About Us
About the Centre for Media & Culture in Education
The Centre for Media and Culture in Education supports interdisciplinary research and teaching agendas that advance ideals of social equity and justice. The CMCE promotes visionary and innovative media and cultural productions positioning us to imagine a different and better world. The Centre reaches out both locally and internationally, seeking connections, networks, relations and exchanges that enhance media, cultural and digital literacies and education.
Centre Director
Megan Boler is a Professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. In addition to being a member of the Department of Social Justice Education, Dr. Boler is an affiliate faculty member of Innis College, the Center for the Study of the United States, the Knowledge Media Design Institute, the Institute for Women and Gender Studies, and Cinema Studies. Funded extensively by the Canadian Social Science and Humanities Research Council since 2005, her mixed-methods studies have focused on the use of digital media technologies by pro-democracy social movement activists. Since 2017, her funded research has focused on the weaponization of affect and political polarization within social media. She has recently been awarded two major grants from the Canadian Heritage Digital Citizen Contribution Program: in 2021, to study online polarization and disinformation literacy (Boler et al, forthcoming 2025), and in 2024-25 for a project entitled “Queering Digital Tools Against Hate: Countering 2SLGBTQI Mis-/Disinformation with Community-Informed Digital Stories, Gamification, and Resources.” In partnership with the non-profit community organization Egale, Dr. Boler serves as PI of a large team of designers and researchers, utilizing qualitative research and user experience to produce gamified tools to counter online hate and disinformation targeting 2SLGBTQ+ communities. Finally, with a 2024-25 award from Inlight Student Mental Health Research, Dr. Boler is working with graduate students to produce a critical review of post-secondary students’ anxiety regarding AI. Her recent publications include Affective Politics of Digital Media: Propaganda By Other Means (Routledge: 2020), Boler, M. et al, Digital Affect Culture and the Logics of Melodrama: Online Polarization and the January 6 Capitol Riots through the Lens of Genre and Affective Discourse Analysis, in Social Media + Society, (2024); Azhar, A., & Boler, M. “Cruel, Convenient, and Intimate Publics: Berlant’s Lessons for Loneliness and Digital Media Commons,” in Media Theory, (2023).
Centre Graduate Assistant
(she/her)
Sara Rasikh is an Master of Arts (MA) student in Social Justice Education (SJE) at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE). She holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts in Ethics, Society & Law and Critical Studies in Equity & Solidarity from the University of Toronto.
With over seven years of experience in movement organizing, Sara’s research examines anti-colonial social justice movements, with a particular focus on theories of solidarity and joint struggle. Her interests extend to the ways in which scientific and professional expertise, alongside media narratives, serve to legitimize and reinforce systems of social control. Sara has also edited an annotated bibliography on the Ethics of AI for the Oxford Handbook of Ethics of AI.
Header Image Attribution:
Graffiti against discrimination and exclusion of lesbians, gays and transgender people
Lupus in Saxonia