Hello, everyone! Thanks for having me. I'm Robert W. Gehl, an associate professor in Communication and Media Studies here at York. I predominantly teach at the Markham campus in our new Social Media and PR program.

I came to York because I applied for and got a job here! And I applied for a job here because I believe York University's Communication and Media Studies department is one of the best in the world. This screenshot is just three of my amazing colleagues. Kelly does really innovative research into feminism and game studies. Natalie is a leader on campus, building research networks. Desiree just had her research and art exhibited at TIFF. And that's just the first three folks on the CMDS website! You're meeting a bunch of these faculty in this class. I admire their work and I am very happy to be a part of what we're doing.

As for my research, I study the activists who build community-run social media. This is a pretty hot topic these days. I was just interviewed by The Conversation podcast about Mastodon and the fediverse, which have emerged as alternatives to what we once called Twitter. Mastodon is social media that anyone can install and run. It's currently used by millions of people around the world.

I have not been at York all that long, but I've taught a few interesting courses, including courses on media ethics, disinformation, social movments, public relations, and a grad course in Science and Technology Studies.

Speaking of Media Ethics, one cool project I've done with students is set up our own class-based Mastodon server. That means we have our own social media -- not an account on a corporate server like X or Facebook, but our own social media. But that brings a lot of responsibility. So in my Media Ethics class, I ask them how they want to run our own social media. Do we want content moderation policies? What would they involve? How do we make decisions about what can be done with our social media? I wrote up a blog post about this in case you'd like to read more -- it's available at https://fossacademic.tech/2023/11/22/EthicsAndCOCs.html

Reflecting on where students I've taught end up, I find that many go on to careers in law, or they become professors. A few students have gone on to careers making video games, and some have gone on to join the software industry.

Well, that's it for me! Thank you for inviting me to class!