In the summer of 2020, we sought to understand the kind of resources Canadian universities actually provide to support scholars doing public facing media work. We wanted to know: what information universities make available to scholars for dealing with trolling, doxxing, and harassment when they do public facing scholarship and media work; the availability of that information online (on the Media Relations Offices’ websites); and the information that Media Relations Offices/Newsrooms make available to scholars that might not be on their website (plans, policies, advice). The goal of this research is to establish what practices already exist, what information and resources are missing, and to encourage all Canadian universities’ Media Relations Offices to develop a best practices plan.
In November 2021, Dr. Stef Duguay and Dr. Alex Ketchum invited Dr. Jennifer Lundquist of UMass Amherst to speak about the work she has been doing at her institution to create policies and systems to support scholars enduring digital harassment based on their public engagement ( https://www.eventbrite.com/e/dr-jennifer-lundquist-on-addressing-the-digital-harassment-of-scholars-tickets-161531837073?aff=ebdsoporgprofile) . The event was one of the 49 events of the speaker series Dr. Ketchum has organized since 2019: Disrupting Disruptions: Feminist and Accessible Publishing, Communications, and Technologies Speaker and Workshop Series. The recording of Lundquist's talk is available on the website ( https://www.feministandaccessiblepublishingandtechnology.com/p/videos.html) , as is a copy of the materials she created at UMass (here is the google drive direct link https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Rg597e_ub25GwsY6NmejNAh7Z4eSPUyL and here is the website link: https://www.femini