Merlyna Lim
Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Digital Media and Global Network Society
| Building: | Richcraft Hall, Room 4110C |
| Department: | School of Journalism and Communication |
| Website: | http://www.merlyna.org |
Biography
Merlyna Lim is a Canada Research Chair in Digital Media and Global Network Society with the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton University. An ALiGN Media Lab founder/director, Merlyna Lim’s research interests revolve around the mutual shaping of technology and society, and political culture of technology, especially digital media and information technology, in relation to issues of justice, democracy and civic/participatory engagement. Among her notable publications are Roots, Routes, Routers: Communication and Media of Contemporary Social Movements (2018) and Online Collective Action: Dynamics of the Crowds in Social Media (2014).
Lim is an interdisciplinary scholar who has published extensively in various disciplines, including communication and media studies, religious studies, journalism, urban studies/sociology, geography, anthropology, Asian studies, Middle East studies, information and library science, computer science and information systems (see publications).
An award-winning scholar, in 2016, Lim was inducted to the Royal Society of Canada‘s New College of Scholars, Artists, and Scientists. In 2020, Carleton University named her one of “International Women’s Day’s Top 10 Women Leaders and Researchers“. Lim is also the recipient of the 2012 Best Publication Award in Information Systems and selected “One of 100 Most Inspiring Indonesian Women” by the Kartini Foundation in 2011. Lim has been awarded dozens of research grants/awards from various institutions such as Canada Research Chairs, Social Science and Humanities Research Council (Canada), Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Ontario Research Fund, the National Science Foundation (United States), the Ford Foundation, the Volkswagen Foundation, the East-West Center, the Open Society Foundations, and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).
Over the course of her career, Lim has delivered more than 200 talks and presentations all over the globe, and appeared in more than 100 media coverages, including The Guardian, Al Jazeera, and CBC News. Previously she was a Visiting Research Professor with Princeton University’s Center of Information Technology Policy, a Distinguished Scholar of Technology and Public Engagement at Arizona State University, and a Networked Public Research Fellow at the Annenberg Center for Communication University of Southern California.
Selected Publications
(for a complete list see publications)
Lim, M. 2020. The politics and perils of dis/connection in the Global South (Crosscurrent: The Limits and Boundaries of Digital Disconnection). Media, Culture & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443720914032 [PDF]
Lim, M. 2020. Algorithmic enclaves: Affective politics and algorithms in the neoliberal social media landscape. In M. Boler & E. Davis (eds.), Affective Politics of Digital Media: Propaganda by Other Means, 186-203. New York & London: Routledge. [PDF]
Lim, M. 2019. Disciplining Dissent:Freedom, Control, and Digital Activism in Southeast Asia, in R. Padawangi (ed.) Routledge Handbook of Urbanization in Southeast Asia, Routledge, 478-494. [PDF]
Lim, M. 2018. Roots, Routes, Routers: Communications and Media of Contemporary Social Movements. Journalism & Communication Monographs Series, 20(2): 92-136. [PDF]
Lim, M. 2018. Dis/Connecting: The co–evolution of socio–cultural and material infrastructures of the internet in Indonesia. Indonesia, 105(April): 155-172. [PDF]
Lim, M. 2018. Sticks and Stones, Clicks and Phones: Contextualizing the Role of Digital Media in the Politics of Transformation, in C. Richter & C. Harders, & A. Antonakis-Nashif (eds.) Digital Media and the Politics of Transformation in the Arab World and Asia, Berlin: Springer VS, 9-34. [PDF]
Lim, M., 2018. Challenging Technological Utopianism. Canadian Journal of Communication, 43(3).
Mitchell, S.S.D. & Lim, M. 2018. Too Crowded for Crowdsourced Journalism: Reddit and Citizen Participation in the Syrian Crisis. Canadian Journal of Communication, 43(3): 399-419. [PDF].
Alrasheed, G. & Lim, M. (2018). Unveiling Saudi Feminism(s): Historicization, Heterogeneity, and Corporeality in the Women’s Movements. Canadian Journal of Communication, 43(3): 461-79. [PDF]
Lim, M. 2017. Freedom to Hate: Social Media, Algorithmic Enclaves, and the Rise of Tribal Nationalism in Indonesia. Critical Asian Studies, 49 (3): 411-427. [PDF]
Lim, M. 2017. Sweeping the Unclean: Social Media and the Bersih Electoral Reform in Malaysia. Global Media Journal, 14(27). [PDF]
Lim, M. 2017. Digital Media and Malaysia’s Electoral Reform Movement, in W. Berenschot, Schulte Nordholt & L. Bakker (eds.), Citizenship and Democratization in Southeast Asia, Leiden: Brill Academic Publisher, 213–239. [PDF]
Lim, M. 2015. A Cyber–Urban Space Odyssey: The Spatiality of Contemporary Social Movements. New Geographies, 07: 117–123. [PDF]
Yuce, S., Agarwal, N., Lim, M., Robinson, R.S., Wigand, R. 2015. Bridging Women Rights Networks: Analyzing Interconnected Online Collective Actions. Journal of Global Information Management, 22(4): 1–20.
Agarwal, N., Lim, M., Wigand, R. (eds.) 2014. Online Collective Action: Dynamics of the Crowd in Social Media, New York/Heidelberg: Springer.
Lim, M. 2014. Seeing Spatially: People, Networks and Movements in Digital and Urban Spaces, International Development Planning Review, 36(1): 51–72. [PDF]
Lim, M. 2013. Framing Bouazizi: White Lies, Hybrid Network, and Collective/Connective Action in the 2010–2011 Tunisian Uprising, Journalism, 14(7): 921–941. [PDF]
Lim, M. 2013. Many Clicks but Little Sticks: Social Media Activism in Indonesia, Journal of Contemporary Asia, 43(4): 636–657. [PDF]
Awards (selected)
- International Women’s Day Top 10 Women Leaders and Researcher, Carleton University (2020)
- Faculty Graduate Mentoring Award at Carleton University, awardee (2019)
- Elected as a member of Royal Society of Canada’s New College of Scholars, Artists, and Scientists (2016)
- Canada Research Chair (2014 – present)
- Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP) Research Fellowship (2013-2014)
- 2012 Best Publication Award in Information Systems selected from all articles published in all information systems journals worldwide by the Senior Scholars Consortium, International Conference on Information Systems
- 2012 KITLV Royal Institution of Southeast Asia and Caribbean Studies Visiting Fellowship, Leiden, the Netherlands
- One of 100 Most Inspiring Indonesian Women—2011 Kartini Awards, The Kartini Foundation.
- 2010 Our Common Future Fellowship in Future Technologies, The Volkswagen Foundation.
- 2009 Faculty Stars of Global Minds, ASU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Alumni.
- Annenberg Networked Public Fellowship, Annenberg Center for Communication, University of Southern California (2005-2006)
- 2004 Henry Luce Southeast Asia Fellowship, East-West Center Washington DC
- 2003 Winner of American Society of Information Science and Technology (ASIST) Paper Contest
Teaching
COMS 5214 Local and Global
COMS 5200 Civic Media
COMS 2700 Global Media and Communication
COMS 4317 Digital Media & Global Network Society