Milton Mueller News

Steering Committee elections

GigaNet will soon be launching a new round of elections for the four positions in the Steering Committee which will become available starting from next year:

   * Chair (position currently held by Roxana Radu)
   * Chair of the Program Committee (position currently held by Jamal Shahin)
   * Chair of the Membership Committee (position currently held by Berna Akcali Gur)
   * Secretary (position currently held by Clément Perarnaud). 

Descriptions of all positions and GigaNet election policies are available at: https://www.giga-net.org/governance/ 

All four positions have two-years mandates.

Nominations for any position should be sent to the GigaNet membership mailing list from now until December 7, 23h59 IDLW.

Milton Mueller News

The Inaugural Trusted Internet Summer School on Internet Governance and International Law

The Trusted Internet Summer School on Internet Governance and International Law (SSIGIL) has recently concluded in Lodz, Poland. This fully funded, week-long event (8-12 July) was filled with insightful discussions and productive collaborations on satellite connectivity and internet governance. Hosted by the Lodz Cyber Hub (LCH) at the University of Lodz and GigaNet, this inaugural event offered the GigaNet community an exciting opportunity to explore the role of international law in Internet governance, as well as the challenges of the multistakeholder governance model.

Throughout the week, the participants approached international law, cybersecurity, Internet governance, and digital rights from the perspective of LEOs – Low Earth Orbit satellites. These satellites, used by companies like SpaceX and OneWeb, are becoming a crucial part of global Internet infrastructure, expanding connectivity in underserved and remote areas. Yet their use raises important questions about how the Internet is governed, how data is managed, and how international law applies to this new technology. The discussions at SSIGIL highlighted new developments around the world and  explored the key pillars for developing legal and governance frameworks to manage the rapid growth and impact of LEO satellite networks.

The SSIGIL program was structured around five themes, with each day kickstarting with a presentation from a leading expert in the field. These thematic sessions ensured that participants could dive deep into specific areas of Internet governance and international law, guided by the knowledge and experience of seasoned professionals.

We are especially grateful to our distinguished expert leads, whose contributions were invaluable. Their insights and guidance played a crucial role in enriching the discussions and enhancing the overall learning experience for everyone involved.

Roxana Radu – GigaNet Chair and Associate Professor at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford

Dmitry Epstein – Former GigaNet Chair and Assistant Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Berna Akcali Gur – GigaNet Membership Committee Chair and Lecturer at Queen Mary University of London

Joanna Kulesza – CEO of LCH and Assistant. Professor of International Law, University of Lodz

Dan York – Director for Technology, Internet Society

The inaugural SSIGIL successfully brought together emerging scholars, policy and media practitioners, and established academics, emphasizing GigaNet’s pivotal role in advancing a new research agenda through collaborative efforts within its academic community and beyond.

The SSIGIL summer school was part of the “Decolonizing the Internet” research project, funded by the Internet Society Foundation’s Research Grant Program. This initiative is co-led by Joanna Kulesza, CEO of LCH and Assistant Professor of International Law at the University of Lodz, and Berna Akcali Gur, Lecturer at Queen Mary University of London. Since 2023, the project has focused on “Trust and Data Governance” within the broader theme of “Global Governance of Low Earth Orbit Satellite Broadband.”

Special thanks go to the Internet Society Foundation for their generous support, as well as to the University of Lodz for hosting. The SSIGIL summer school has deepened the discussions on satellite connectivity potential and challenges in internet governance and international law. The experiences and networks formed during the event will continuing to inspire and inform future initiatives in this space. 

Nadia Tjahja Annual Symposium, News

2023 Annual Symposium Call for Papers (Kyoto, Japan – hybrid)

GigaNet – the Global Internet Governance Academic Network – is now accepting extended abstracts for papers to be presented at its annual symposium. As of now, GigaNet 2023 is planned to be held alongside the United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in a hybrid format in Japan.

Papers on any internet/digital governance-related topic are welcome. Multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches are warmly encouraged. There will be the possibility for a focused subset of accepted papers to be fast-tracked for publication in a relevant journal. In previous years, collections of papers presented at the symposium were invited for publication in the journal Telecommunications Policy.

We particularly welcome presentations of research that take a global perspective, and explicitly invite comparative papers. GigaNet encourages emerging scholars and researchers working with diverse methodologies to submit their work to the symposium. Proposals should be submitted in English. Participation in the GigaNet symposium is free of charge.

Welcome topics for this year’s symposium include, but are not limited to:

Internet Governance as a field of study
– Narratives, myths, contributing disciplines, and frictions in the construction of the field of internet governance
– Internet governance cultures and power dynamics 
– Theoretical innovations and new methods applicable to internet governance research
– Postcolonial internet governance studies

The evolution of internet governance, institutions, and norms
– Internet standards and protocols
– Internet infrastructure
– Platform governance
– Cybersecurity
– Governance of data streams
– Digital rights online
– Digital sovereignty

Critical internet futures
– Sustainability and environmental impacts
– Digital colonialism
– Transformation of internet business models
– Space and internet governance 
– Interdisciplinary perspectives on the governance of frontier technologies (Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, virtual currencies, metaverse, quantum computing), etc.

Current themes in internet governance research
– Online harms, cyberattacks and accountability
– Connectivity and access to information 
– Cyber operations and sanctions
– Neutrality in the cyber domain
– Applicability of international law
– Role of international bodies and/or public-private partnerships
– Corporate responsibility and connectivity
– Health governance & contact-tracing apps
– Civil rights and their limitations 
– Internet governance and emergency preparedness  
– Global cooperation and geopolitical tensions
– Splinternet and control of the networks 

GigaNet is oriented around the presentation of research papers. The proposed extended abstract should be 800-1000 words long (excluding bibliography) and must describe:

1. Research question(s),
2. Data used, 
3. Methodology,
4. Main (expected) findings of the paper, and
5. Contributions to literature and/or ongoing policy debates. 

Theoretical papers need not specify the data used but must have a clear research question and statement of the specific theories used and literature in which the analysis is situated. 

The extended abstract must be uploaded to the submission platform by 30 April 2023, 23.59h (in the submitter’s timezone). Further information on the submission process will be available from the giga-net.org website in mid-April.

Individual abstracts will be reviewed double blind. Please do not include names or any other identifiable information on the uploaded file or in the text of the abstract you submit to the platform. (The platform records the author name(s) and contact information: the programme committee chair will be able to see that information.) Full papers should only be submitted upon invitation, following the selection of abstracts. 

Important notices:
Submission portal: http://symposium.giga-net.org/
Extended abstracts submission: 30 April Due to popular request, the deadline for abstracts has been extended until 10 May.
Notification to authors of acceptances/rejections: 15 June
Accepted authors confirm attendance: 25 June
Full papers due: 5 September
GigaNet Symposium: early October (tentatively planned for 8 October)

—

GigaNet is an international association of academic researchers founded in 2006 to support multidisciplinary research on internet governance. Its membership includes researchers from all over the world who are contributing to local, national, regional, and international debates on internet governance. More information on GigaNet’s organizational structures and activities can be found on its website at https://www.giga-net.org.

Members of the Programme Committee 2023-2025 are:

  • Jamal Shahin (Chair)
  • Yong Liu
  • Berna Akcali Gur
  • Corinne Cath
  • Dan Oppermann
  • Giovanni De Gregorio
  • Dmitry Epstein
  • Edison Tabra
  • Jat Sing
  • Julia Pohle
  • Niels ten Oever
  • Matthias Kettemann
  • Mauro Santaniello
  • Nadia Tjahja
  • Nanette Levinson
  • Patricia Adriana Vargas Leon
  • Raquel Gatto
  • Michele Rioux
  • Riccardo Nanni
  • Robert Gorwa
  • Roxana Radu
  • Sebastian Felix Schwemer
  • Jun Liu
  • Trust Matsilele
  • Wu Fei
  • Yik Chan Chin
Nadia Tjahja News, Other events

Webinar: Politics of (dis)connection

8 February 2023 at 8pm CET, online, register here

The possible establishment of a sovereign internet in Russia, European initiatives on ‘Digital Sovereignty’, and the conflict between China and the United States over Huawei equipment are rekindling the discussion on splinternets and the limits to global interconnectivity. This event is co-organized by Giganet.

Can the internet, the original network of networks, resist the contemporary strain, or was it built to accommodate these differences? In this talk three expert scholars on this topic, Daniel Lambach, Francesca Musiani and Fernanda Rosa, will give their views on the politics of global connection, its limitations, its future, and its discontent. Their talks will be discussed by one of the founders and prominent researchers of the fields of internet governance, Milton Mueller.

Speakers:
Dr Daniel Lambach
Dr Francesca Musiani
Dr Fernanda R Rosa

Discussant:
Professor Milton Mueller

Moderator:
Dr Niels ten Oever

To register, please follow this link.

Nadia Tjahja News, Other events

ICYMI: Infrastructural Distortion and Possession & Internet Standard Setting Research Methods webinars

Earlier this year we had two GigaNet supported events.

Infrastructural Distortion and Posession

Global internet infrastructure is increasingly becoming part of geopolitical conflicts. However, politics have always been an inherent part of communication infrastructures. One could even argue that that the internet infrastructure has been a field of reconfiguration of global power for decades, we just failed to see it. Elinor Carmi, Fenwick McKelvey and Seda Guerses shone a light on the actors and particularly the material reconfiguration of our life-worlds and politics through technology.

Internet Standard Setting Research Methods

We also had the workshop on Internet Standard Setting Research Methods. This workshop showcased the broad range of research methods used by Internet governance scholars from multiple disciplines to study Internet standard-setting bodies, such as the IETF, IEEE, W3C, WHATWG, 3GPP, ITU-T, ITU-R.