Information at the Intersections: Disability, Race, and Information Access

Date/Time
Date(s) - 09/22/2017
12:00 pm - 1:15 pm

Location
Room 142, Carroll Hall

How do local and online information systems create and perpetuate marginalization?  How and where do marginalized groups seek information about their own well-being? How does marginalization affect the ways that people seek and share information in their local communities and on the Internet?

On  Friday, Sept. 22, the  UNC  Center for Media Law and Policy will host an interdisciplinary lunch open to faculty and graduate students from across the  UNC  system. The lunch will be led by Dr. Amelia Gibson, an assistant professor in the UNC School of Information and Library Science. Dr. Gibson researches information poverty and the social, cultural, and environmental factors that influence information access for people with disabilities and people of color.

Dr. Gibson’s current project, “Know That! Young Black Women and Personal Geographies of Information Seeking,” is intended to serve both as an examination of diverse ways of knowing, information seeking, and being in information spaces (such as the library) engaged by Black and Latina girls and women –  groups that are often marginalized in librarianship and information science.  She examines what cognitive and social factors influence girls’ decision-making about how, where, and when they engage in information-seeking.

“For many young black women, information seeking is, like other behaviors, negotiated among conflicting needs, resources, and socially imposed limitations,” Dr. Gibson said. “Often, their ways of knowing and seeking are not acknowledged as valuable or ‘correct’ in discussions about information literacy and poverty.”

Dr. Gibson is also engaged in an intersectional examination of the information needs and practices of people with Autism Spectrum Disorders and their families. The study explores the ways that marginalization occurs within local and online information systems, how people adapt their behavior to compensate, and how community organizations and systems designers can do to better serve these communities.

Dr. Gibson graduated with a Ph.D. from the College of Communication and Information at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida. She had previously been a research associate at the Information Use Management and Policy Institute, where she researched issues related to rural communities and e-government, and broadband adoption through community anchor institutions. Dr. Gibson received her MLIS from FSU, and her AB from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. While at Florida State, Dr. Gibson was a McKnight Fellow, and she is a member of Beta Phi Mu Honor Society.

Dr. Gibson is the recipient of the 2016 Eleanor M. and Frederick G. Kilgour Research Grant Award and a 2017 IMLS Early Career Award.

In addition to stimulating conversation, the Center will provide lunch to those who register below before Wednesday, September 20.

RSVP


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This event is fully booked. If you are unable to register because we have reached the maximum number of reservations, please email medialaw@unc.edu to be added to the waitlist.


Tagged: Interdisciplinary Lunch Series
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