[Air-L] Global Media & Policy Seminar Series from University of Oxford - livestream TOMORROW on community internet

[Kira Allmann]

Hi all -

The Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy (PCMLP) at the University
of Oxford is launching a live-streamed global seminar series -- starting
with a great talk tomorrow at 5 PM (BST) on a community-owned and -operated
internet network in northwest England that I've been working with during my
postdoc.

Tune in if you're interested! (More info about the talk and the seminar
series below.) https://www.youtube.com/user/PCMLPOXFORD

***

*Global Media & Policy Seminar Series: Chris Conder (B4RN - Broadband for
the Rural North)
<https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/events/global-media-policy-seminar-series-chris-conder-broadband-rural-north>*
Chris Conder co-founded Broadband for the Rural North (B4RN), a rural,
community-owned, co-operative that delivers affordable 1Gbps symmetric
broadband to rural farms in Lancashire, UK.  Rural regions in countries
around the world suffer from lack of adequate broadband infrastructure.
Even where access is available, ability to pay is often much lower in those
regions. B4RN empowers communities to develop their own broadband solutions
that are faster and cheaper than commercial internet service providers, and
the B4RN model has become an inspiration for both not-for-profit and
commercial broadband solutions for closing the digital divide in the UK and
worldwide.

In this livestreamed seminar, Chris will share B4RN's story - how this
thriving community network went from an ambitious idea, driven by a desire
and demand for connectivity, to a world-class community-run and
community-enhancing internet provider, all while keeping the community at
its core. Today, B4RN connects over 5000 homes in rural Lancashire.

For more information on B4RN: https://b4rn.org.uk

To join the seminar, tune into YouTube Live (PCMLP Oxford) at 17:00 BST.
Send us your questions/comments on YouTube or using #GlobalMediaQs on
Twitter.


*About the PCMLP Global Media & Policy Seminar Series*
*The Global Media & Policy Seminar Series is an online seminar series
jointly organised between the University of Oxford’s Programme in
Comparative Media Law and Policy (at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies)
and the University of Johannesburg’s School of Communication. The series
fosters an international dialogue about pressing issues affecting new media
and human rights, particularly at the margins. The speakers in this series
tackle issues related to technology and policy across different contexts,
including (among others) algorithmic bias and inequalities; misinformation
and elections; social media and migration; extreme speech online;
community-driven internet access solutions; autonomous and feminist
infrastructure; and privacy. This innovative global seminar series uses the
power of technology to bridge the geographic and epistemic distance between
the global north and the global south – to bring together critical
perspectives on new media in context and facilitate a diverse dialogue on
the most important questions of human rights, internet governance and our
technologically mediated lives.*