Author: Einar Thorsen

Phil Hammond London South Bank University We were delighted to welcome delegates to London South Bank University (LSBU) for the MeCCSA 2018 conference (10-12 January 2018). We would like to thank everyone who contributed to making the event a success. Delegates were welcomed on 10 January by the outgoing chair of MeCCSA, Professor Natalie Fenton, …Continue Reading

Sonia Livingstone LSE Children’s rights online are finally getting traction. While the struggle to protect children online is as old as the internet itself, with a trail of only modest wins along the way, it is children as rights-holders, as agents rather than victims in the digital age, whose claims are finally being heard. A …Continue Reading

Eva Giraud Keele University Reports about the ‘banning’ of Iceland’s 2018 Christmas advertisement resulted in it becoming one of the most viewed Christmas advertisements ever on social media. The advertisement itself – a Greenpeace-produced animated critique of palm oil production, from the perspective of a young orangutan – was reportedly banned for being ‘too political’. …Continue Reading

Elizabeth Poole Keele University This article outlines some of the findings from a British Academy small grant that examines the dynamics of a racialised hashtag, #stopIslam, following the Brussels attacks in 2016. The hashtag caught our interest when mainstream media organisations (e.g. BBC, CNN, Nigeria Newsdesk and Al Jazeera) reported that it was being used, …Continue Reading

Eugenia Siapera Dublin City University Political developments in core countries of the Global North, such as the UK and the US, have been accompanied by a significant rise in incidents of violence against people of colour and migrants, clearly documented in reports by NGOs and think-tanks such as Tell Mama (2017) and Demos (Bartlett et …Continue Reading

Declan Mcdowell Naylor Queen Mary, UoL On the same day on which he was hired as Facebook’s Vice President of Global Affairs and Communication, Sir Nick Clegg heralded his appointment in a Guardian op-ed as an opportunity “to build bridges between politics and tech”. The former Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown urged Clegg to stand up for …Continue Reading

Christian Fuchs University of Westmister In the age of austerity, there has been increased public criticism of large transnational corporations’ low tax contributions. Google and Facebook dominate the online advertising market in the form of a duopoly and avoid paying adequate taxes while complying with the taxation system in place. This policy brief introduces a …Continue Reading

Natalie Fenton Goldsmiths, University of London Chair, Media Reform Coalition The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport established the Cairncross Review in March 2018 to examine the sustainability of high-quality journalism in the UK. The Review is particularly concerned with the Press and says that it will give equal weight to the needs of ‘consumers and …Continue Reading

Julian Petley Brunel University In its call for evidence, the Cairncross Review stated its objective as ‘to establish how far and by what means we can secure a sustainable future for high quality journalism, particularly for news’, asked respondents whether ‘the future of high quality journalism in the UK is at risk – at national, …Continue Reading