Margaret D’Silva
is professor of communication and
director of the Institute for Intercultural Communication at the University of
Louisville. Educated both in India and
in the United States, she is a widely traveled scholar.
She is immediate past editor of the journal Intercultural
Communication Studies and a Board of Directors Member of the International
Association for Intercultural Communication Studies.
D’Silva has co-edited two books and
published over 40 articles and book chapters. She is co-investigator on a $397,000
National Institutes of Health grant. She
is currently co-editing two books on mediated intercultural communication for
Routledge.
She teaches both online and face-to-face courses in Mass Media
Processes and Effects, and Intercultural Communication. She has enjoyed taking students
on study abroad trips to Panama, Cuba, India, and Peru.
She has served as chair of the APAC Division
of the National Communication Association and as chair of SSCA’s Intercultural
and Popular Communication Divisions. She has received SSCA’s Outreach Award,
KCA’s Research Award, and the University of Louisville’s Presidential Award for
Multicultural Teaching.
Keynote Address: Indigenous Communities and Protest Movements in the Digital Age: Standing Rock Analysis
Abstract: Social media have profoundly influenced intercultural
communication, creating spaces for both civil and uncivil discourses. Social network sites such as Facebook, Twitter,
and Instagram, provide enormous opportunities to connect, disconnect, protest,
and organize in an increasingly interconnected world. These momentous changes in intercultural
communication, particularly using social media, require us to examine current
notions of culture, communication, and social movements.
Social media are increasingly utilized in protest movements
to garner support, raise consciousness, create an identity, build community, and
to motivate change. The Arab Spring, the
Umbrella Movement, and Occupy Wall Street are some examples. This presentation will examine one such
movement: Standing Rock, an American Indian protest against the Dakota Access
Pipeline. Analysis of the Facebook page
of the movement, and other data, offer newer perspectives on social protests in
the digital age.