OII Webcasts

Digital technology empowers us to find and share information as never before, but we do not always foresee the consequences of these new powers. Can the dangers of everlasting digital memory be avoided? Can we reintroduce our capacity to forget?

Michael Froomkin discusses how largely well-intentioned political and legal reactions to the highest-profile risks of ICT creates a danger of perhaps killing the goose that is giving us golden eggs of innovation, decentralization, and personal empowerment.

Manuel Castells draws on arguments from his book Communication Power in discussing the structural causes and implications of the 2008 economic crisis, and in claiming that we are moving, without much understanding, towards a new form of global capitalism.

Duncan Watts discusses how the Internet is beginning to lift a long-time constraint of social science research on emergent collective behaviour: the difficulty of measuring interactions between people, at scale, over time, while also observing behaviour.

Robert Hahn discusses his recent paper responding to the US Federal Communications Commission's request for guidance in designing a national US broadband plan

What are the most important milestones in the evolution of social media? What factors have shaped their successes and limitations?

Among the traditional media, blogs and other contributions to citizen journalism have for a long time been regarded as posing a significant threat to 'quality' news reporting ... is this a valid view? What (if anything) can social media offer?

How have social media changed the nature of the scientific debate among scientists? Are they challenging the supremacy of editors, reviewers and science communicators? How have they impacted on engagement with the public understanding of science?

Can Web 2.0 tools (eg blogs, social networking and wikis) enhance our democratic freedoms? Or can we dismiss the socially egalitarian and politically democratic potential of these social media? Have any significant social impacts been ignored so far?

What do companies expect to gain from maintaining an online 'social media' presence? What are the implications of these trends for the development of traditional public relations strategies and business journalism?

Are social media tools likely to prove effective in engaging any voters except those who are already interested in politics? Is their apparent 'democratisation' of traditional party structures to be believed?

If social media are the defining advance of Web 2.0, whereby the network-as-platform enabled users not just to download content but to create it, tag it and share it ... what will the next decade hold? Will we continue to Tweet?

In a world where anybody can publish her thoughts to a world-wide audience, how should we balance privacy and free speech? How should the law protect people when harmful gossip and rumors are spread about them on the Internet?

Jonathan Zittrain discusses the ways in which online life will be regulated largely by people and institutions bearing no badges or government affiliation. Do private sheriffs help avoid cumbersome government intervention, or is this a new vigilante justice?

Thinking about applying for our DPhil or MSc courses? Want to know more about what it's like to study at the OII? In this ten minute video, faculty and students talk about the OII's DPhil and MSc programmes.

This open public forum looks at the history and future of the Internet Domain Name System (DNS). It provides an opportunity to commemorate Jon Postel by looking back at the 25 year history of the DNS but also the 10 years of its management under ICANN; and a vision of what the future holds over the coming years.