Online girls culture is emerging as an ever more powerful voice on complex issues ranging from political change to public health. Just how powerful a platform for activism and community is it? Dr. Jessalyn Keller challenges many of our stereotypes about how young women are using social media, and explores how they're using these tools to positively change the world around them, whether the issue is battling rape culture or challenging policy-makers who aren't keeping pace with health issues like sex-ed curricula. Dr. Jessalynn Keller is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication, Media, & Film at the University of Calgary and an expert in girls’ media cultures, contemporary digital feminisms, and mediated celebrity culture.

She is author of Girls’ Feminist Blogging in a Postfeminist Age (Routledge 2015), co-editor of Emergent Feminisms: Complicating a Postfeminist Media Culture (Routledge 2018), and co-author of Digital Feminist Activism: Girls and Women Fight Back Against Rape Culture (Oxford University Press 2019), as well as several articles and book chapters. Jessalynn is a founding steering committee member of the International Girls Studies Association and regularly speaks at international academic conferences. Prior to coming to the University of Calgary, Jessalynn taught at several universities in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom and worked as a freelance magazine journalist in New York City and Toronto. She received her PhD from the University of Texas at Austin in 2013. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx