Calling In, Not Calling Out

Wednesday 13 October 2021, 4 - 5pm (online event)

In this talk, Professor Loretta J. Ross invites us to call others in, rather than call them out. Fighting against oppression and injustice are the dues we pay for the privilege of being conscious and we are honoured to be able to challenge it with great responsibility. We begin to build a unified and strategic human rights movement that weaves our strengths together, that uses our differences as a platform for modelling a positive future built on justice and the politics of love, rather than a return to the past based on the politics of fear and prejudice. However, to create this movement we need to make a commitment to recognise and support each other – Calling People in rather than Calling them Out. Ross will talk about how we can transform the Calling Out Culture into a Calling In Culture in order to build a united movement for human rights.

Speakers: Professor Loretta J. Ross (Smith College).

Chair: Professor Shani Orgad.

Register here.

Proxies: the cultural work of standing in

Thursday 18 November 2021, 5pm – 6pm (online event)

Join us for the launch of Dr Dylan Mulvin’s new book, Proxies: The Cultural Work of Standing In.

Our world is built on an array of standards we are compelled to share. In Proxies, Mulvin examines how we arrive at those standards, asking, “To whom and to what do we delegate the power to stand in for the world?” Mulvin shows how those with the power to design technology, in the very moment of design, are allowed to imagine who is included—and who is excluded—in the future. Mulvin also explores the ways technologies, standards, and infrastructures inescapably reflect the cultural milieus of their bureaucratic homes. Drawing on archival research, he investigates some of the basic building-blocks of our shared infrastructures. He tells the history of technology through the labour and communal practices of, among others, the people who clean kilograms to make the metric system run, the women who pose as test images, and the actors who embody disease and disability for medical students. Each case maps the ways standards and infrastructure rely on prototypical ideas of whiteness, able-bodiedness, and purity to control and contain the messiness of reality.

Speakers: Dr Dylan Mulvin, Dr Cait McKinney (Simon Fraser University) and Dr Tarleton Gillespie (Microsoft Research/Cornell University).

Register here. Order Proxies here. 

Book Launch: Undoing Optimization: Civic Action in Smart Cities

Lent Term 2022

City life has been reconfigured by our use—and our expectations—of communication, data, and sensing technologies. In her book, Alison Powell examines the civic use, regulation, and politics of these technologies, looking at how governments, planners, citizens, and activists expect them to enhance life in the city. Alison Powell argues that the de facto forms of citizenship that emerge in relation to these technologies represent sites of contention over how governance and civic power should operate. These become more significant in an increasingly urbanized and polarized world facing new struggles over local participation and engagement. The author moves past the usual discussion of top-down versus bottom-up civic action and instead explains how citizenship shifts in response to technological change and particularly in response to issues related to pervasive sensing, big data, and surveillance in “smart cities.”

Order Undoing Optimzation from Yale Books.

Book Launch: The Digital Disconnect 

Lent Term 2022

From societal causes to the impact of everyday actions, The Digital Disconnect by Professor Ellen Helsper, explores the relationship between digital and social inequalities, and the lived consequences of digitisation. 

Professor Helsper goes beyond questions of digital divides and who is connected. She asks why and how social and digital inequalities are linked and shows the tangible outcomes of socio-digital inequalities in everyday lives. 

Order The Digital Disconnect here. 

Book Launch: Confidence Culture

Lent Term 2022

In Confidence Culture, Professors Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill argue that imperatives directed at women to “love your body” and “believe in yourself” imply that psychological blocks hold women back rather than entrenched social injustices. Interrogating the prominence of confidence in contemporary discourse about body image, workplace, relationships, motherhood, and international development, Orgad and Gill draw on Foucault’s notion of technologies of self to demonstrate how “confidence culture” demands of women near-constant introspection and vigilance in the service of self-improvement. They argue that while confidence messaging may feel good, it does not address structural and systemic oppression. Rather, confidence culture suggests that women—along with people of color, the disabled, and other marginalized groups—are responsible for their own conditions. Rejecting confidence culture’s remaking of feminism along individualistic and neoliberal lines, Orgad and Gill explore alternative articulations of feminism that go beyond the confidence imperative.

Order Confidence Culture here from March 2022.

Cyprus’ partition: political culture, political economy, and the narratives of division

Wednesday 6 October 2021, 6 - 7.30pm (online event)

This event examines the political communication and public culture that surround and shape the dynamics of Cyprus’ continuing division. A panel of experts in political communication and international relations speak to the topic, with the occasion of the publication of Ioannou’s new book, The Normalization of Cyprus’ Partition Among Greek Cypriots: Political economy and political culture in a divided society (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).

Speakers: Dr Emel Akcali (University of Swansea), Dr Gregoris Ioannou (University of Sheffield), Professor Neophytos Loizides (University of Kent) and Professor Eugenia Siapera (University College Dublin).

Chair: Professor Myria Georgiou.

View a recording here, or event details here.

Navigating Collapse: Where Next for Lebanon?

Monday 4 October 2021, 6-7pm (online event)

In this webinar, nearly two years on from the 17 October Revolution, we hear from speakers active in the fields of politics, labour union organising, urban space and law, who will address the aftermath of the Beirut explosion, the future of political activism, the upcoming elections and what may be emerging in Lebanon.

Speakers: Ghida Frangieh (Legal Agenda), Ibrahim Halawi (Royal Holloway, University of London) and Abir Saksouk (Public Works Studio).

Chair: Dr Omar Al-Ghazzi. 

Find out more here.

Hosted by the Middle East Centre.

Book launch: Media Freedom

Monday 20 September 2021, 5pm - 6.30pm

Join us for the launch of Dr Damian Tambini’s new book, Media Freedom, where we'll be joined media experts to discuss media freedom and international human rights law standards in media governance today.

Speakers: Dr Damian Tambini, Professor David Kaye (University of California, Irvine), Alan Rusbridger and Professor Jean Seaton (University of Westminster). 

Chair: Professor Lee Edwards.

View the event recording here, or event details here. Order Media Freedom here.

LSE Research Showcase: Dr Dylan Mulvin

Proxies: the cultural work of standing in

Wednesday 18 August 2021, 11-11.30am
(online event)

Our world is built on an array of standards we are compelled to share – where some bits of the world end up standing in for other bits in order to facilitate the design of technologies and services. But how are those standards determined? Drawing on his new book, Proxies, Dr Dylan Mulvin will share some stories from the history of technology to show the way technologies, standards and infrastructures inescapably reflect the cultures that created them, and how those with the power to design technology, in the very moment of design, are allowed to imagine who is included—and who is excluded—in the future. Come along to find out more about the people who clean kilograms to make the metric system run; the women who pose as test images; and the actors who embody disease and disability for medical students.

Register here. Find out more about the LSE Research Showcase.

LSE Research Showcase: Dr Simidele Dosekun

Spectacular Femininity: the unattainable standards of postfeminism

Wednesday 11 August 2021, 11-11.30am
(online event)

Postfeminism is an upbeat, celebratory cultural address to women, and promise, that they are past or post- the need for feminism, that they are already individually empowered and can ‘have it all’, ‘do it all’. Drawing on her book, Fashioning Postfeminism: Spectacular Femininity and Transnational Culture, Dr Simidele Dosekun will tell the stories of women she interviewed in Lagos, Nigeria, who practise a spectacularly feminine style and what their lives and attitudes tell us about postfeminism in Africa. She discovers that the postfeminist emphasis on happy affects and choice and ‘can do’ leave little imaginative and emotional space for complaint, critique or resistance. Its encouragement to women to work on themselves, to work on their attitudes and their confidence, to ‘lean in’, obscures the material conditions that it requires.

View the recording here. Find out more about the LSE Research Showcase.

CO:RE Theories webinar on online opportunities for children

Monday 12 July 2021, 4 - 5pm UK / 5 - 6pm CEST

A multidisciplinary webinar on theories and concepts to understand children’s opportunities online.

Online opportunities bring diverse benefits for children, including positive outcomes on learning, participation, creativity, and identity. An important “ladder of opportunities” for children in Europe, digital technologies can activate the potential for social inclusion, equality and children’s rights. Even so, relatively little is understood about how online opportunities generate benefits for children. Opportunities for children have long been theorised, but how should they be rethought in a digital world? In this webinar we will debate the theories and concepts that underpin such questions, drawing on different disciplinary approaches.

Speakers: Professor Shakuntala Banaji, Koen Leurs (Utrecht University), Giovanna Mascheroni (Università Cattolica of Milan), Jochen Peter (University of Amsterdam).

Chair: Professor Sonia Livingstone.
Discussant: Dr Mariya Stoilova.

View the recording here and event details here.

The Powerful and the Damned: life behind the headlines in financial times

Thursday 8 July 2021, 7-8pm (online event)

Join us for this event with former editor of the Financial Times Lionel Barber at which he will discuss his new book, The Powerful and the Damned: life behind the headlines in financial times.

Lionel Barber spent over a decade rubbing shoulders with the global giants of business, finance and politics. Recounting conversations, late-night dinners and unexpected comic nuggets from those who make the news, The Powerful and the Damned is a portrait of the rich, famous, powerful and occasionally damned. In his first authored book, Barber offers unflinching pen portraits of the world’s leading characters, from Trump, Merkel and Draghi, to Prince Andrew, Mohammed Bin Salman and Dominic Cummings. In parallel, Barber provides a personal account of how he transformed the FT into a multi-channel global news organisation with a strong of international awards and groundbreaking reporting. This created a monumental shift for the whole news media landscape.

Chair: Professor Charlie Beckett.

View the recording here and event details here.

LSE Online Safety Bill Briefing

Thursday 8 July 2021, 9am - 1.30pm (online event)

This briefing will provide an overview of the draft Online Safety Bill and create an outcome-focused online discussion on key elements of the Bill that require scrutiny. Each panel discussion will explore and analyse pivotal debates within the Bill for the wide range of individuals and organisations engaged in discussions about how to regulate the complex and difficult area of online harms and their effects on individuals and on society. Attendees will be able to engage in interactive and robust discussions with panellists, and the focus on the interactions between law, policy and practice will be of interest to policymakers, regulators, civil society organisations, academics and industry.

Speakers: Imran Ahmed (Center for Countering Digital Hate), Damian Collins MP, Dr Edina Harbinja (Aston), Dame Margaret Hodge MP, Professor Sonia Livingstone OBE (LSE), Katie Morris (DCMS Security and Online Harms Directorate), John Nicolson MP, Chi Onwurah MP, Graham Smith (Bird & Bird), Dr Damian Tambini (LSE), Glen Tarman (Full Fact), Professor Lorna Woods (University of Essex) and Richard Wronka (Ofcom).

Chair: Professor Lee Edwards. 

View the recording here and event details here.

Ruptures in Authenticity: Gender and Vulnerability Online

Monday 28 June 2021, 6 - 7pm, (online and in person event) 

In person: CBG Auditorium, Lower Ground Floor (LSE staff and students

Online: Zoom webinar (open to all).

In this talk, Professor Sarah Banet-Weiser will explore ideas of authenticity and gender on social media, followed by a Q&A.

The idea of authenticity has been applied unquestionably as a valued attribute of the self: it is through our “authentic” selves that we inspire trust, loyalty, believability. The appearance of authenticity remains central to how individuals organize their everyday activities and craft their very selves. In the 21st century, as personal and professional identities are increasingly created, curated and manipulated in digital and social media, the concept of authenticity seems to carry even more weight, not less, so that one of the central questions in the age of digital media is whether and how successfully one can perform authenticity in order to claim visibility and identity. Social media amplifies this tension, as it is often positioned as a kind of open space, where one can be “oneself,” while at the same time it is also structurally designed as constantly manipulable. This has particular relevance for young cis-gendered women who perform authenticity on social media, because normative hetero-femininity is always constructed in terms of its artifice, where femininity is defined as a necessary contrived performance, from make-up to bodies to behaviours. Unlike the performance of authentic masculinity, which emphasizes its unfiltered quality, the performance of authentic femininity is always already suspect, always already a contradiction in terms.

Chair: Dr Polly Withers.

If you are an LSE student or staff member and would like to attend on campus (CBG Auditorium), please register here.

If you would like to join online (open to all), please register here.

Motherhood and Work Conference 

Friday 25 June 2021, 9.15 - 10am (GMT+1) (online event)

Professor Shani Orgad will be delivering the opening keynote of the second day of the Motherhood and Work conference, organised by Maynooth University. Professor Orgad will present her research 'Heading Home: Fantasies and Injuries of Motherhood and Work'.

Event details here.

Prototyping AI ethics futures

Monday 21 - Friday 25 June 2021 (online event)

A week-long series of dialogues and workshops highlighting the new possibilities of a humanities-led, broadly engaging approach to data and AI ethics.

View the full line-up of events here. 

Speakers: Dr Alison Powell, Louise Hickman and Imre Bard.

Organised by the Ada Lovelace Foundation.

Migration on demand: The impact of streaming on migration cinema

Tuesday 22 June 2021, 6pm (online event)

Once a marginalised niche within cinema, films about migration are now quite literally moving into the mainstream, with streaming platforms from Netflix to MUBI featuring films that put the immigrant and refugee at the heart of the story. And in the era of COVID-19, streaming has never been more popular.

But what is the effect of this on viewers? What kind of stories are being told and whose voices are being platformed? And is there potential for this mainstreaming to truly change how the public thinks about migration? An exciting panel of content curators, academics, and filmmakers will consider these questions and many more.

Speakers: Professor Myria Georgiou, Charlie Phillips (The Guardian) and Mo Scarpelli (filmmaker and director).

Event details here.

Pride Month Screening and Guest Talk

'Love That Journey for Me: The Queer Revolution of Schitt's Creek'

Monday 21 June 2021, 1 - 2pm (online event)

Dr Emily Garside discusses her new book 'Love That Journey for Me: The Queer Revolution of Schitt's Creek', which dives deep into the world of Canadian comedy-drama Schitt's Creek and how it became a watershed moment in sitcom history and the portrayal of gay relationships in popular media.

Register here.

EdTech and the colonisation of our digital future: The role of EU's DSA

Tuesaday 8 June 8 2021, 3pm - 4.30pm (online event)

The recent pandemic gave society a glimpse of the potentially disastrous effects of unregulated, hasty deployment of digital services. The health and education sectors offered the most pronounced examples of the vitality of digital services for mitigating the effects of social-distancing and sustaining the global economy. At the same time, it demonstrated the threats that the “inescapable” character of the digital condition poses for human freedom particularly when its governance is almost exclusively in the control of private actors.

The new EU legislation packages aim to address the emerging power asymmetry between Big Tech and society. In its current form the DSA recognises the importance of acting on the avoidance of intermediary liability and the lobbying of platforms to be perceived as mere conduits of communication. Yet, the DSA risks missing its mark by failing to take stock of the critical role and distinct nature of education technology (EdTech) platforms.

The EdTech landscape is currently regulated by GDPR, but this barely succeeds in safeguarding children’s rights or their most fundamental freedoms, including their right to self-determination. In the field of education, digital services can collect and sell data but also ‘train’ their AI-based systems constantly through observation of educational processes. The growing "knowledge capital" acquired by educational technology companies widens the power asymmetry between the industry and society and generates lobbying power and knowledge to reconstruct education systems to suit EdTech business models.

This discussion brings together experts from across sectors to discuss the challenges and opportunities that the DSA/DMA legislation packages create considering two important parameters: a) the “inevitability” of the collaboration of the public and private sector in the process of the digitalisation of education and b) the risks involved in the unchecked deployment of data-driven services in education including the colonisation of society’s collective vision about its future by profit-driven businesses.

Speakers: Professor Sonia Livingstone, Dr Ioanna Noula, Dr Velislava Hillman, Eva Kaili (Member of the European Parliament and Chair of European Union’s Future of Science and Technology Options Assessment), Dr Desmond Bermingham (Australian Council for Education Research), Dr Ben Wagner (TU-Delft) and Mitzi László (Nextcloud GmbH).

Chair: Professor Nick Couldry. 

View event details here. 

Refusing Discriminatory Technologies of Power: racial justice and the challenge of hi-tech policing

Part of the III Inequalities Seminar Series 

Tuesday 11 May 2021, 12.30pm - 1.30pm (online event)

From informational capitalism to biased code, technological systems increasingly form part of larger structures of oppression and domination. This talk tackles the topic of technology, injustice, and inequity with a focus on bottom-up practices of resistance, rejection, and refusal of digital and automated systems that increasingly govern people’s lives.

Drawing from examples of data-driven policing in Europe and the United States, this talk explores the narrative, technical, and political challenges faced by members of affected communities - especially minoritised and racialised communities - in countering these discriminatory technologies of power. Given these challenges, what can affected communities learn from other practices of technological refusal?

Speaker: Dr Seeta Peña Gangadharan.

Chair: Professor Ellen Helsper (Research Theme Convenor, Politics of Inequality) and Professor in Digital Inequalities, Department of Media and Communications, LSE.

Children and the Digital Environment

Friday 7 May 2021, 3.30 - 5pm (online event)

Technologies are spreading into all aspects of our lives via smart devices, internet of things, augmented reality, and data profiling. Children’s lives have become digital by default and technology is the taken-for-granted means of playing, seeing family, doing schoolwork, hanging out with friends in a post-COVID world. The distinction between the offline and online no longer offers a meaningful way of conceptualising the infrastructure of life but what can we replace it with? Where does the digital begin and end, what does it incorporate? What are the implications for children? This webinar will debate the theories and concepts that underpin such questions, drawing on different disciplinary approaches.

Speakers: Jean-Christophe Plantin, Taina Bucher, Bieke Zaman and Christine Hine.

Chair: Sonia Livingstone.

Discussant: Mariya Stoilova. 

Watch the recording here.

This webinar is part of a webinar series on theory for the EU H2020 project CO:RE - Children Online: Research and Evidence.

Book Launch: Digital Technology and Democratic Theory

Thursday 6 May 2021, 6 - 7pm (online event)

One of the most far-reaching transformations in our era is the wave of digital technologies rolling over and upending nearly every aspect of life. Work and leisure, family and friendship, community and citizenship have all been modified by now ubiquitous digital tools and platforms. Digital Technology and Democratic Theory looks closely at one significant facet of our rapidly evolving digital lives: how technology is radically changing our lives as citizens and participants in democratic governments. To understand these transformations, the book brings together contributions by scholars from multiple disciplines to wrestle with the question of how digital technologies shape, reshape, and affect fundamental questions about democracy and democratic theory. As expectations have whiplashed, from Twitter optimism in the wake of the Arab Spring to Facebook pessimism in the wake of the 2016 US election, the time is ripe for a more sober and long-term assessment. How should we take stock of digital technologies and their promise and peril for reshaping democratic societies and institutions? To answer, this volume broaches the most pressing technological changes and issues facing democracy as a philosophy and an institution.

This book includes a chapter by Dr Seeta Peña Gangadharan entitled 'Digital Exclusion: A Politics of Refusal'. To purchase a copy of Digital Technology and Democratic Theory, click here.

Speakers: Dr Seeta Peña Gangadharan, Archon Fung, Bryan Ford, Hélène Landemore and Lucy Bernholz.

A video of this event is available to watch here. View event details here. 

Hosted by the Ada Lovelace Institute and in partnership with Stanford Philanthropy and Civil Society Center.

Realizing Children’s Rights in the Digital Environment through the new General Comment no. 25

Friday 30 April 2021, / 1.30 - 4.30pm (UK / Lisbon time) (online event)

This event will be the first in a series of webinars bringing together practitioners and academic experts to develop greater knowledge and understanding of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and its implementation. This is part of the pre-launching initiatives of the new Advanced Studies Children`s Rights Programme (AACRP) of Nova School of Law that had its beginning with the Roundtable on the Rights of the Child: New Challenges and Opportunities, on 3rd February 2021.

Professor Sonia Livingstone will deliver a keynote entitled 'Pros and cons of child rights impact assessment for digital decision makers'. 

Organised by the Nova School of Law.

Privacy Studies Journal Inaugural Conference

Wednesday 28 April 2021, 4.05 - 4.25pm UK / 5.05 - 5.25pm CEST (online event)

The Privacy Studies Journal is an interdisciplinary, open access, peer-reviewed journal published by the Danish National Research Foundation Centre for Privacy Studies, University of Copenhagen.

At its inaugural conference, Professor Sonia Livingstone will deliver her presentation 'Privacy from whom? The clashing logics of child development and the data ecology'. 

Find out more about the conference and registration here.  

Organised by Danmarks Grundforskningsfond Danish National Research Foundation.

Adult Online Harms Revenge: Pornography and Online Stalking

Wednesday 28 April 2021, 2pm - 3.30pm (UK time) (online event)

This webinar brings together high-level experts from research, policy and practice. It is organised by UKCIS Evidence Group in collaboration with the Institute for Connected Communities, University of East London & Middlesex University.

Speakers: Professor Sonia Livingstone, Dr Victoria Nash, Professor Clare MCGlynn, Dr Emma Short, Kathryn Tremlett and Saskia Garner.

Chair: Professor Julia Davidson.

Book your place here.

Data as an instrument of coloniality: A panel discussion on digital and data colonialism

Tuesday 27 April 2021, 3.30 - 5pm (online event)

Maps and surveys of "new worlds"; passport photos and vaccination cards to control the movement of "impure" bodies; accounting spreadsheets used in plantations of enslaved peoples... All of these technologies suggest that data has always been an instrument of colonialism. But can the history of European and American colonialism also help us interpret contemporary phenomena like algorithmic racial violence, quarantine apps and vaccination apartheid, the injustices of the gig economy, and disinformation campaigns that threaten our democratic futures? By examining these trends not just in the context of the past few decades, but through the lens of the past 500 years, we can perhaps gain new insights into why theories of capitalist production may not be enough to make sense of the extractivist technologies of today. These technologies need to be understood as manifestations of something deeper, constitutive of colonialism. Only by looking at the histories of colonial extraction and appropriation of land, nature and labor can we understand that our lives are being reconfigured in unprecedented ways, through the medium of data.

Confronted with the new infrastructures of data colonialism, which perpetuate old racial, gender and class injustices, we must learn from past and present anti-colonial and anti-racist movements and thinkers. Decolonizing our data in this context means developing new strategies for resisting the new extractivist order, and for re-imagining internet governance and the digital commons. Join us for this important discussion with four authors who, in different ways, have analyzed our datafied world through the framework of coloniality.

Speakers: Professor Nick Couldry, Professor Ulises Mejias, Paula Chakravartty and Miriyam Aouragh.

Chair: Dr Alison Powell.

Register here.

Hosted by the Alan Turing Institute.

Building the Fugitive Academy: Communication, Culture, Media, & Rhetoric Scholars on the Work of Transformation Conference 

Friday 23 April 2021, 6.30 - 8.30pm UK (1.30 - 3.30pm EST) (online event)

For many years, metrics have been a site for social justice contestation in the academy. Disputes over assessment have been growing across organizations, including NCA, ICA, and RSA for the past decade. Black and Brown scholars have consistently contested the internal dynamics of journal editorial ships, awards processes, hiring decisions, graduate programs, and so on as based on exclusionary models of rigor. This seminar seeks to refocus conversations about rigor and merit, with an eye toward crafting communication and media studies specific models inclusive and equitable excellence.  By exploring a variety of perspectives and approaches for defining rigor and merit, the panelists offer ways of broadening both concepts in favor of using them as tools of inclusivity and equity that center a pluriverse of epistemic positions and traditions instead of reinforcing Euro-American gatekeeping. 

Speakers: Dr Omar Al-Ghazzi, Vani Kannan, Carmen Kynard and Kimberly Moffitt.

Moderator: Aymar Jean Christian.

Find out more about the session here, and register here.

Organised by The Institute for the Liberal Arts, Boston College.

A Theory of Media Freedom - Annual Eric Barendt Law Lecture (University of Oxford)

Tuesday 23 March 2021, 2pm - 3.30pm (online event)

Recent controversies, such as Trump de-platforming and debates about how to regulate internet intermediaries raise fundamental questions of freedom of expression. Should internet intermediaries be considered as censors of speech, against which the rights of individuals must be asserted? To what extent do they have rights as ‘media’ to be autonomous or independent of the state, or to receive other benefits? The lack of shared principles of media freedom undermines the legitimacy of all responses to these questions. Whilst the number of international organisations with media freedom in their mandate grows, and the UK Foreign Office leads a campaign for Media Freedom, this lecture examines the history of different theories of media freedom, and the extent to which it may be possible to advance a shared one based in international human rights.

Speakers: Dr Damian Tambini.

Hosted by University of Oxford and Bonavero Institute. Register here.

When violence endures: inequality, resistance, and repression in India's Maoist guerrilla zones

Part of the III Inequalities Seminar Series 

Tuesday 23 March 2021, 12.30 - 1.30pm (online event)

This event engages with the concept of violence in the context of the ongoing Maoist insurgency and counterinsurgency in India. During the five-decade-long armed conflict involving the Maoist guerrillas and the landless/poor peasants on the one side, and the state security forces and upper-caste/private militias on the other, violence has taken multiple forms. It has spiralled, giving rise to new formations and new theatres of war, especially in the forested areas which are home to indigenous populations. In this event, Dr George Kunnath will attempt to conceptualise this enduring violence and reflect on the possibility of resolutions, drawing on twenty years of his research in conflict-affected regions in India, and recently in Colombia. Employing the framework of the ‘Spiral of Violence’ developed by Helder Camara (1909–1999), a Brazilian liberation theologian, Dr Kunnath will explore the many faces of violence as manifested in a continuum of structural inequality, resistance and repression. As there has been no meaningful transition from violence to peace in India’s guerrilla zones, Dr Kunnath will also draw on a comparative model, and discuss the insights that the 2016 peace agreement in Colombia might provide for India. In Colombia, also ravaged by the cycle of violence, the peace agreement between the FARC and the state facilitated the end of a similarly long-lasting armed conflict. The comprehensive peace process in Colombia, in spite of its setbacks, has demonstrated that without addressing the persisting inequalities, the spiral of violence cannot be broken. What could India learn from the achievements and pitfalls of the Colombian model?

Speaker: Dr George Kunnath (Research Fellow, International Inequalities Institute at LSE).

Chair: Professor Ellen Helsper.

More information here.

Digital by Default: the COVID-19 generation

Wednesday 3 March 2021, 5pm - 6pm

Almost overnight, following lockdown, children’s lives became digital by default. Join us for this discussion where leading experts critically reflect on how children’s experiences, needs and rights are being, and could be better, served in a digital world.  

Speakers: Patricio Cuevas-Parra, Laurie Day, Maya Göetz and Konstantinos Papachristou.

Chair: Professor Sonia Livingstone.

Hosted by LSE Festival: Shaping the Post-COVID World.

A video of this event is available to watch here.

The Costs of Connection: How Data is Colonizing Human Life and Appropriating It for Capitalism

Thursday 25 February 2021, 6pm - 7.30pm

Nick Couldry and Ulises Ali Mejias will discuss their book, The Costs of Connection: How Data Colonizes Human Life and Appropriates it for Capitalism.

Couldry and Mejias argue that the role of data in society needs to be grasped as not only a development of capitalism, but as the start of a new phase in human history that rivals in importance the emergence of historic colonialism. This new "data colonialism" is based not on the extraction of natural resources or labour, but on the appropriation of human life through data, paving the way for a further stage of capitalism. 

Speakers: Professor Nick Couldry, Professor Ulises A. Mejias and Mutale Nkonde.

Chair: Dr Bingchun Meng.

A video of this event is available to watch here.

Mothering and Work, Mothering as Work

Thursday 28 January 2021, 6pm - 7.30pm

In this event we will grapple with past and present experiences of mothering. How can we tell a story of maternal labour in the past, in the absence of data? What does it mean to study mothering today, in the context of intensified neoliberalism? How does mothering enter the radar of policymakers? And what is the relationship between these questions and how we study them in contemporary academia?

The Politics of Inequality: why should we focus on resistance from below?

Wednesday 27 January 2021, 2pm - 3.30pm

While it is now widely accepted that inequality is the defining issue of our time and there is growing research on the drivers and impacts of inequalities, there has been less focus on how inequalities are experienced and resisted by ordinary people and communities. The newly launched Politics of Inequality research theme at the International Inequalities Institute explores the practices of resistance, mobilisation, and contestation from a bottom-up perspective.

Speakers include: Professor Ellen Helsper.

Journalism AI Festival 2020

Monday 7 - Friday 11 December 2020

A week long celebration of the best innovation at the intersection of journalism and AI. The Festival will be a celebration of some of the most exciting developments at the intersection of AI and journalism that we have witnessed over these 24 months and a unique occasion to bring together our global network.

Find out more about the festival and the programme of events here.

Professor Sarah Banet-Weiser leads a seminar on Gender and Identity at Loughborough University

Thursday 19 November 2020, 2pm - 4.30pm

The webinar will feature papers addressing how claims to “real” femininity and masculinity are contested and how gender politics frequently involves the negotiation of competing claims to authentic voices, bodies and gendered ways of being.

Register here.

Media@LSE Virtual Research Exhibition 

Wednesday 11 November 2020, 6.30pm - 8pm

Explore the ground-breaking research of faculty, doctoral researchers and students in the Department of Media and Communications, LSE, by gaining a hands-on virtual experience of their work through interactive videos, posters, and visualizations of their work on this virtual exhibition space, created in collaboration with interactive platform Artsteps.

View the exhibition here.

Rapid Response Publishing Roundtable

Friday 6 November 2020, 1.30pm - 2.30pm

Join us for a virtual roundtable discussion followed by a Q&A.

Register here.

Launch: Digital City of Refuge

Wednesday 28 October 2020, 6pm - 7pm

Stories from London, Berlin and Athens exploring the experiences of newcomers and civic actors in the Digital City of Refuge. A creative collaboration based on an LSE research project.

Data-driven Responses to COVID-19: opportunities and limitations

Thursday 15 October 2020, 1pm - 2.15pm

With many activities moving online, there is growing pressure to implement a range of data–driven responses as “obvious” solutions to various COVID–19 concerns. These range from contact tracing to address the spread of the disease, through the use of AI in the dashboards that allocate health resources to identifying and supporting vulnerable individuals.

Speakers include: Dr Seeta Peña Gangadharan.

Parenting for a Digital Future: how hopes and fears about technology shape children's lives

Thursday 24 September 2020, 4pm - 5.30pm

In the decades it takes to bring up a child, parents face challenges that are both helped and hindered by the fact that they are living through a period of unprecedented digital innovation. Join us for this event to launch Sonia Livingstone and Alicia Blum-Ross' new book, Parenting for a Digital Future.

Speakers include: Professor Sonia Livingstone and Dr Alicia Blum-Ross.

Digital Technologies in the Lives of Children and Young People

Friday 18 September 2020, 3pm - 4.15pm

The lives of children in Europe are becoming digital by default. Information and communication technologies are valued for the opportunities they afford to young generations for participation, skill development, learning and future employability. But how are children and young people engaging with digital technologies? What are the impacts of digital technologies on children’s and young people’s health, lifestyles, well-being, safety and security?

Chair: Professor Sonia Livingstone.

LSE Research Showcase

Saturday 7 March 2020, 12pm - 4pm

Ground Floor and Mezzanine Area, New Academic Building

Hosted by LSE Festival: Shape the World

Children’s data and privacy online: growing up in a digital age

Do you know how your data is shared and used? Or how to protect your privacy online? If your child asks you about their data, would you know how to guide them? Over the past year, we’ve been talking to children, parents and educators about online data and privacy. We found that children are becoming aware of the commercial uses of their data and they care about their privacy, but there are important gaps in their digital skills. Children often turn to their parents and teachers for guidance, but adults also struggle to understand the complex digital environment and to know how to advise children. We developed a toolkit to promote understanding and empower your family or classroom to protect your privacy online.

Presenter: Dr Mariya Stoilova, Department of Media and Communications.

Researchers of the Future

Saturday 7 March 2020, 1pm - 4pm

Hosted by LSE Festival: Shape the World

How do people make decisions, like deciding whether to protest for climate change, what to spend money on, or whether to cheat on a test? LSE is home to a lot of research that tries to understand human behaviour and decisions like these. Some of this research is specifically about young people. Come learn more about it and also give your input into what researchers should be studying and how. Our Behavioural Lab will be set up with hands-on demonstrations and activities from several faculty members. You can try activities from previous and current research, see the space, and talk with researchers about this type of science.

Speakers include: Shakuntala Banaji, associate professor of media and communications at the LSE. Her recent publications include the LSE report WhatsApp Vigilantes: An exploration of citizen reception and circulation of WhatsApp misinformation linked to mob violence in India.

Imagining our Futures

Saturday 7 March 2020, 6.30pm - 8pm

Hosted by LSE Festival: Shape the World

If you could do one thing to change the world, what would that be? What do LSE academics think we should start, stop and continue doing? Join us as we explore how people can shape the world with their actions.

Simidele Dosekun is Assistant Professor in the Department of Media and Communications at LSE. Her research centres African women to explore questions of gender, race, subjectivity, and power in a global context. Her work has appeared in Feminist Media Studies, Feminism and Psychology, Qualitative Inquiry, and Feminist Africa, among others. Before joining the department, she was a lecturer in media and cultural studies at the University of Sussex. She received her PhD in gender and cultural studies from King’s College London.

Slowing the Smart City by Alison Powell.

Thursday 5 March 2020, 12.30pm - 2.00pm 

FAW 9.05 9th Floor, Fawcett House, Clement's Inn, WC2A 2AZ

Propaganda and Democratic Resistance

Wednesday 4 March 2020, 7.30pm - 8.30pm

Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building

Hosted by LSE Festival: Shape the World

Speakers include: Shakuntala Banaji, associate professor of media and communications at the LSE. Her recent publications include the LSE report WhatsApp Vigilantes: An exploration of citizen reception and circulation of WhatsApp misinformation linked to mob violence in India.

Hosted by LSE Festival: Shape the World

Complexity, hybridity, liminality: Challenges of researching contemporary promotional cultures workshop. 

Friday 21 Februrary 2020 

The workshop is a full day of discussion and deliberation  out the ways in which current consultation processes about copyright could evolve to be more inclusive.

45 people are planning on attending, from a range of industries and including members of the public.

The conference addresses the challenges of researching the complex, hybrid and liminal nature of promotion in a range of ways, and it’s co-sponsored by the ECREA Organisational and Strategic Communication section; the Department of Media and Communications, LSE; and the Department of Media and Communication, University of Leicester.

Dr Lee Edwards will be speaking at the conference. 

The Department of Media and Communications take part in the Lisbon Winter School. 

January 7-11 2020

Events in which the Department are participating in include: 

- Compulsory Continuous Connectedness: Liveness and Senses of Uncertainty in Mainstream Social Media by Ludmila Lupinacci, PHD researcher in the Department. 

- Science and Expertise under Fire: Political Control, Online Harassment and Freedom of Expression chaired by Sarah Banet-Weiser

- Media, Precarity and Uncertainty Room: chaired by Sonia Livingstone. 

- Debunking Fear: Ordinary Testimony and Emotional Evidence in the Mediation of Crime and Policing Kat Higgins, PHD researcher in the Department. 

“We’re all Told not to Put our Eggs in One Basket”: The Extension of Neoliberal Worker Subject in the Online Video Industry Zoë Glatt, PHD researcher in the Department.

- Media, Migration and Misogyny chaired by  Professor Sarah Banet-Weiser. 

- Does Journalism Have a Future? Keynote by  Victor Pickard, Visiting Professor in the Department.

- Professor Sonia LIvingstone is also giving a keynote. 

- Professor Sarah Banet-Weiser is also on the steeering committee and serves as a convenor. 

Media and Communications in Action Talks 2019: Week eight: Alice Piterova

Tuesday 10 December 2019, 5pm - 6pm, Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House. Free to all, no registration required. 

Piterova is Head of Data Product at AI for Good where she specialises on such fields as artificial intelligence, innovation and digital transformation, big data and tech for good. 

Media and Communications in Action Talks 2019: Week seven: Champa Patel 

Tuesday 3 December 2019, 5pm - 6pm, Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House. Free to all, no registration required. 

Patel is Head of the Asia-Pacific Programme at Chatham House.

Media and Communications in Action Talks 2019: Week six: Sherry Collins and Swarzy Macaly. 

Tuesday 26 November 2019, 5pm - 6pm, Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House. Free to all, no registration required. 

Collins is the founder, editor and creative director of The Pitch Fanzine. A movement to challenge inequality, discrimination and the lack of diversity in the creative industry, whilst simultaneously showcasing outstanding contemporary talent in its publication Pitch.

Swarzy Macaly is a radio presenter at KISS FM with her own show on KISS Fresh every Monday to Thursday from 11pm-Midnight, and Saturdays from 11am-3pm. Swarzy is also the official young voice of BBC Sounds, a contributor to Dotun Adebayo’s BBC Radio 5 Live show every third Sunday of the month, and hosts many events with various brands including o2 Go Think Big, DICE, and LevileTV.

'It's Time to Change Everything': Media and Communications and the Return of Global Uprisings in 2019

Thursday 21 November 2019, 4.30pm, Silverstone Room, Pethick-Lawrence House

Speakers: Omar Al-Ghazzi (LSE), Bingchun Meng (LSE), César Jiménez-Martínez (Cardiff University)

Will the UK be the "Safest" Place in the World to Go Online? (And do we want it to be?)

Tuesday 19 November 2019, 6.30pm - 8pm. SHEIKH ZAYED THEATRE, NEW ACADEMIC BUILDING. This event is free and open to all with no ticket or pre-registration required.

Chair: Professor Sonia Livingstone

Speakers: Professor Madeleine de Cock Buning, Professor Robin Mansell, Dr Victor Pickard

Media and Communications in Action Talks 2019: Week six: Rachel Jupp. 

Tuesday 19 November 2019, 5pm - 6pm, Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House. Free to all, no registration required. 

Rachel Jupp is Editor for the flagship BBC investigations programme, Panorama. First broadcast in 1953, Panorama is the world’s longest current affairs programme. Appointed to the role in 2016, she was previously Head of Home News at Channel 4 News and Deputy Editor for the BBC’s current affairs programme, Newsnight.

Polis to present the Journalism AI report at Hackers London. [Off campus event]

Monday 18 November 2020, 6.30pm at Google London, 1-13 St Giles High Street,London WC2H 8AG.

The Report, shares the experiences of seventy plus news organisations on A.I and their thoughts on strategy, ethics, editorial, and the future of news.

Find out more

To register to attend click here

Media and Communications in Action Talks 2019: Week five: Sarfraz Manzoor. 

Tuesday 12 November 2020, 5pm - 6pm, Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House. Free to all, no registration required. 

Manzoor is a British journalist, documentary maker, and broadcaster. He is a regular contributor to The Guardian, presenter of documentaries on BBC Radio 4, and a cultural commentator who appears on programmes such as Newsnight Review and Saturday Review.

The  succesful 2019 film Blinded by the Light was written by Sarfraz Manzoor and is based on his memoir.

Media and Communications in Action Talks 2019: Week five: Lucy Thomas. 

Tuesday, 29th October, 5-6, Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House. Free to all, no registration required. 

Lucy Thomas is a senior director at global communications firm Edelman, which advises businesses on politics and communication. She was deputy director of Britain Stronger in Europe, the Remain campaign for the UK to stay within the European Union, and is a former BBC producer. Previous roles include Deputy Director of Business for New Europe and Head of Communications for the World Dementia Envoy & Council.

Youth Citizenship in Brexit Britain: Challenges and Opportunities by Dr Sam Mejias.

Tuesday 29th October. 

12pm- 1pm

FAW 9.04, Fawcett House.

Media and Communications in Action Talks 2019: Week four: Sereena Abbassi. 

Tuesday 22nd October, 5-6, Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House. Free to all, no registration required. 

Abbassi  is the Worldwide Head of Culture & Inclusion at M&C Saatchi Group.

Report launch and discussion: WhatsApp Vigilantes: An exploration of citizen reception and circulation of WhatsApp misinformation linked to mob violence in India

Thursday 17th October 2019, 18.00 – 19.30. Thai Theatre, New Academic Building (NAB)

Shakuntala Banaji and Ram Bhat with Anushi Agarwal, Nihal Passanha and Mukti Sadhana Pravin

Chaired by Dr. Omar Al-Ghazzi

Professor Sonia Livingstone gives a keynote  at the Child Friendly Cities Summit, Cologne. (October 2019). [off campus event]

Her talk is entitled: Children online: risks and opportunities. 

Find out more about the Summit. 

Media and Communications in Action Talks 2019: Week three Emma Barnett.

Tuesday 15th October, 5-6, Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House. Free to all, no registration required. 

Barnett is an  an award-winning broadcaster and journalist. By day, she presents The Emma Barnett Show on BBC Radio 5 Live in which she interviews key figures shaping our times, from the Prime Minister to those who would very much like to be.

City of refuge or digital order? A cross-European story of migration and the city by Professor Myria Georgiou. Talk at the University of Leeds. [off campus event]

This talk explores how the city becomes a space of connection and disconnection, and of solidarity and struggle in the context of migration.

Thursday 10 October 2019- 1:30 to 2:30pm

Hosted by the School of Media and Communication, University of Leeds. 

Media and Communications in Action Talks 2019: Week two: Jamie Angus. 

Tuesday 8th October, 5-6, Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House. Free to all, no registration required. 

Angus is the Director of BBC World Service Group.

Goldstone screening and discussion. 

Thursday 3rd of October, 17-1930, 7.01A- Penthick-Lawrence House. 

Dr Banaji, Associate  Professor and  Director for MSc Media, Communication and Development  will facilitate a discussion after the screening of Goldstone as part of Decolonising LSE Week.

Goldstone grapples with the politics of representing the Aboriginal peoples of Australia. 

The discussion will focus on the politics of representation when it comes to oppressed groups. 

Combatting Inequality: tackling unfairness in wealth, jobs and care

Monday 07 October 2019 6:30pm to 8:30pm. Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building.

Chaired by Professor Ellen Helsper: 

Speakers: 

- Professor Mike Savage,Professor Beverley Skegg, Professor David Soskice

Media and Communications in Action Talks 2019: week one: Finola McDonnell.

Tuesday 1st October, 17-1930, Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building, Lincolns Inn Fields.

McDonnell is Chief Communications and Marketing Officer at the Financial Times.

No Go World: how fear is redrawing our maps and infecting our politics

Monday 10 June 2019

Speakers: Dr Ruben Andersson, Professor Myria Georgiou and Professor Erik Berglof (Chair)

LSE Migration Symposium:  

Politics of bordering: subjectivities, technologies, media

Friday 7 June 2019

Speakers: Nicola Mai, Georgie Wemyss, Lukasz Szulc, Tijana Stolic, Kevin Smets, Maria Kyriakidou, Myria Georgiou, Lilie Chouliaraki

Fantasies and injuries of motherhood and work

Tuesday 26 March 2019

Speakers:  Baroness Ariane de Rothschild, Rosalind Gill, Shani Orgad, Sarah Banet-Weiser (Chair)

‘Even When I Fall’: Q&A screening with the filmmakers

Wednesday, March 20th

Speakers:  Sky Neal (pictured), Kate McLarnon, Winnie M Li, Dr. Sumi Madhok (chair).

On Loop and in the Crossfade: The Music of Here and There

Thursday 14th March 2019

Speakers: Josh Kun, Duval Timothy (pictured), Sarah Banet-Weiser (chair)

The Price of Black Motherhood

Monday 11 March 2019

Speakers: Professor Kate Baldwin, Shani Orgad (Chair)

Are We Heading Towards a Digital Dystopia?

Tuesday 26 February 2019

Speakers: Sam Byers, Alison Powell (pictured), Orla Lynskey, Charlie Beckett (chair).

Media Representations of Domestic Violence 

Thursday 7 February 2019

Speakers: Penny East, Nathalie McDermott, Zing Tsjeng, Sadie Wearing (Chair)

Who Owns The News? – Report Launch Event: The Future of National News Agencies in Europe

Wednesday 6 February 2019

Speakers: Christine Buhagiar, Madhav Chinnappa, Terhi Rantanen, Henrik Örnebring, Sarah Banet-Weiser (Chair)

Fighting misinformation: the launch of the LSE Truth, Trust and Technology Commission report

Tuesday 20 November 2018

Speakers: Polly Curtis, Sonia Livingstone, Damian Tambini, Charlie Beckett (Chair)

Changing cultures of witnessing: paintings, selfies, hashtags

Tuesday 30 October 2018

Speakers: Lilie Chouliaraki, Robin Wagner-Pacifici, Barbie Zelizer (pictured), Sarah Banet-Weiser (Chair)

We, the people: political, media and popular discourses of ‘us’ and ‘them’

Friday 26 and Saturday 27 October 2018

Keynotes: Michael Cox, Michał Krzyżanowski, Francisco Panizza, Yannis Stavrakakis

News media in Western Europe: populism and politics

Monday 1 October 2018

Speakers: Amy S. Mitchell (pictured); Charlie Beckett (Chair)

Choosing to be smart: algorithms, AI, and avoiding the inevitability of unequal futures

Thursday 20 September 2018

Speakers: Seeta Peña Gangadharan (pictured), Seda Gürses, Barry Lynn, Bev Skeggs (Chair)

Book launch: Postcolonial Imaginaries, Post-socialist Realities: Media, agency and modernity in India and China

Wednesday 13 June 2018

Speakers: Shakuntala Banaji, Bingchun Meng, David Buckingham, Harriet Evans

Digital Dominance: the power of Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple

Tuesday 12 June 2018

Speakers: Paddy Barwise, Sonia Livingstone, Martin Moore, Damian Tambini

Constructing Active Citizenship with European Youth

Thursday 31 May 2018

Speakers: Shakuntala Banaji, Beth Foster-Ogg, Katy Herrington, Mete Coban, Sam Mejias

The Marketplace of Attention

Thursday 10 May 2018

Speakers: James G. Webster, Kim Christian Schrøder, Nick Couldry

Trump and The Media

Thursday 3 May 2018

Speakers: Pablo J. Boczkowski, Chris W. Anderson, Gina Neff, Charlie Beckett

Restoring Trust: how do we tackle the crisis in public information?

Wednesday 2 May 2018

Speakers: James Ball, Charlie Beckett, Damian Collins MP, Sophie Gaston, Sonia Livingstone

Writing Fiction to Dramatise Inequality

Wednesday 21 February 2018

Speakers: Louise Doughty, Nicola Lacey, Winnie M. Li, Shani Orgad

The Vision of Empowerment: Popular feminism and popular misogyny

Tuesday 27 February 2018

Speakers: Sarah Banet-Weiser; Shani Orgad, Robin Mansell

Post-Truth: Why we have reached peak bullshit and what we can do about it

Wednesday 18 October 2017

Speaker: Evan Davis, Charlie Beckett

Inequality in China: emotional costs and political risks

Friday 29 September 2017

Speakers: Wanning Sun, Bingchun Meng

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