Nadia Caidi

Social media platforms play a central role in shaping whose voices gain visibility during moments of crisis. This study examines how platform-mediated dynamics influence the distribution of voice in online discourse, focusing on racialized and migrant communities in Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a large-scale computational analysis of X (formerly Twitter) data, we analyze participation patterns, dominant narratives, and how attention is distributed across actors. We identify four established forms of Othering—hostile, cultural, sympathetic, and silencing—and introduce a fifth: algorithmic Othering. We define algorithmic Othering as the platform-mediated structuring of visibility through which institutional and elite actors disproportionately shape discourse, while marginalized users remain comparatively under-amplified. Our findings show that even when racialized and migrant users actively participate in online discussions, their visibility is systematically constrained by engagement-driven amplification systems. As a result, marginalized communities are more often spoken about than heard directly. These findings suggest that social media platforms do not simply reflect existing inequalities but actively organize them through the distribution of attention and visibility. By identifying a structural mechanism through which voice is unevenly amplified, this study contributes to broader understandings of inequality, representation, and participation in digital environments.

Researchers in information science and related fields have traditionally focused on published research and syntheses of research findings. While these mechanisms are crucial for knowledge dissemination, we advocate for more innovative knowledge translation and mobilization efforts. To illustrate this, we present a unique case study on the employment-seeking practices of immigrant women in STEM in Canada. This study stands out for its groundbreaking arts-based knowledge deliverables, including an animated film, a novel approach that was instrumental in our knowledge dissemination and translation efforts. We delve into the study, the rationale behind these deliverables, and the significance of this approach for information science professionals.

Purpose: This pan-Canadian study examines the information practices of STEM-trained immigrant women to Canada as they navigate workfinding and workplace integration. Our study focuses on a population of highly skilled immigrant women from across Canada and uses an information practice lens to examine their lived experiences of migration and labour market integration. As highly trained STEM professionals in pursuit of employment, our participants have specific needs and challenges, and as we explore these, we consider the intersection of their information practices with government policies, settlement services and the hiring practices of STEM employers.Design/methodology/approach: We conducted a qualitative study using in-depth interviews with 74 immigrant women across 13 Canadian provinces and territories to understand the nature of their engagement with employment-seeking in STEM sectors. This article reports the findings related to the settlement and information experiences of the immigrant women as they navigate new information landscapes.Findings: As immigrants, as women and as STEM professionals, the experiences of the 74 participants reflect both marginality and privilege. The reality of their intersectional identities is that these women may not be well-served by broader settlement resources targeting newcomers, but neither are the specific conventions of networking and job-seeking in the STEM sectors in Canada fully apparent or accessible to them. The findings also point to the broader systemic and contextual factors that participants have to navigate and that shape in a major way their workfinding journeys.Originality/value: The findings of this pan-Canadian study have theoretical and practical implications for policy and research. Through interviews with these STEM professionals, we highlight the barriers and challenges of an under-studied category of migrants (the highly skilled and “desirable” type of immigrants). We provide a critical discussion of their settlement experiences and expose the idiosyncrasies of a system that claims to value skilled talent while structurally making it very difficult to deliver on its promises to recruit and retain highly qualified personnel. Our findings point to specific aspects of these skilled professionals’ experiences, as well as the broader systemic and contextual factors that shape their workfinding journey.

Ramadan is an important and blessed month for Muslims around the world. It is both a time of spiritual contemplation as well as an opportunity for reinvigorating communal bonds. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, disrupted many of the rituals and traditions of Ramadan. In this exploratory study, we present findings from 22 young Muslims' experiences with Ramadan and fasting during the pandemic. Our article sheds light on the techno-religious practices and information strategies used to mitigate isolation, share information, and celebrate Ramadan. We examine the sociotechnical configurations of religious rituals and highlight the resilience of these rituals even in the midst of a global pandemic. Our paper contributes to CSCW scholarship on technology appropriation and non-use as they relate to religious practices in the face of exogenous shocks such as the pandemic, and how design can better cater to the religious lives of individuals and communities.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced people to reimagine how they engage in spiritual and religious activities. This paper presents an analysis of the information practices of young Muslims during Ramadan, with a focus on their social, spiritual and COVID-related needs and strategies. Our qualitative approach entailed semi-structured interviews with 22 self-identified Muslims from across the Muslim spectrum. They were asked about their experiences with completing Ramadan under pandemic, including the nature of information accessed and shared as part of the fasting rituals.Analysis. Interviews were transcribed, and open coding was used to categorize the data into themes. The thematic analysis was conducted through an iterative process. Our findings pointed to the differing affective states of the young Muslims who observed the fast under COVID. Participants also hinted at the loss of communal practices and rituals and the emergence of new habits and coping strategies (many informational in nature). Social and emotional support were particularly critical to overcoming the challenges. This study contributes to a better understanding of the intersection between information activities and spiritual/religious practices. The findings also have theoretical and practical implications for the role of information and technology in times of crisis.

As a dynamic and interdisciplinary field of study, information science has a diverse set of methods, theoretical frameworks, tools and processes that continue to be developed, adopted, and extended through further research, teaching, and practice. Some of the methods and frameworks have origins in other disciplines. The interdisciplinary nature of information science may have enabled the field to grow in stature but it may have also contributed to it being perceived, often unfairly and mistakenly, as lacking a strong identity, brand, and reputation, leading to a possible fragmentation of the field. Continued conversations around factors that may help and/or hinder the field from fulfilling its full potential and how it can position itself to build an identity on a strong track record are necessary. The panel has two main goals: (1) to engage researchers and educators in an interactive discussion on the contributing factors and ways in which information science can remain a diverse and interdisciplinary field, realize its full potential, and build a strong identity as well as identify potential barriers it needs to overcome; and (2) to delineate the roles its stakeholders and allies need to play to achieve that goal of a field with “Unity in diversity”.

Information phenomena and behaviors underlie every aspect of contemporary life, including spiritual/religious experiences. Pilgrimage as an information context provides insights into the nature of information and knowledge in the lives of individuals undergoing such transformational experiences. Findings based on interviews with twelve Hajj pilgrims suggest that their information practices are varied and transcend both individual (cognitive, affective) and social processes (through shared imaginaries and a wide network of people and resources). As pilgrims prepare for and complete the rituals, then return home, they make use of a range of coping strategies from triangulation and validation to information avoidance. Examining the information strategies of Hajj pilgrims provide us with insights into their processes of negotiating meaning in shifting and unknown contexts.

Completing a pilgrimage has often been touted as a transformational experience. Yet, pilgrimage as an information context is sorely lacking in our field, despite the valuable insights it could provide into the complex information environments and evolving states of those who undertake pilgrimage. In this article, I examine a specific pilgrimage: the Hajj in Mecca (Saudi Arabia). Preparing for Hajj involves a series of stages encompassing material, spiritual, and informational dimensions. Using a qualitative and exploratory approach, this study applies the lens ofpilgrimage as ‘lived religion’ and makes explicit the detailed activities and outcomes of pilgriminformation practices, and the ways in which information in its multiple forms (textual, spiritual,corporeal, etc.) has mediated and shaped the pilgrims’ journey. I build on established theoriesin information behavior and meaning-making in the context of everyday life, as well as theliterature on pilgrimage and pilgrimage as ‘lived religion’ to relate the participants’ encounterwith Hajj and their experiences toward becoming a Hajji/-a (someone who has completed theHajj). Findings based on interviews with twelve (12) global Hajj goers suggest that pilgrims’information practices are varied, and transcend both individual (cognitive, affective) as well as social processes (through shared imaginaries and a translocal network of people and resources). The study illustrates the importance of examining diverse transformational experiences in LIS, and the rich contributions that our field can make to these research contexts.

This study examines how, in the words of Appadurai, “locality emerges in a global world” (Appadurai, 1996, p.18). Specifically, it articulates the nature of information practices in the lives of 14 newcomers to Canada who have migrated from the Philippines to the medium‐size city of Winnipeg. Using a qualitative and exploratory approach, this study applies a transnational lens to this area of research to make explicit the detailed activities and outcomes of newcomer information practices, in particular drawing out the dimensions and implications of newcomers' participation within and across local and global social networks, translocal information landscapes, and across their settlement trajectories. The result is a Translocal Meaning Making process that describes how newcomers come to make sense and use information across distinct and sometimes contradictory information spaces. Our findings suggest that migrant information practices shift across space and time and are constituted both individually, through cognitive and affective processes, and socially, through shared imaginaries, through interactions within and across translocal information landscapes, and through complex deterritorialized networks of people and resources.