The Corporation
Dr. Megan Boler has led the development of two study guides to accompany the documentary The Corporation (Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott, 2003). The range of timely and relevant topics tackled by the film lend themselves to integration into a wide variety of courses and subjects, including media studies, business, philosophy, history, environmental studies, and political science.

The Canadian documentary The Corporation presents a darkly amusing account of the institution’s birth as a legal “person” whose prime directive is to produce profit for shareholders regardless of the cost to anyone, or anything else. Considering the odd legal fiction that deems a corporation a “person” in the eyes of the law, the feature documentary employees a checklist, based on actual diagnostic criteria of the World Health Organization and DSM IV, the standard tool of psychiatrists and psychologists. What emerges is a disturbing diagnosis.

Links:
Visit the study guide for secondary school students available at TVO

The Official Study Guide to accompany The Corporation is available through Zeitgeist Films, new York, with purchase of the educational DVD.
http://www.zeitgeistfilms.com/

For more information about the film, visit The Corporation’s official site

Critical Media Literacy in Times of War
www.tandl.vt.edu/Foundations/mediaproject

This website was collaboratively produced with graduate students at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and launched on September 11, 2002. The site was named

• Media Literacy Link of the Month, Action Coalition for Media Education (February 2002)
• Web Site of the Day CounterPunch April 22, 2003

The website continues to be widely used by educators and media avtivists, and is especially recommended for those teaching or studying communications, language arts, media, political science, sociology, and history.
The two primary modules examine:

• The “War on Terror,” Afghanistan
• U.S. attacks in Iraq in 1991 and 2002

The site can be accessed as a Flash 6 site or as HTML. You will find visually-engaging, extensively researched primary document news material demonstrating contradictory stories told by domestic and international media reporting on:

• civilian casualties
• effects on sanctions on Iraq
• anti-war protests

Social Justice Resource Center and Searchable Database
http://www.drd.multicultural.vt.edu/

The Diversity Resources Center, initiated by Megan Boler and now a collaborative research effort (see below), was developed over several years with the purpose of providing concrete resources for transforming educational practices and curricula. The Database contains carefully selected and annotated print, media, and web-based resources relevant to developing “diversity-inclusive” curricula and pedagogy.

Thus unique project provides a searchable database of books, journals, articles, videos, websites, and other resources addressing diversity issues relevant to K-12 curricula in all subject areas. The database is organized so that the user can select A) subject area (e.g. English, Science, Math); B) a format (e.g. book, video, journal, lesson plan, website); C) social issue, (e.g. race, class, gender).

SELECTED GRANTS, AWARDS, HONORS

Social Science and Humanities Research Council Grant, “Rethinking Media, Democracy And Citizenship: New Media Practices And Online Digital Dissent After September 11.” 2005-2008 ($122,000) (Megan Boler, Principle Investigator)

Canadian Council on Learning, Ontario Media Literacy Project, (Megan Boler, Co-PI with Dr.
Mark Lipton, Guelph University and Dr. Kari Dehli, OISE/UT).  $40,000

Banff Center for the Arts, Wired Writing Studio, October-March 2006-07

Nominee, TVOntario Big Ideas Award for Best Lecturer, 2005

Outstanding Paper Award, “Qualitative Meta-Analysis for Social Justice: the Creation of an Online Diversity Resource Database,” Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education, Atlanta, GA (co-authored with A. Potts, David Hicks, an Peter Doolittle)

Recipient, Diggs’ Teaching Scholar Award, 2002, Virginia Tech University

Invited Participant, Duke University Franklin Center Summer Institute on Globalization, Women, and Development, July 2002, Durham North Carolina

Boler, M. (2001) International Institute of Information Technology, Virginia Tech, Research Grant to produce Critical Media Literacy in Times of War website ($50,000)

Boler, M. (2001) Internationalizing Curriculum: Media Representations of Anti-Arab Racism, University Office of International Programs ($3000).

Boler, M., Carico, K., & Hicks, D. (2001) Searchable Database for Diversity Resources Lab, College of Human Resources and Education ($4000)

Boler, M., Carico, K., & Hicks, D. (2001) Searchable Database for Diversity Resources Lab, Office of Multicultural Affairs ($1000).

Boler, M., Carico, K., & Hicks, D. (2000). Creating cross-departmental multicultural curricula: A case study. Department of Teaching and Learning,Virginia Tech. ($2000).

Boler, M  Institute for Distance and Distributed Learning, (Virginia Polytechnic and State University), Award to produce 60-minute documentary “WomensStudies@vt.edu”,April 2000, $6500

Boler, M. and G. Givens, (1998) Schooling and Diversity Course Development , Excellence in Undergrauate Teaching Center, Virginia Tech  $3000

Smith, Linda, Megan Boler, and Graham Smith. Marsden Fund Award (The Royal Society of New
Zealand) (1997-2000) Maori Education Youth First: Taking Kids’ Talk Seriously ($500,000)