Wes Shrum

I’m a professor at Louisiana State University, a sociologist of science and technology with a primary focus on new communications media and social networks. In 1994, I began my research in Kenya, Ghana, and India where I’ve worked and filmed every summer since then, most recently in the urban slums.

My interest in video dates to the early 2000s while in Nairobi with a doctoral student who had recently worked in Hollywood. We were hiding during a riot with tear gas coming through the windows. “This is really visual,” he exclaimed. “Have you ever thought of getting a camera?” I established the LSU Video Ethnography Lab in 2005 and since 2014 have directed the Ethnografilm festival in Paris for academic and documentary films.

I have extensive experience in the management of professional associations, as Secretary/Treasurer for the Society for Social Studies of Science from 1994-2014. I was in charge of all budgetary matters and financial accounts for the society, including receipts and payments. I was their meetings planner from 2007 until my resignation last year. I realized some time that as my interests shifted towards visual sociology the IVSA was a better fit for my scholarly interests.