News and Research articles on Academia

Communication and internet policy: a critical rights-based history and future

Aphra Kerr, Maynooth University
Francesca Musiani, National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS)
Julia Pohle, Berlin Social Science Center (WZB)
PUBLISHED ON: 31 Mar 2019 DOI: 10.14763/2019.1.1395

This issue brings together a selection of articles presented in the Communication Policy and Technology section of the IAMCR conference in 2018.

In reaction to the Cambridge Analytica controversy, Facebook has recently announced a substantial tightening of access restrictions to the APIs of Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms it owns. Researchers at leading international research organisations are deeply concerned about collateral impacts of the new API access rules. Here is why.

Remembering Mustafa Akgül

Melih Kırlıdoğ, North-West University

PUBLISHED ON: 18 Dec 2017

Mustafa Akgül of Bilkent University passed away on 13 December 2017 after a long battle with cancer. Commonly regarded as the "father of the internet in Turkey," he was one of the most important figures in establishing the first internet connection in Turkey on 12 April 1993.

The problem of future users: how constructing the DNS shaped internet governance

Steven Malcic, University of California Santa Barbara
PUBLISHED ON: 30 Sep 2016 DOI: 10.14763/2016.3.434

How did early network designers govern the internet before internet governance? With archival research, this article shows how designers conceived of the Domain Name System (DNS) as a solution to the problem of governing future network users.

Analysing internet policy as a field of struggle

Julia Pohle, Berlin Social Science Center (WZB)
Maximilian Hösl, Berlin Social Science Center (WZB)
Ronja Kniep, Berlin Social Science Center (WZB)
PUBLISHED ON: 25 Jul 2016 DOI: 10.14763/2016.3.412

The internet and its regulation are the result of continuous conflicts. By analysing policy fields as fields of struggle, this essay proposes to observe processes of discursive institutionalisation to uncover core conflicts inscribed into internet policy.

Staking out the unclear ethical terrain of online social experiments

Cornelius Puschmann, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society
Engin Bozdag, Delft University of Technology
PUBLISHED ON: 26 Nov 2014 DOI: 10.14763/2014.4.338

The 'Facebook online social experiment' has caused much controversy. Researchers Cornelius Puschmann and Engin Bozdag review the debate around research ethics and come to the conclusion that "benefits for science should be balanced with possible hazards that may be caused by experiments, rather than precluding that such benefits outweigh the gains".

Digital assets post-mortem

Philippa Warr, CREATe

PUBLISHED ON: 14 Oct 2014

The way we handle digital assets post-mortem is a young field of inquiry and it is researcher Edina Harbinja's sandbox. Journalist Philippa Warr takes a look at the issues.