegemonic movements. Further, drawing on the empirical research and informed by existing theories/concepts, Kathy is also leading the production of a handbook/toolkit to support activist groups in thinking through their social media-based communication strategies in supporting activism/movement building.