2019 visiting scholar Dr. Kim Sawchuck on Bunions, Brain Games and Belly Fat: Ageing and Algorithmic Media

 On October 16, 2019, our third annual Stephen Katz Lecture in Interdisciplinary Aging Studies was held at Trent University. We welcomed Dr. Kim Sawchuck to discuss critical questions about both AI and the algorithms that profile us as we age. 

Building on the critical work of feminist media study scholars such as Wendy Chun, critical race theorists, such as Safiya Noble and age studies scholars such as Barbara Marshall and Stephen Katz on quantified ageing, this talk explored how ageing operates as a critical lens to reveal differential relations of power in present day mediated/consumer cultures.

Dr. Kim Sawchuck is a Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Concordia University and the director of the SSHRC Partnership Grant, Ageing, Communication, Technologies: Experiencing a Digital World in Later Life (actproject.ca). She holds the Concordia University Research Chair in Mobile Media Studies. Dr. Sawchuk’s research focuses on the intersection between age, ageing, and communication technologies, more recently examining the ways in which Web 3.0 is shaping public knowledge of ageing and old age through community-based research with older adults. Her recent publications include Game-based Learning Across the Lifespan (Springer, 2018) a co-edited collection of articles on collaborative media-making with older adults.

 View the full-size poster here