Elia Vitturini

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Elia Vitturini received his PhD in social anthropology at the University of Milan-Bicocca (Italy). Since 2011 he has carried out fieldwork research in Somaliland. His analysis adopted the point of view of young political activists and party members in order to investigate the process of state institutions building, the relationships between plural political actors of Somalilander arena and political mobilisation during a pre-election phase. After 2014, he further developed the analysis of Somali society by focusing on local configurations of social stratification. He investigated the position of Gaboye groups and other marginalised minorities, i.e. hereditary groups of occupational specialists, within the Somalilander economic and political context. This historical-anthropological approach focused on some structuring elements of the intertwined dynamics of reproduction and transformation of social stratifications.

Postdoctoral Researcher: Kira Allmann

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Kira Allmann is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Media Law and Policy at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies. Her current research examines how different internet ownership models enable or curtail the realization of fundamental human rights. Her work explores how communities at the margins of the web create innovative solutions to achieve internet access, challenging the corporate and state ownership models of internet provision. Working with community networks — built, administered, and maintained by local communities — Kira’s research interrogates alternative infrastructural, regulatory, and political answers to the digital divide.

Kira is also the Communications Director at the Oxford Human Rights Hub and a research partner of the Whose Knowledge? campaign, which works to center the knowledge of marginalized communities on the web and raise awareness of the digital exclusions that keep the majority of the world from participating fully in digital knowledge creation and curation.

She completed her DPhil at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, where her dissertation focused on how mobility between online and offline spaces constituted a practice of resistance during and after the 2011 Egyptian revolution. Between 2011 and 2015, Kira conducted ethnographic research, blending online and offline qualitative methods, to investigate how the use of digital technologies by Egyptian youth were transforming virtual and physical spaces in the city of Cairo.

Education

DPhil, Oriental Studies (Islamic World), University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

MPhil (with Distinction), Modern Middle Eastern Studies, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

BA, Government and Linguistics, The College of William and Mary, Virginia, USA

Twitter: @KiraAllmann

Prof. Yu-li Liu

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Prof. Yu-li Liu is a Distinguished Professor of Communications at National Chengchi University (NCCU) in Taiwan. She was the former VP for Research and Development of NCCU. She also served as the Director of International Master’s Program in International Communication Studies (IMICS) of NCCU from 2010 to 2013 and chairperson of the Radio and TV Department of NCCU from 1994 to 1996.

Prof. Liu earned her Ph.D. degree in telecommunications at Indiana University in 1992. She has been teaching at NCCU for 26 years. In addition to teaching, Prof. Liu had experiences of working for the government and the media. She served as one of the first-term Commissioners of the National Communications Commission (equivalent to the Federal Communications Commission in the United States) from 2006 to 2008. She was a Fulbright scholar and Visiting Professor of the Graduate Telecommunications Program of George Washington University, School of Journalism of Fudan University (Shanghai, China), School of Journalism of Renmin University (Beijing, China), Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information of Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), Keio University (Japan), Department of Media and Communication of City University of Hong Kong, College of Communications of Boston University, and Centre for Socio-Legal Studies of the University of Oxford.

Since 2013, Prof. Liu has been awarded the Distinguished Research Award by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) every year. In 2013, she earned the Excellent Research Award by NCCU. In 2014, she earned the Best Service Award by NCCU. In 2014 and 2017, she was awarded the Distinguished Professor Position by NCCU (2014-2017)(2017-2020). Prof. Liu has received grants from U.S. Fulbright Foundation, Interchange Association of Japan, and Taiwan’s MOST (former name is National Science Council) for research projects in the areas of convergence, broadband networks, digital TV, telecommunications policy, OTT business model and regulation, and big data and consumer privacy in Taiwan.

Prof. Liu served as President of Chinese Communication Association (a worldwide communication association) for two years (2014-2016). Prof. Liu also served as the President of Taiwan Communication Society. She is also a board member of the International Telecommunication Society (ITS). She also served as a member of the editorial board at three SSCI journals (Telecommunications Policy, Asian Journal of Communication, and Chinese Journal of Communications) and International Journal of Digital TV. Prof. Liu’s research interests include digital broadcasting, broadband communications, telecom and media law and regulation, IPTV and mobile TV, OTT TV, convergence, big data, telecommunications and media management. She has published numerous books such as Policy and Marketing Strategy for Digital Media (co-edited with Robert Picard, published by Routledge), Big Data and Future Communication (in Chinese), OTT TV’s Innovative Services, Business Model, and Law & Policy (in Chinese), Multi-channel TV and Audience (in Chinese), Cable TV Management and Programming Strategy (in Chinese), Cable TV Programming and Policy in China (in Chinese), Radio and TV, Telecommunications (in Chinese), etc.

Prof. Liu also served as a member of the Consumer Protection Commission of the Executive Yuan. Before she was the NCC Commissioner, she served as one of the Commissioners of Cable TV Rate Commission of Taipei City Government for seven years. She also served as the consultant for different government agencies for different task forces such as Telecommunication Advisory Board of Directorate General of Telecommunication, Ministry of Transportation and Communication and TV Program Evaluation Commission of the Government Information Office. In 1997, she was the author of White Paper of Culture–Radio and Television for Council of Cultural Affairs in Taiwan.

Prof. Liu also had working experiences in the media. She was an English reporter of the Overseas Department of the Broadcasting Corporation of China (1983-1987) and executive producer, editor and reporter of Chinese Television System (CTS, 1987-1989). She was appointed as a Board Member of the Radio Taiwan International. Currently, she is a member of the Media Ethics Commission of CTS, TVBS, and Eastern TV Channel.
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European Research Council (ERC) Projects: Uyanga Amarsaikhan

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Dr. Uyanga Amarsaikhan oversees content for the Migration Observatory and conducts legal research for ConflictNET – The Politics and Practice of Social Media in Conflict. She is also responsible for implementation and financial management of ERC Projects at the Law Faculty’s Centre for Socio-Legal Studies.

Postdoctoral researcher: Roxana Radu

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Roxana is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Oxford’s Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy, working on Internet regulation, algorithms and knowledge production in the public sphere. She is also a Research Associate at the Global Governance Centre, Graduate Institute in Geneva and a non-residential fellow at the Centre for Media, Data and Society, Central European University. Until May 2018, she was Programme Manager at the Geneva Internet Platform, a dialogue and capacity building centre for Internet governance and digital policy and was chairing the non-for-profit Internet Society-Switzerland. Roxana holds a PhD in International Relations/Political Science from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (Switzerland) and received the Swiss Network of International Studies Award for the Best PhD Thesis in 2017. Her interdisciplinary research and publications focus on international governance and global Internet policy-making.

Selected publications: 

Roxana Radu. Negotiating Internet Governance. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Forthcoming 2019

Jean-Marie Chenou, Roxana Radu. ‘The <right to be forgotten>: negotiating public and private ordering in the European Union’, Business & Society, 2017.

Roxana Radu, Nicolo Zingales and Enrico Calandro. ‘Crowdsourcing as an emerging form of multistakeholder participation in internet governance’, Policy & Internet, 2015, Vol. 7(3), pp. 362–382.

Roxana Radu, Jean-Marie Chenou. ‘Data control and digital regulatory space(s): towards a new European approach’, Internet Policy Review, 2015, Vol. 4(2). DOI: 10.14763/2015.2.370.

Roxana Radu, Jean-Marie Chenou, Rolf H. Weber (eds.), The evolution of global internet governance: principles and policies in the making. Zurich and Berlin: Springer, 2014.

Roxana Radu. ‘eParticipation and deliberation in the European Union: the case of Debate Europe’, International Journal of e-Politics, 2014, Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 1-15.

Kristina Irion, Roxana Radu. ‘Delegation to independent regulatory authorities in the media sector: a paradigm shift through the lens of regulatory theory’. In Schulz, W., Valcke, P. and Irion, K. (eds.), The Independence of the Media and Its Regulatory Agencies, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2014, pp. 15-54.

Roxana Radu. ‘Power technology and powerful technologies: the dynamics of global governmentality in the cyberspace’, in Kremer, J.-F. and B. Mueller (eds.), Cyber Space and International Relations: Theory, Prospects and Challenges. New York and Berlin: Springer, 2013, pp. 3-20.

Daniel Pop, Roxana Radu. ‘Challenges to local authorities under EU structural funds: evidence from mixed quasi-markets for public service provision in Romania’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 2013, Vol. 51 (6), pp. 1108-1123.

Roxana Radu. ‘The monopoly of violence in the cyber space: challenges of cyber security’, in Fels, E., J.-F. Kremer and K. Harmat (eds.), Power in the 21st Century. International Security and International Political Economy in a Changing World. New York: Springer, 2012, pp. 137-150.

Roxana Radu.‘Negotiating meanings for security in the cyberspace’, Info – The journal of policy, regulation and strategy (Elsevier), 2013, Vol. 15, no. 6, pp. 32-41.

Research assistant: Tim Epple

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Tim Epple joined ConflictNET in June 2018 to conduct research and support the project’s online representation. He carries out archival research on the legacy of media in the Somali conflict, provides desk-based research support to a project on the use of biometrics in the Horn of Africa, and maintains the ConflictNET microsite.

Tim earned a Master of Science in African Studies from the African Studies Centre at the University of Oxford. In addition to his role with ConflictNET, he works as a research analyst in the security consulting sector in London. His research interests include the social media-conflict nexus, peacekeeping, and forced migration, with a regional focus on the Sahel and the Horn of Africa. Tim is a steering committee member of the OxPeace Network, a multi-disciplinary initiative that promotes the academic study of peace at the University of Oxford.

Postdoctoral researcher: Eleanor Marchant

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Eleanor R Marchant is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies. She recently received her PhD from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania where she studied under Dr John L. Jackson Jr, the incoming Dean of the Annenberg School. Her research brings a deep-dive anthropological perspective to examining the relationship between the internet, rapidly changing new technologies and the African societies that shape and are shaped by them. Eleanor’s doctoral work is an empirically rich exploration of the experiences of entrepreneurs, investors, and programmers designing, building, and funding new communication technologies in Nairobi, Kenya. Drawing from first-hand experience during an extended multi-year ethnography of Nairobi’s tech sector, Eleanor provides an insightful analysis of the internationally engaged, nature of technology production on the African continent, and the technological and cultural narratives that shape, and at times inhibit, that work. Eleanor has been a fellow at the Center for Global Communications Studies, iHub Nairobi, and the Media Institute in Nairobi. She also brings a practitioner’s perspective to her research, drawing on six years working as a media investment and development practitioner with a focus in the West and East African regions for both Media Development Investment Fund and Freedom House.

 

Education:

BSc., Economics and Politics, Bristol University, Bristol, UK.

MA, International Relations, New York University, New York, USA.

MA, Communications, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.

PhD, Communications, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.

 

Selected Publications:

PhD Thesis: Eleanor R Marchant, “Anyone Anywhere: Narrating African Innovation in a Global Community of Practice” University of Pennsylvania PhD Thesis, (University of Pennsylvania 2018)

Eleanor R Marchant, ‘Organizational Culture and Hybridity: The hybridization of non-profit and for-profit organizational culture in the Kenyan tech sector’ in Bitange Ndemo and Tim Weiss (eds), Digital Kenya: An Entrepreneurial Revolution in the Making (Palgrave Macmillan 2017)

Eleanor Marchant, ‘Who is ICT Innovation for? Challenges to Existing Theories of Innovation, a Kenyan Case Study’ (CGCS Occasional Paper Series on ICTs, Statebuilding, and Peacebuilding in Africa, 4, 2015)

Eleanor R Marchant, ‘Interactive Voice Response and Radio for Peacebuilding: A Macro View of the Literature and Experiences from the Field’ (CGCS, February 2016)

 

Twitter: @ermarchant

Oliver Persey

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Oliver Persey read law at Oxford University before an LLM in International Legal Studies at New York University School of Law. At NYU he specialized in US constitutional law, particularly First Amendment law, and international human rights law. He has worked for the Media Legal Defence Initiative, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, and the American Civil Liberties Union’s Human Rights Program.

Sarah Norman

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Administrator

Sarah has been involved in education for the past 20 years, first as a  history teacher and head of department, and then as an Assistant Principal Examiner on public examinations. She has also worked in  digital resourcing for schools and higher education institutions.  Based in Oxford, she will be working with the team on the administrative side.

Danit Gal

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Danit is a graduate of the Oxford Internet Institute, the University of Oxford, and the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, Israel, specializing in cyber-terrorism and cyber-conflicts. She currently works on coordinating the Peking-Oxford-Stanford conference on Internet Law and Policy with Nicole Stremlau, and has co-authored the recent UNESCO study “Countering Online Hate Speech” with Iginio Gagliardone. Danit is interested in promoting online privacy, safety, and freedom of speech, and studies computer and network surveillance and cybersecurity policies and practices.