Global Scholar Dr. Francesca Musiani, Associate Research Professor at the Institute for Communication Sciences at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, presented her research in a session entitled “The Politics of Internet (De-)centralization: Peripheries, Centres, and their Implications for Networked Civil Liberties” at the 2018 Conference of the European Communication Research and Education Association on November 1, 2018 in Lugano, Switzerland.

Much of Dr. Musiani’s research since 2009 has focused on “centres and peripheries” in digital networks. Her research explores how the choice, by developers and engineers of Internet-based services, to develop distributed architectures instead of more centralized models has implications for the daily use of online services and for the rights of Internet users.

Dr. Musiani is also an associated researcher with the Centre for the Sociology of Innovation of MINES ParisTech-PSL, and academic editor for the Internet Policy Review. She was co-editor of the edited volume The Turn to Infrastructure in Internet Governance along with Internet Governance Lab Faculty Directors Drs. Derrick Cogburn, Laura DeNardis, and Nanette Levinson.