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PhD scholarship in internet research - with a focus on the United States

by Klaus Bruhn Jensen

PhD scholarship in internet research with a focus on the United States (re-advertisement) The Department of Media, Cognition, and Communication, Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, invites applications for a 3-year PhD scholarship. The successful candidate will be affiliated with the Peoples’ Internet (PIN) project sponsored by the Carlsberg Foundation. The scholarship is expected to begin November 1, 2016, or as soon as possible thereafter. Description of the project “The Peoples’ Internet – Market, state, and civil society in China, Europe, and the United States” will undertake a comparative study of the internet in different world regions. Digital networks are among the most flexible and universally applicable technologies ever invented by humans. But the many significant variations in the social uses of the internet around the world remain poorly understood. The PIN project compares the current state and future potential of the internet in three centers of the global economy and world politics – China, Europe, and the United States – focusing on the interplay of civil society with the other two key sectors of modern societies: market and state. The PhD candidate will be an integral part of the PIN research group. The PhD candidate will participate both in formal project events and in informal deliberations throughout the candidate’s affiliation with the project; will have the opportunity both to pursue personal research interests and to contribute to the overall theoretical and methodological framework of PIN; and will join a wider interdisciplinary research environment centered in the University of Copenhagen’s Center for Communication and Computing and its research group on Digital Communication and Aesthetics. In addition to coursework and other institutional obligations, the PhD candidate will undertake the following main activities: • six months of ethnographic fieldwork in the USA • review of regulatory regimes and cultural traditions in the fieldwork area • participation in analyses of population surveys • contributions to the dissemination of project findings and other outreach. The successful PhD candidate must be fluent in spoken and written academic English. Prior experience with cross-cultural studies and/or survey research within media and communication studies will be considered an advantage, but is not a requirement. It is expected that the successful candidate will be present, part of the research group, and engaged in the activities of PIN on a daily basis. Departing from the PIN project framework, the PhD project description must include: • a main section outlining preliminary research questions, methodological considerations, and a time schedule for a six-month ethnographic fieldwork in the United States of America • a section identifying preliminary issues to be addressed in a review of regulatory regimes and cultural traditions in the U.S. • a section discussing how insights from the fieldwork may inform and complement the survey component of the PIN project. Please notice that this position is advertised in parallel with a similar position where the focus is on Europe, please see: http://phd.humanities.ku.dk/how_to_apply/calls/phd-scholarship-in-internet-… The project proposal must lie within the overall framework of PIN. For further information, including a copy of the project framework, please contact the Principal Investigator of PIN, Professor Klaus Bruhn Jensen kbj(a)hum.ku.dk<mailto:kbj@hum.ku.dk> Application deadline: September 15, 2016 at 23.59 (CET), http://phd.humanities.ku.dk/how_to_apply/calls/phd-scholarship-in-internet-… ********************************************************** Klaus Bruhn Jensen Professor, dr.phil. Head of Centre for Communication and Computing Section of Film, Media, and Communication Department of Media, Cognition, and Communication University of Copenhagen Karen Blixens Vej 4 DK-2300 Copenhagen S Denmark kbj(a)hum.ku.dk<mailto:kbj@hum.ku.dk> www.media.ku.dk Tel +45-35328100 Fax +45-35328110 ********************************************************** *New publication* Special section of the International Journal of Communication: Audiences across Media (2015), http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc

July 27, 2016

Preconference workshop @AOIR2016: The Internet Rules, But How? A STS Take on Doing Internet Governance

by Julia Pohle

Dear all For all among you attending the AoIR conference in Berlin in October, please find below the programme of our pre-conference "The Internet Rules, But How? A STS Take on Doing Internet Governance". Please keep in mind that the Early Bird deadline for AoIR2016 is August 1st. Best regards, Julia, on behalf of the workshop organisers --- The Internet Rules, But How? A Science and Technology Studies (STS) Take on Doing Internet Governance Organizers: Dmitry Epstein (University of Illinois, Chicago), Christian Katzenbach (Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society, Berlin), Francesca Musiani (ISCC – CNRS/Paris-Sorbonne/UPMC Paris), Julia Pohle (WZB Berlin Social Science Center) Over the last decade, the regulation and governance of the Internet at the national and international level have attracted growing attention by policy-makers and researchers. This is particularly the case in post-Snowden times which increased distrust of formal government institutions and their ‘dangerous liaisons’ with the private sector. Accordingly, observing and researching governing processes as they relate to the Internet is both timely and important. Traditionally, researchers and practitioners in Internet governance (IG) focused on new institutions established to discuss and negotiate the technical coordination of the Internet or related policies. Recently, authors have criticized this institutional focus, and perspectives from Science and Technology Studies (STS) suggest to rethink and substantiate questions of ordering and governing the net. In this view, the ‘doing’ of IG more broadly consists in practices and controversies of the design, regulation, and use of material infrastructures, as well as digital uses and practices. This preconference workshop seeks to nurture the growing interest in researching and observing IG from STS-informed perspectives. More broadly, the workshop aims to facilitate a discussion and an exchange of perspectives about the intertwined roles of design, infrastructures, and informal communities of practice in IG. This workshop is part of a broader effort of advancing an STS-informed conversation on Internet governance: it builds on the panel on STS perspectives on IG that took place during AoIR 2015 in Phoenix and a forthcoming special issue of the Internet Policy Review <http://policyreview.info/> (to be published in early September 2016). Tentative program 08:45 Welcome 09:00 Keynote, Laura DeNardis 09:45 Session I. STS and Theoretical Perspectives on Internet Governance * Moderator: Dmitry Epstein * Doing Internet Governance: Constructing Normative Structures inside and outside Intermediary Organisations Tobias Mast, Markus Oermann and Wolfgang Schulz * Situated Governance: On Topological Limits to Internet Governance Ashwin Mathew * Designing a Public Intervention: Towards a Sociotechnical Approach to Web Governance Faranak Hardcastle, Susan Halford and L. Moreau * Building an Authoritarian Counter‐Hegemony? Iran in the Global Debate about Internet Governance Marcus Michaelsen 11:15 Coffee Break 11:30 Session II. Controversies: Unpacking Internet Governance o Moderator: Julia Pohle o Privacy Concerns in the Domain Name System Samantha Bradshaw and Laura DeNardis o SNS Infrastructure as an Actor Inbar Michelzon Drori o Critical infrastructure due diligence – ISPs, security and privacy (tbc) Joanna Kulesza o Migrating Servers, Elusive Users: Reconfigurations of the Russian Internet in the Post-Snowden Era Ksenia Ermoshina and Francesca Musiani 13:00 Lunch 14:00 Session III. Round table: Doing STS-informed Internet Governance Research * Moderator: Francesca Musiani * Internet Policy as a Minority Rights Issue Andrea Hackl * Search engine imaginary. Visions and values in the co-production of search technology and Europe Astrid Mager * Human rights and internet infrastructure. Sociotechnical imaginaries and grassroots ordering in internet governance Stefania Milan and Niels ten Oever * Opening the black box of discursive production in multistakeholder policy-making Julia Pohle 15:30 Coffee Break 16:00 Round table: Opening the Black Boxes of Today’s Internet (Governance) * Moderator: Christian Katzenbach * Participants: Laura DeNardis (tbc), Jeanette Hofmann, Tarleton Gillespie (tbc), Stéphane Couture, Dmitry Epstein 17:30 End of the Workshop

July 18, 2016

Research stay at WZB Berlin - Internet Policy group

by Julia Pohle

Dear all, The Internet policy project group <https://www.wzb.eu/en/research/international-politics-and-law/internet-poli…> at the WZB Social Science Center Berlin <https://www.wzb.eu/en/about-the-wzb> welcomes (doctoral or postdoctoral) visiting fellows who study different aspects of Internet policy and regulation from a social science perspective and wish to visit Germany for a short-term research stay. In particular, we are looking to support applications for third-party funding for longer research periods such as the Individual Fellowships of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (find the current call below). Please feel free to get in touch if you are interested in a research stay at our institution or in any other kind of cooperation with our group (julia.pohle(a)wzb.eu) Best regards Julia --- Call for Individual Fellowships of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) within Horizon 2020 for postdoctoral researchers: Individual Fellowships allow excellent postdoctoral researchers from abroad to come and spend up to 24 months at the WZB. At the time of the deadline for submission of proposals, researchers shall not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in Germany for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately prior to the call deadline. Researchers of all nationalities are eligible to apply for an Individual Fellowship. An MSCA grant usually includes: - up to two years' salary - a mobility allowance - research costs (as well as overheads for the host institution). There are two types of individual fellowship: *European Fellowships* are particularly attractive to researchers either coming to, or moving within, Europe. Furthermore, they can help to restart research careers after a career break (e.g. parental leave), and they can also facilitate the reintegration of researchers coming back to Europe. *Global Fellowships* fund secondments outside Europe for researchers based in the EU or associated countries. There is a mandatory one-year return period, which is not affected by the mobility rule. European and Global Fellowships can also include an optional period of secondment of up to 6 months in the private sector in Europe. The current call can be found on the Participant Portal: https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/… -- Dr. Julia Pohle Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung(WZB)/ WZB Berlin Social Science Center Politikfeld Internet / Internet Policy Internationales Recht und Politik / International law and politics Reichpietschufer 50 10785 Berlin / Germany Office: +49-(0)30-25491-220 Email:julia.pohle@wzb.eu

July 1, 2016

article on open access, innovation & infrastructure

by Benedikt Fecher

Dear network members, a colleague and I recently wrote a short article on Open Access and infrastructure/innovation that might be of interest for some of you: Abstract: http://www.mdpi.com/2304-6775/4/2/17/ HTML Version: http://www.mdpi.com/2304-6775/4/2/17/html PDF Version: http://www.mdpi.com/2304-6775/4/2/17/pdf Manuscript: http://www.mdpi.com/2304-6775/4/2/17/manuscript I am very much interested in discussing ideas on the market for OA publishing and potential new business models for scholarly publications. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you are interested to discuss ideas, perhaps in the "learning call"-format that we are already using in the NoC. Best regards from Berlin benedikt fecher

June 24, 2016

Re: [netsociety] Promoting the NoC - website, mailing list and social media

by Bill Dutton

Lorenzo We have followed from: @QuelloCenter @BiIIDutton (that is BiiiDutton with two capital i’s for l’s) and we will make sure we have links on our Website and Facebook page at https?www.facebook.com/QuelloCenter Thanks, Bill On Jun 20, 2016, at 8:57, Lorenzo Canova <lorenzo.canova(a)polito.it> wrote: > Dear Colleagues, > > As you know, the Network of Centers (NoC) shares its updates via: > > - the NoC website: http://networkofcenters.net/ > - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NetworkofCenters?fref=ts > - Twitter: https://twitter.com/Network_Centers > - the Netsociety mailing list: https://lists.networkofcenters.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/netsociety > > To further promote the NoC, could you please (if you have not already done so): > > 1) link the NoC website on your websites; > 2) follow/cite the NoC on Twitter/Facebook; > 3) invite any interested party to subscribe to the netsociety mailing list > > ? > > Given the breadth of our Network, > we are sure that your help would be really effective! > > Many thanks, all the best, > > Lorenzo > _______________________________________________ > netsociety mailing list > netsociety(a)lists.networkofcenters.net > https://lists.networkofcenters.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/netsociety William H. Dutton, Quello Professor Quello Center, 404 Wilson Road Communication Arts and Sciences, 406 Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-4406 USA Phone: +1 (517) 432-8001 Cell (Mobile): +1 (517) 755-0818 Blog: BillDutton.me Quello Blog: quello.msu.edu Email: quello (at) msu.edu or wdutton (at) msu.edu Twitter: follow @quellocenter or @BiIIDutton (II composed by two ii’s) You can access my papers on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) at: http://ssrn.com/author=478025

June 20, 2016

Re: [netsociety] Promoting the NoC - website, mailing list and social media

by Alex Gakuru

Thanks Lorenzo. Will do, starting immediately with my Creative Commons colleague and friend Tobias with the UCT in Cape Town, South Africa. regards, Alex On Mon, Jun 20, 2016 at 3:57 PM, Lorenzo Canova <lorenzo.canova(a)polito.it> wrote: > Dear Colleagues, > > As you know, the Network of Centers (NoC) shares its updates via: > > - the NoC website: http://networkofcenters.net/ > - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NetworkofCenters?fref=ts > - Twitter: https://twitter.com/Network_Centers > - the Netsociety mailing list: > https://lists.networkofcenters.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/netsociety > > To further promote the NoC, could you please (if you have not already done > so): > > 1) link the NoC website on your websites; > 2) follow/cite the NoC on Twitter/Facebook; > 3) invite any interested party to subscribe to the netsociety mailing list > > ? > > Given the breadth of our Network, > we are sure that your help would be really effective! > > Many thanks, all the best, > > Lorenzo > _______________________________________________ > netsociety mailing list > netsociety(a)lists.networkofcenters.net > https://lists.networkofcenters.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/netsociety >

June 20, 2016

Promoting the NoC - website, mailing list and social media

by Lorenzo Canova

Dear Colleagues, As you know, the Network of Centers (NoC) shares its updates via: - the NoC website: http://networkofcenters.net/ - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NetworkofCenters?fref=ts - Twitter: https://twitter.com/Network_Centers - the Netsociety mailing list: https://lists.networkofcenters.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/netsociety To further promote the NoC, could you please (if you have not already done so): 1) link the NoC website on your websites; 2) follow/cite the NoC on Twitter/Facebook; 3) invite any interested party to subscribe to the netsociety mailing list ? Given the breadth of our Network, we are sure that your help would be really effective! Many thanks, all the best, Lorenzo

June 20, 2016

Benchmarking Demand: PAKISTAN AND THE INTERNET USERS’ PERSPECTIVE‏

by Arzak Khan

Dear All, We at Internet Policy Observatory Pakistan and Center for Global Communication Studies are happy to announce our latest report "Benchmarking Demand: Pakistan and the internet users's perspective". This report is the third in a series that examines public attitudes and preferences about Internet censorship and regulation in states in which media and Internet use are subject to increasing restrictions.In the context of Pakistan, where rapid increases in internet access and usage are accompanied by a propensity to regulate this new cyber-territory, the goal of this report is to uncover the views of Pakistani Internet users with respect to the regulation and control of online spaces.In each of these reports, we seek to provide insight into who uses the Internet in each country and the most used and trusted sources of online and offline information. But more than that, the surveys seek to add to a process: learning how to plumb general views about the influence of the Internet on politics and society and chart attitudes concerning censorship on various political, religious and social grounds. The reports test an approach to determining who, among competing institutions, people trust to regulate the Internet, what constitutes their policy preferences about Internet regulation, and the extent to which Internet regulation issues might figure in political mobilization efforts in furtherance of Internet freedom.I hope you all found this report interesting. Best Regards,Arzak Khan

June 9, 2016

Benchmarking Demand: PAKISTAN AND THE INTERNET USERS’ PERSPECTIVE‏

by Arzak Khan

Dear All, We at Internet Policy Observatory Pakistan and Center for Global Communication Studies are happy to announce our latest report "Benchmarking Demand: Pakistan and the internet users's perspective". This report is the third in a series that examines public attitudes and preferences about Internet censorship and regulation in states in which media and Internet use are subject to increasing restrictions.In the context of Pakistan, where rapid increases in internet access and usage are accompanied by a propensity to regulate this new cyber-territory, the goal of this report is to uncover the views of Pakistani Internet users with respect to the regulation and control of online spaces.In each of these reports, we seek to provide insight into who uses the Internet in each country and the most used and trusted sources of online and offline information. But more than that, the surveys seek to add to a process: learning how to plumb general views about the influence of the Internet on politics and society and chart attitudes concerning censorship on various political, religious and social grounds. The reports test an approach to determining who, among competing institutions, people trust to regulate the Internet, what constitutes their policy preferences about Internet regulation, and the extent to which Internet regulation issues might figure in political mobilization efforts in furtherance of Internet freedom. I hope you all found this report interesting. Best Regards,Arzak Khan

June 9, 2016

CfP - AoIR preevent on STS and Internet governance - Deadline 15 June

by Julia Pohle

Dear all Please find below the call for contributions for an AoIR preconference workshop on STS and Internet governance. Be aware that the deadline for submissions is already *June 15! * If you have any questions, please feel free to get in touch. Best regards Julia --- *Call for Contributions* Deadline: 15 June 2016 *The Internet Rules, But How? * *An STS take on doing Internet governance* Preconference workshop – AoIR 2016 5 October 2016 – Berlin, Germany Workshop facilitators: Dmitry Epstein, Christian Katzenbach, Francesca Musiani, Julia Pohle Keynote speaker: Laura DeNardis Over the last decade, the regulation and governance of the Internet at the national and international level have attracted growing attention by policy-makers and researchers. This is particularly the case in post-Snowden times which increased distrust of formal government institutions and their ‘dangerous liaisons’ with the private sector. Traditionally, Internet governance (IG) research focussed on new institutions that have been explicitly established to negotiate the Internet’s technical coordination or deliberate Internet-related public policy issues. Recently, authors have criticised this institutional focus, including a small group of scholars who draw on perspectives from Science and Technology Studies (STS), calling to rethink and substantiate questions of ordering and governing the net. Their contributions highlight the day-to-day, mundane practices that constitute IG, take into account the plurality and ‘networkedness’ of devices and arrangements involved in the governance of information technology, and investigate the invisibility, pervasiveness, and apparent agency of the digital infrastructure itself. IG, in this view, consists of practices and controversies of design, regulation, and use of material infrastructures. Accordingly, the observation and investigation of practices require different, innovative research approaches, which delve into the variety of ways in which digital uses and practices may be an integral part of today’s IG. In this way, STS-informed perspectives are increasingly instrumental for challenging and expanding our understanding and for informing our examination of ordering and governing processes in the digital realm. This preconference workshop seeks to nurture the growing interest in researching and observing IG from an STS-informed perspective. More broadly, the workshop aims to facilitate a discussion and an exchange of perspectives about the intertwined roles of design, infrastructures, and informal communities of practice in IG. For the full-day workshop, we are inviting contributions for four sessions: 1.The first research panel will focus on theory, inviting papers that share a strong conceptual interest in understanding how STS can inform theoretical perspectives on Internet governance, for instance by revealing socio-technical controversies or by unveiling power and control structures embedded in Internet architecture and its governance institutions; 2.The second research panel will focus on STS-informed empirical work on Internet governance, inviting papers that make use of the conceptual and methodological tool-sets of STS to observe and study IG practices and the ways in which the norms shaping the provision, design and usage of the Internet are negotiated, and de- and re-stabilised; 3.For the methodological fishbowl session, we will invite researchers to report on their experience with STS-inspired Internet governance research. The open discussion will focus on the practicalities of doing participatory observation in IG and the challenges of negotiating one’s role as a researcher and an active participant (or even an activist) in IG processes; 4.For the final open roundtable discussion we are inviting researchers to reflect on the notion of “black box” as it relates to the treatment of technological artifacts in public and media discourses (e.g. related to the French intelligence bill). We foresee that unpacking the notion of the “black box” will also help engage IG research and researchers with the broader community of Internet scholars who are deliberating topics such as politics of platforms and algorithms. Please submit your contributions *no later than June 15 *to <mailto:ig-workshop-aoir2016@hiig.de>ig-workshop-aoir2016(a)hiig.de. We expect extended abstracts for sessions 1-2 and position papers for sessions 3-4, max. 800 words. Registration at the AoIR 2016 conference is necessary in order to participate at the workshop. Notification will be sent out in mid-July so that participants can book Early Bird Tickets for the conference before August 1. This workshop is part of a broader effort of advancing an STS-informed conversation on Internet governance. It builds on the successful panel on STS perspectives on IG that took place during AoIR 2015 in Phoenix and a special issue of the Internet Policy Review to be published in early September 2016. The workshop is supported by the Global Internet Governance Academic Network (GigaNet), the Internet Policy Review of the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG, Berlin), the Department of Communication, University of Illinois at Chicago, and the Institute for Communication Sciences (CNRS/Paris-Sorbonne/UPMC, Paris). *Contact:*Julia Pohle. Christian Katzenbach. Francesca Musiani. Dmitry Epstein ig-workshop-aoir2016(a)hiig.de <mailto:ig-workshop-aoir2016@hiig.de>.

May 26, 2016