MediaFutures Seminar: Digital backbones: Data streams in the digital infrastructure and consequences for the media industries with Helle Sjøvaag and Raul Ferrer Conill from the University of Stavanger

Helle Sjøvaag and Raul Ferrer Conill from the University of Stavanger will give a seminar on February 14th.

TITLE: Digital backbones: Data streams in the digital infrastructure and consequences for the media industries

WHEN: 14 February, 12:00 – 13:00

WHERE: MediaFutures & ZOOM:

https://uib.zoom.us/j/63852177471?pwd=RlN2am9QUGRFaWF3QXVCT3lYazBaUT09

Meeting ID: 638 5217 7471

Password: bVRYrT8h

ABSTRACT:

Digital infrastructures consist of backbone structures comprising Internet Exchange Points, Content Delivery Networks, Data Centers, and subsea fiber cables. Contrary to access structures (typically broadband), these structures are not regulated beyond competition law. As the media industries grow more and more reliant on these structures, particularly for content streaming, the ownership, regulation, and data streams of the internet’s backbone remain serious blind spots in media infrastructure research. Helle Sjøvaag has spent the last year mapping these infrastructures for Norway. In this presentation, Sjøvaag will present her insights into these backbone structures, including their ownership and regulation, and discuss what the shifting ecology of the internet backbones means for media industries in Norway.In this talk, Helle Sjøvaag together with Raul Ferrer Conill, will present ongoing work from the project The datafication of communicative power: Towards an independent media policy for Norway’s digital infrastructures, funded by the Research Council of Norway.

Link to the project: https://www.uis.no/en/research/norways-digital-infrastructures

BIO:

Helle Sjøvaag is Professor of Journalism at the Department of Media and Social Sciences at the University of Stavanger.

Raul Ferrer Conill is Associate Professor at the Department of Media and Social Sciences at the University of Stavanger.