Esteban Morales will have his doctoral defence at 12:30PM on Monday, January 29, 2024 in Room 200 of the Graduate Student Centre (6371 Crescent Road).
All are welcome to attend. Please arrive 5 minutes early so the exam can begin promptly.
The Supervisory Committee comprises:
Supervisor: Dr. Leah Macfadyen (LLED)
Committee Members: Dr. Mark Turin (Department of Anthropology and Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies, UBC), Dr. Teresa Dobson (LLED), Dr. Katherine Reilly (School of Communication, SFU)
The Examiners are:
University Examiners: Dr. Jen Jenson (LLED) and Dr. Jillianne Code (EDCP)
External Examiner: Dr. Stuart Poyntz (School of Communication, SFU)
The Defense Chair: Dr. Mona Gleason (EDST)
Dissertation Title: Living with Violence on Social Media: An Exploration of Colombian Young Adults’ Encounters with Online Harms
Abstract:
As social media platforms—such as Facebook, YouTube, and WhatsApp— have become an inescapable element of our lives, they have also become spaces where we regularly encounter, experience, and make sense of violence. These ecologies of online harm have profound implications in settings with long-lasting histories of armed conflict—such as Colombia, the context of this study—as cultures of violence become gradually more intertwined with digital platforms. Accordingly, this dissertation examines Colombian young adults’ views on and experiences concerning violence on social media. To address this research objective, I draw from a case study where Colombian young adults discussed the violence they interacted with on their everyday uses of digital platforms, examining how violence on social media is experienced and understood by users. The findings of this dissertation are organized in three sections: 1) the violence that young people encounter in their everyday engagements with digital platforms, 2) the processes of meaning-making around violence, and 3) the potential of education as a device of estrangement toward violence. Overall, this dissertation emphasizes how social media is now a crucial element through which we live with violence. Indeed, the findings of this dissertation highlight the critical role that social media platforms play in contemporary cultures of violence in Colombia—due to its pervasiveness, complexity, and processes of mediation in citizens’ meaning-making around harm and peace. In this context, education—and more specifically, critical dialogue and reflection—emerges as a productive space to unground existing cultures of violence and support peacebuilding processes