HOW TO ATTEND

This event will be held from 9:00am – 5:00pm EST on April 7 and April 8. Symposium participants may attend either in-person (Room 2435, North Quad) or virtually; registration is required.

For additional details (including a list of confirmed speakers) and to register:  https://joyojeet.people.si.umich.edu/influencers.htm.

ABOUT

Social media influencer activity on platforms such as YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and LinkedIn are now pivotal to social influence in societies around the world, as the ecology of the public sphere gets increasingly crafted, amplified, or negated by what happens online. This is as true, or more so in the Global South, where social media has often served as the gateway for entry into the online realm for millions of technology users with little or no prior experience. The resulting world is one in which the boundaries between the physical and the virtual has fundamentally reshaped power equations between the citizens and the state, their culture, and their communities.

This symposium at the University of Michigan is focused on social media influencers, and brings a host of leaders, artistes, journalists, activists, commentators, and scholars from two of the fastest growing Internet-using regions of the world to discuss how they interact online, what drives their activities and success, and how being public figures online impacts their lives and work.

This event has been organized by ESC affiliated faculty Joyojeet Pal (School of Information, University of Michigan) and Omolade Adunbi (DAAS, University of Michigan). It is co-sponsored by ESC; the Center for South Asian Studies; the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies; Rackham Graduate School; the African Studies Center; the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts; and the School of Information.