[Air-L] Steve Jones Lecture features Sonia Livingstone in 2023 ICA

[Sarina Chen]

Greetings!


Sonia Livingstone will give the Steve Jones Internet Research Lecture at
the 2023 annual conference of the International Communication Association
(ICA) on Friday, May 26, 2023, 9am - 10:15am, in Toronto Sheraton, at
Osgoode East.



The title of Livingstone’s lecture is “The pros and cons of an age-blind
internet: the challenge from a child rights perspective.”  In this lecture,
Livingstone brings the audience’s attention to the significance of age in
examining the tensions and injustices in a digital world.  Livingstone
argues that "the user" - along with "the population" or "the public" - is
generally assumed to be roughly between 15 and 65, and arguably the
internet is built for them. It is also, as is often argued, built for those
who are Western, educated, able-bodied, and so forth.  When socialising
research findings among policymakers, Livingstone indicates that she hears
rising calls to protect children online through "solutions" that could
transform the internet (e.g. content regulation, age gating and age
verification, digital identity) and/or increase exclusion from civil
freedoms online.  In this lecture, she will explore the analytic and
normative insights that can be drawn from a child rights approach.  Then
she will widen the lens to consider the implications of research and policy
of a kind of coalition of the excluded: can those working with children
join forces with those researching other marginalised or disadvantaged
groups?



Livingstone FBA, OBE is a Professor of Social Psychology at the Department
of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political
Science. She has published 20 books including “Parenting for a Digital
Future: How hopes and fears about technology shape children’s lives.” She
directs the “Digital Futures Commission” (with 5Rights Foundation) and
“Global Kids Online” (with UNICEF). She also works on a series of European
Commission and UKRI funded projects concerned with children’s
opportunities, risks and rights in a digital world. Since founding the 33
country EU Kids Online network, Sonia has advised the UK government,
European Commission, European Parliament, UN Committee on the Rights of the
Child, Council of Europe, OECD, ITU and UNICEF on children’s internet
safety and rights in the digital environment. See
https://www.lse.ac.uk/media-and-communications/people/academic-staff/sonia-livingstone
<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lse.ac.uk%2Fmedia-and-communications%2Fpeople%2Facademic-staff%2Fsonia-livingstone&data=05%7C01%7Csjones%40uic.edu%7Cb22689cd63b349bdaed008db1db433e0%7Ce202cd477a564baa99e3e3b71a7c77dd%7C0%7C0%7C638136432050225267%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=w9RQpd%2BZpTSR3qNUmAiNB2Gr%2Fn%2FL%2FqDfXLVAHpauTwU%3D&reserved=0>



Steve Jones Internet Research Lecture Series, established by Carl Couch
Center for Social and Internet Research (CCCSIR, www.cccsir.com) in 2003,
brings leading Internet researchers to annual ICA conferences to promote
the development and interest of Internet research.  With the
interdisciplinary nature of Internet research, the lecture series brings
researchers from various disciplines as well as industry leaders to
establish dialogues with communication researchers about topics and issues
of Internet research.  The theme of Steve Jones Lecture Series is "
The Internet as Culture.”



For more information about this lecture and lecture series please contact
Shing-Ling Sarina Chen at sarina.chen at uni.edu.