Category: Past Annual Symposia

28 NOVEMBER (Banquet Hall A, United Nations Conference Centre & Online)

ADDIS ABABA LOCAL TIMES (UTC +3) INDICATED BELOW

10h     WELCOME REMARKS / INTRODUCTION

10h10   THE CONTESTED GOVERNANCE OF DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE

Chair: Alison Gillwald, Research ICT Africa and Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance, University of Cape Town

Discussant: Wolfgang Kleinwächter, University of Aarhus

• Development aid and fiber-optic network providers: China, the World Bank, and the ICT sector in Africa – Stephanie Arnold (University of Bologna)
• What we owe each other: equitable access to secure, affordable, and reliable LEO broadband satellite services – Berna Akcali Gur (Queen Mary University of London) and Joanna Kulesza (University of Lodz)
• Power plays, industrial strategy, and the appropriation of open software in the making of Open RAN. The case of Japanese industry in 5G standardisation – Riccardo Nanni (Fondazione Bruno Kessler)
• Encoding Privacy: Tech Workers as Co-Regulators in Data Protection Regulations – Rohan Grover (USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism)
• AI politics and sanctions: comparing the cases of Russia and Iran – Radomir Bolgov and Olga Filatova (Saint Petersburg University)

11h30   BREAK

11h40   DIPLOMACY AND PARTICIPATION IN THE NEW ERA OF INTERNET GOVERNANCE

Chair: Yik Chan Chin, Beijing Normal University

Discussant: Ayden Ferdeline, Humanity in Action / Alfred Landecker Foundation

• An Agent of Change: Youth Meta-participation at the Internet Governance Forum – Nadia Tjahja and Diana Potjomkina (United Nations University – CRIS)
• Politics of citations: A gender analysis of the conference proceedings of the Internet Governance Research Network (REDE) in Brazil – Fernanda Rosa (Virginia Tech), Kimberly Anastácio (American University), Maria Vitória Pereira de Jesus (UNIMONTES)  and Hemanuel Veras (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro)
• Responsible Behaviour in Cyberspace: Engaging the Private Sector Through Tech Diplomacy – Stefania Grottola (University of Geneva)
• Roles in the Digital Space: Symbolic Interactionist Role theory and Norms of Sovereignty – Sophie Hoogenboom (United Nations University- CRIS)
• Safe space by design? Federated architectures as alternative socio-technical models for content moderation governance – Ksenia Ermoshina and Francesca Musiani (Center for Internet and Society, French National Centre for Scientific Research)

13h00  LUNCH BREAK 

14h10   PERSPECTIVES  ON DATA GOVERNANCE AROUND THE WORLD

Chair: Jan Aart Scholte, Global Transformations and Governance Challenges, Leiden University

Discussant: Dmitry Epstein, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

• Trade Diplomacy Implications of Data Sovereignty & Data Localization – Robert A. Rogowsky, Stephanie Teeuwen and Katarina Zomer (Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey)
• East Wind, West Wind. Avoiding a new technological cold war – María del Pilar Rodriguez Pita and Jorge Emiliano Pérez Martínez (Internet Governance Forum Spain)
• Co-production for Artificial Intelligence project implementation: lessons from Latin America – Maria Esther Cervantes, Fabrizio Scrollini (Latin American Open Data Initative) and Carla Bonina (University of Surrey)
• The aftermath of pandemic data disclosure: Towards a data governance framework for equitable datacultures – Jeehyun Jenny Lee (University of Washington)

15h20   BREAK

15h25   GIGANET BUSINESS MEETING 

16h20   CONCLUSION

We look forward to the symposium and to your participation!

GigaNet Program Committee 2022 

Program Chair: Roxana Radu, Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford

Berna Akcali Gur 

Yik Chan Chin

Andrea Calderaro

Corinne Cath

Dmitry Epstein 

Patricia Esteve-Gonzalez 

Giovanni De Gregorio

Robert Gorwa 

Matthias C. Kettemann

Hans Klein

Nanette Levinson 

Jun Liu 

Ashwin Mathew

Trust Matsilele 

Trisha Meyer 

Riccardo Nanni 

Gianluigi Negro

Niels ten Oever 

Daniel Oppermann 

Jim Quirk

Julia Pohle 

Gnanajeyaraman Rajaram

Michèle Rioux

Mauro Santaniello 

Jamal Shahin 

Jat Singh

Edison Tabra 

Patricia Adriana Vargas Leon 

Rolf H. Weber

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 2022 is planned to be held alongside the United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF), which is held in a hybrid format in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from 28 November to 2 December 2022. For the time being, the GigaNet symposium is planned as a virtual event on Day 0 of the IGF.  

Papers on any Internet/digital governance-related topic are welcome. Multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches are encouraged. There will be the possibility of a focused subset of accepted papers to be fast-tracked for publication in a relevant journal. In the last two years, selected papers presented at the conference were invited for a dedicated special issue of Telecommunications Policy. 

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

Internet Governance as a field of study

• Narratives, myths and frictions in the construction of the Internet governance field
• Internet governance cultures and power dynamics 
• Theoretical innovations and new methods applicable to Internet governance research

The evolution of Internet governance, institutions, and norms in the areas of: 

• Internet standards and protocols
• Internet infrastructure
• Platform governance
• Cybersecurity
• Governance of data streams
• Digital rights online 

Future-oriented Internet research agenda

• Emerging topics in Internet governance (e.g. environment)
• Digital sovereignty
• Interdisciplinary perspectives on the governance of new technologies (Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, virtual currencies), etc.
• Fragmentation of the Internet

Internet Governance during the pandemic:

• New challenges and opportunities of digitalization 
• Health governance & COVID-tracing apps
• Freedoms, rights and limitations 
• Internet governance and emergency preparedness

Internet governance at a time of war: 

• 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

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, and 
4.   Main (expected) findings of the paper,
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 Easychair website by 10 July 2022, 23.59h (in the submitter’s timezone). 

Reviews of individual abstracts will be double blinded. Please do not include names or any other personally identifiable information on the uploaded file or in the text of the submission itself on the EasyChair platform. (The platform records the author name(s) and contact information: the program committee chair will be able to see that information.) 

Full papers should only be submitted upon invitation, following the selection of abstracts. While multiple submissions by the same author(s) are allowed, there can only be one presentation per author. 

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.

Important dates:
Extended abstracts submission: 10 July
Notification to authors of acceptances/rejections: 31 August
Accepted authors confirm attendance: 10 September
Full papers due: 15 October       

GigaNet Symposium: end of November (date tbc)

—–

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.

GigaNet Symposium at IGF – 6 December 2021

Join the debate on our live tweeting-> #GigaNet2021

Program (all times indicated below are in CET)

Register to get your Zoom link for Symposium HERE!

14.00-14.05   Introduction and Welcome 

Dmitry Epstein, GigaNet Chair
Roxana Radu, Program Chair 2021

14.05-15.35   Parallel Sessions 1

PANEL 1A: PLATFORM REGULATION

Chair: Courtney Radsch, Sr Fellow, Centre for International Governance Innovation 

Discussant: Peng Hwa Ang, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

The Paradox of Platform Monopoly between Tecent and Facebook :Theory, Practice and Governance, Tianchan Mao and Yu Wen

The Telegram Ban: How censorship “made in Russia” faces a global Internet, Ksenia Ermoshina and Francesca Musiani

New School Speech Regulation and Online Hate Speech: A Case Study of Germany’s NetzDG, Rachel Griffin

Neutral Governance, Brenda Dvoskin Dannecker

Let’s think global: Social Media Commission – A Federated Model for Governance, Kamesh Shekar

PANEL 1B: THE GOVERNANCE OF PRIVACY

Chair: Elinor Carmi, City University London (UK)

Discussant: Malavika Jayaram, Digital Asia Hub

Dark Patterns and Privacy Harms: Accountability and Agency in an Age of Disappearing Privacy, Chelsea Horne

Privacy by debate: A content analysis of post Cambridge Analytica congressional hearings, Dmitry Epstein and Rotem Medzini

When Web Crawlers Infringe Personal Information: Judicial Evidence, Legal Governance and Legalistic Swamp of China, Yangkun Huang and Sini Su

Making Data Private – and Excludable: A new approach to understanding the role of data enclosure in the digital political economy, Brenden Kuerbis and Milton Mueller

15.35-15.40   Break

15.40-17.10   Parallel Sessions 2

PANEL 2A: DIGITAL SOVEREIGNTY

Chair: Joanna Kulesza, University of Lodz (Poland)

Discussant: Claudio Lucena, Paraiba State University (Brazil) & FCT (Portugal)

Sovereignty in Cyberspace: EU and China Compared, Yik Chan Chin and Ke Li

Digital Sovereignty and Platform Governance: A European Constitutional Laboratory, Giovanni De Gregorio

Idealized Agency: Investigating Digital Sovereignty in Data Governance Controversies, Anke Obendiek

The Juridic Governance of the Internet, Moritz Schramm

Developing Order Through Socialization: China’s Ideological Persuasion to Build a Rules-Based Order for Cyberspace, Rachel Hulvey

PANEL 2B: INTERNET GOVERNANCE DURING THE PANDEMIC

Chair: Angela Daly, University of Dundee (UK)

Discussant: Alison Gillwald, Research ICT Africa & University of Cape Town, Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance (South Africa)

Digital policies in Latin America in time of pandemics, Bernadette Califano and Martin Becerra

The Road (Not) Taken: Israel, COVID-19 and the SHABAC, Sharon Haleva-Amir

An Empirical Research in China of How to Tackle Infodemic: Stakeholders and Algorithms, Zining Wang and Xu Jing

17.10-17.15   Break

17.15-18.45   Parallel Sessions 3 

PANEL 3A: INTERNET PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES UNDER THE MAGNIFYING GLASS 

Chair: Rasha Abdulla, American University in Cairo (Egypt)

Discussant: Hans K Klein, School of Public Policy, Georgia Institute of Technology (USA)

Inequities of access in/at spaces of global Internet governance dialogue and exchange, Henna Zamurd-Butt

An ideal in crisis: Critiquing the global politics of internet freedom rankings, Tetyana Lokot and Mariëlle Wijermars

AI Narratives and Unequal Conditions: Analysing the Discourse of Expert Voices in Liminal Communicative Spaces, Alexa Robertson and Max Maccarone

Boundary work in Internet governance: the historic role of layers and the E2E argument, Carolina Aguerre and Diego Canabarro

5G and the notion of network ideology, or: the limitations of sociotechnical imaginaries, Niels ten Oever

PANEL 3B: MAPPING AGENCY AND STAKEHOLDER DYNAMICS

Chair: Ioana Stupariu, Central European University (Austria)

Discussant: Mark Raymond, Department of International and Area Studies, University of Oklahoma (USA)

Who do you think you are? Individual stakeholder identification and mobility at the Internet Governance Forum, Nadia Tjahja, Trisha Meyer, Jamal Shahin

The Geopolitics of Digital Rights Discourse: Mapping Civil Society Representation at RightsCon, Rohan Grover

Filling the gap between principle and practice: building an ethical and human rights-based tool-kit for AI development, Palladino Nicola

The prohibition on extraterritorial enforcement jurisdiction in the datasphere, Asaf Lubin

18.45-19.45   GigaNet Business Meeting