Events
Arts and Humanities Conversations at CUHK - Ep03 Why Inequalities in Film and Technology Matter
13 Mar 2021
3 – 4pm
Channel: Zoom* and Facebook page CUHK Faculty of Arts (*Please register here to join through Zoom if you would like to ask question live.)
Prof. Elmo Gonzaga (Department of Cultural and Religious Studies),
Prof. Ron Darvin (Department of English)
Prof. Elmo Gonzaga
Elmo Gonzaga is Assistant Professor in the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies, where he teaches Transnational Screen Studies, Global Critical Theory, and Asian Urban Humanities. He obtained his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. His book Monsoon Marketplace is under contract with Fordham University Press. His research has been published or will be published in the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, Cultural Studies, positions: asia critique, Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, Verge: Studies in Global Asias, and the Journal of Asian Studies.
Prof. Ron Darvin
Ron Darvin is Assistant Professor in the English Department, where he teaches Digital Literacies and Digital Technologies for Language Learning. He obtained his PhD from the University of British Columbia and his research on the digital inequalities of immigrant youth received the 2020 Dissertation Award of the American Association of Applied Linguistics. His research has been published in the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics and Langage et société.
電話 Tel: (852) 3943 7107
電郵 Email: arts@cuhk.edu.hk
Our talk looks at how inequality can be studied in different ways between our two disciplines of Cinema Studies and Applied Linguistics.
Elmo Gonzaga explains how the world-building of the James Bond, Jason Bourne, Transformer, and Pacific Rim spy and sci-fi movie franchises contrast Northeast Asian global cities with Southeast Asian mega-cities. While so-called ‘advanced industrialized’ Tokyo, Shanghai, Seoul, and Hong Kong are extolled as affluent, orderly, and dynamic, ‘developing’ or ‘emerging’ Bangkok, Jakarta, Manila, and Saigon are debased as poor, criminal, and violent.
Ron Darvin discusses how digital inequality isn’t just about whether you have access to devices and connectivity. The types of devices you use, the contexts in which you use them, and your access to different cultural and social resources can shape different digital practices that are valued unequally. At the same time, the design and the algorithms of some platforms like Zoom and Instagram can also structure behaviour online and position users in unequal ways.
