Critical Technology KMDI

Games, memes, and parodies are increasingly used by extremist groups to spread misinformation and to lower the barriers to entry into extreme ideologies. But is there a deeper strategy at work? And if so, what's the end game? In Part 2 of this special two part interview, Dr. Sara Grimes chats with three researchers from the Reactionary Digital Politics Research Group, a multi-disciplinary collaboration based in the UK that has spent the past five years tracking the rise and spread of extremis...

Digital technologies are increasingly used as ideological weapons of misinformation, manipulation, propaganda, and radicalization. But how exactly are social media platforms and memes used by ideological extremists? And what are they trying to achieve? In this episode, Dr. Sara Grimes (Director of the KMDI) chats with three researchers from the Reactionary Digital Politics Research Group, a multi-disciplinary collaboration based in the UK that has spent the past five years tracking the rise a...

While Dall-E, Stable Diffusion, and other popular AI-image systems have rekindled the debate about the future of creative work in the digital age, many cultural industries are already heavily reliant on machine learning and automation to produce content traditionally created by artists and designers. A key example is the digital games industry, where game engines, procedural content generation, and AI systems play an increasingly prominent role. In this episode, Dr. Sara Grimes (Director of t...

Many of us are thinking more deeply about our relationships with the land these days. Through land acknowledgements inspired by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action. In response to the growing urgency, and immediacy, of climate change and its impacts. But what about our digital technologies and online cultures? How does the concept of Indigenous land-based relations help us to better understand the information society, its politics, and its processes? In th...

Although computing technologies are now ubiquitous in much of the West and other parts of the world, there are still significant inequalities when it comes to who has access to computer science education. Powerful cultural stereotypes about who is or can become a coder persist, leading to the underrepresentation of girls and children of colour from a crucial form of digital literacy. In this episode, Dr. Sara Grimes (Director of the KMDI) chats with Dr. Deborah Fields, Associate Research Prof...

How, where, and what kids and teens learn about safe sex, substance use, and other health-related topics is incredibly important. Especially for young people who are already dealing with higher risk factors, such as neighbourhood poverty and violence--a disproportionate number of whom are young people of colour, specifically Black, Latinx or Indigenous youth. In this episode, Dr. Sara M. Grimes (Director of the KMDI) chats with Dr. Robin Stevens, Associate Professor at University ...