This article explores how political fear operates as an infrastructural mechanism within digital platforms, reconfiguring democratic communication through algorithmic amplification, emotional governance, and regulatory gaps.
Research Articles
About
Internet Policy Review is an open access and peer-reviewed journal on internet regulation.
Scholars, regulators, journalists, activists, and other stakeholders publish in the journal in
Research articles
- In-depth scholarly research papers and essays
Concepts
- Critical reflections on emerging core concepts of the digital society
Editorials
- Contextual or thematic introductions to special issues
Essays
- Free-form yet in-depth contentions with issues of academic or social relevance
News
- Journalistic reports on events of interest to the Internet Policy Review community
Opinions
- Opinion pieces commenting on developments in the realm of internet policy
Open Abstract
- Extended abstracts for works in progress that receive public peer review
peer reviewed
not peer reviewed
Recent Special issues
This introduction situates Digital Solidarity Economies (DSE) as an analytical and practical framework for reimagining the digital economy through cooperation, mutual aid, and shared ownership.
By opening the craft of interdisciplinary method to more explicit scrutiny, this special issue provides a novel space to examine how knowledge in the domains of cybersecurity, privacy, and digital rights governance is made, contested, and reshaped.
Call for papers
Abstract submission deadline: 15 Oct 2025
News and Opinion Pieces
This opinion piece critically examines the EU’s strategy to build AI infrastructure through the announced AI Gigafactories as alternatives to hyperscalers and leading means to strengthen its digital sovereignty.
Whether or not data centres make it to space, the possibility itself exposes the limitations of resistance hinged only on proximate material experience, thus beckoning a wider and deeper movement.
Formats in our Journal
- Research articlesIn-depth scholarly research papers and essays
- ConceptsCritical reflections on emerging core concepts of the digital society
- EditorialsContextual or thematic introductions to special issues
peer reviewed
not peer reviewed
- EssaysFree-form yet in-depth contentions with issues of academic or social relevance
- NewsJournalistic reports on events of interest to the Internet Policy Review community
- OpinionsOpinion pieces commenting on developments in the realm of internet policy
Concepts and Glossary terms
Special Sections
Two special sections of Internet Policy Review
How does resistance evolve under the pressure of datafication? People adopt defensive and productive tactics to resist the harms and risks of a data-driven society.
Further Research Articles
This paper examines how algorithmic personalisation shapes electoral perceptions through the filter bubble phenomenon, using a multidimensional measurement tool applied to Romanian Facebook users.
This paper examines which combinations of factors contribute to internet regulatory agencies' informal autonomy from corporate interests, building on a qualitative comparative analysis and interviews with senior officials.
Baby-tracking apps promise to help parents, this reveals how baby-tracking apps transform intimate caregiving into a site of cross-border data extraction, profiling, and policy non-compliance.
Political participatory platforms may look similar but, in practice, they redistribute power in very different ways. This article introduces a three-dimensional cube to compare their political governance, software affordances, and infrastructural dependencies, using cases from Italy, Spain, Argentina and Taiwan to show how specific sociotechnical configurations shape the effects of online political participation.
Drawing on cutting-edge social media research, the authors explain why vetted researchers need to be granted broad access to social media data to meet the objectives of the DSA.
The concept of the "superplatform" presents a simple way to describe Google’s vast and complex online ad business as a dual-core system that merges market power, infrastructural dominance, and supply chain demarketisation.