In her inaugural lecture, Professor Roza Tsagarousianou, will reflect on her family’s refugee history and on her research at the refugee camps in Moria and Kara Tepe on the Island of Lesvos in Greece, to engage with broader questions of whether we can understand the modern migration management system as an example of the carceral economies of control of ‘excess’ populations.
As we are facing a proliferation in the production of ‘excess’ populations, the result of conflicts and climate change, she will ask the following questions.
How has migrant life, excluded from political rights, attained value to be extracted by private firms and across industries?
And, what can we learn from the resilience and acts of resistance of those that are devalued, dehumanised and racialised?
The lecture will be followed by a drinks reception, to close at 19:00.
In her inaugural lecture, Professor Maria Michalis will reflect on her academic journey and how she has navigated the balance between academic research and attempts to intervene in policy.
She asks: what are the invisible communication policy issues and stakeholders, and what can we do about them?
Maria’s normative starting point is that communication policy should promote the public interest, understood primarily as democratic values, as her work on public service media illustrates. For Maria, policy is a way to explore ideas, discourses and power. Policy, like power, can be visible but also invisible. ‘Invisibilities’ refers to many things. For instance: the policy process itself can seem like a black box; policymakers prioritise certain issues and stakeholders, making these visible, whilst at the same time they overlook other issues and stakeholders, making these less visible or even invisible.
Maria’s contribution to communication policy lies mainly in researching and raising awareness of aspects that are less visible, yet central to our potential for empowerment and active citizenship. Her focus has been on the infrastructure of media and communication, on what goes on inside and behind the devices we use. What can broadly be termed as infrastructural governance (e.g., infrastructure, platforms, standards, artificial intelligence, value chains, business models and so on) is neither neutral nor merely technical but is fundamental to the cultural and informational content that we access, create and consume. Infrastructural governance has a very concrete impact on visibility, speech, democracy, and ultimately the character of our societies.
The lecture will be followed by a drinks reception, to close by 7pm.
The last 20 years have seen an exponential increase in the production and uses of digital media content by a large and important young political generation. These digital media platforms have the potential to create positive social, cultural and economic change. However, the centralised structure of these platforms often leads to tax evasion and disregard for local laws, with countries in the global South being particularly susceptible to exploitation by such platforms which exploit long-standing colonial power structures to enhance their profits and obscure transparency. Media regulatory laws in countries of the global South have found it difficult to contend with this new digital colonialism, and often lack the institutional capacities and frameworks for effective regulation of digital media content.
This two-day international conference, organised by the University of Westminster’s Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI), brings together media academics, media regulators, policy makers and civil society groups to discuss and debate the key challenges facing countries of the global South in regulating digital media in the age of the Internet. The conference will focus on how media regulators, civil society groups, and other public stakeholders can come together to tackle the complexities of digitalization.
The conference will include keynotes by media regulators and academics, plenaries, round tables and workshops led by experts in media regulation.
Conference fees and registration
This two-day conference, taking place on 27-28th June 2024, will consist of keynotes from the global South, plenaries and parallel workshops. The fee for registration for all participants, including presenters, will be £150, with a concessionary rate of £50 for students, to cover all conference documentation, refreshments and administration costs.
Registration for Speakers closes on: 8th April 2024
Registration for attendees closes on: 10th June 2024
UoW Staff and Students should register here.
Keynote Speakers
Professor viola milton, University of South Africa
Keynote: “Networking Relational Accountability?: towards relational, pluriversal approaches to digital media governance”
Professor Paola Ricaurte Quijano, TECNOLÓGICO DE MONTERREY, Mexico
Keynote; “Algorithmic Governmentality: A Latin American Perspective.”
Professor Naomi Sakr, University of Westminster, UK
Keynote: “Who prevails? Resistance to Arab cybercrime laws amid global ambiguity on cybersecurity”
Professor Winston Mano, University of Westminster, UK
Workshop: Regulating Tech in Africa: Emerging Trends, Issues and Concerns
Dr Andrea Medrado, University of Westminster, UK
Workshop: “Applying Latin American Participatory Action Research (PAR) to Critical Data and AI Studies”
Tim Davies, Connected by Data, UK
Workshop: “Public voice and the governance of data and AI in the global south: exploring narratives and potential practice?”
Professor Guy Berger, Rhodes University, South Africa
Keynote: “The question is who is to be master — that’s all”. Applying Humpty Dumpty’s dictum to digital governance in the Global South.
Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash