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Communication Technologies on Trial Day 4 - Work and the Environment

When:
Venue: Birkbeck Main Building, Malet Street

No booking required

Communication Technologies on Trial Day 4 - Work and the Environment

On Thursday 13 June, we will focus on the impact of communication technologies on two spheres of central social importance, work and the environment.  Both the protection of labour rights and the protection of the environment have grown out of long and hard fought battles. Are particular uses of communication technologies undermining those rights? Or creating new theatres of conflict?  What happens if your working life is controlled by an algorithm?  Is it really true that the turn to communication technologies has benefitted the environment? By thinking of communication technologies as virtual, how much do we under-estimate the human and environmental costs of manufacturing and using the hardware essential to accessing this virtual world?

Speakers

Chair: Fiona Macmillan, Birkbeck

Emilios Christodoulidis, University of Glasgow

Ruth Dukes, University of Glasgow

Giulia Claudia Leonelli, Birkbeck

Phil McDuff, The Guardian

Nanna Bonde Thylstrup, Copenhagen Business School

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Law on Trial 2019: Communication Technologies on Trial

 

Join us at our other Communication Technologies on Trial events

Monday 10 June Democracy

Tuesday 11 June Social and Financial Exclusion

Wednesday 12 June Cultural Production

Friday 14 June Privacy, Security and Surveillance

The theme of this year's Law on Trial week is Communication Technologies on Trial. Through a series of focused debates, we will investigate the implications of the fact that communications technology, which is often used as though it were a public good, is privately owned and that the major actors and platforms that connect the infrastructure to the users are also transnational corporate interests. In particular, the week's events will focus on the ways that the architecture of the communications technology system poses serious challenges to legal regulation, while the dominance of neo-liberal thought arguably creates political resistance to regulatory solutions. Communication Technologies on Trial will investigate these issues through a range of presentations, panel discussions and public debates that focus on the sub-themes of democracy, social and financial exclusion, cultural production, work and the environment, and security, privacy and surveillance. It is jointly organized with the Velux funded digital humanities project "The Past's Future", which is based at the Saxo Institute and the School of Law at the University of Copenhagen. Find out more.

This event is free to attend and open to the public however booking is required via this page.

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