VIEW PAST EVENTS: ALL | 2021 TO PRESENT
Via Zoom | Follow the link at the bottom to add to your calendar The first part of this presentation examines the emergent and sometimes paradoxical logic of the internet news ecosystem, in particular: (1) collectively, news diets have become far more concentrated in a small number of outlets; (2) however, individuals have relatively diverse news diets– almost certainly far more diverse than was plausible pre-Internet (as measured by number of unique content producers); (3) the social-algorithmic curation system of the Internet tends to point people to content with their preferences, sometimes in unlikely places. The greater diversity of consumption of news measured […]
Marcus Foth is a Professor of Urban Informatics in the School of Design and a Chief Investigator in the QUT Digital Media Research Centre (DMRC), Faculty of Creative Industries, Education, and Social Justice, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. He is a founding member of the More-than-Human Futures research group. Marcus’ research brings together people, place, and technology. His current research foci include: urban media and geoprivacy; data care in smart cities; digital inclusion and participation; blockchain and food supply chains; and sustainability and more-than-human futures.
Via Zoom RSVP Here | or email quello@msu.edu Evolving technologies are changing how young people learn and the kinds of work their parents do. These changes create uncertainty about how adults can ensure stability and mobility in the workforce today, and how to prepare for what they anticipate work will look like for their children in the future. How parents and children answer these questions is heavily influenced by their “technological timelines”: how they see their families and communities having been affected by technological changes past, present, and future. This presentation presents an in-depth view on how working-class Black and White families in […]
In Person in CAS Room 191 and Via Zoom RSVP Here | or email quello@msu.edu A Rural Computing Research Consortium/Quello Center joint event. Responsible innovation can be helpful in the realm of developing climate-smart farming tools, where data-driven technologies, AI modeling, and localized farm data can enable climate adaptation and mitigation. However, to achieve benefits of these innovations for the public interest and for scaling up, it is imperative to cultivate trust among a range of actors and organizations across the food system value chain. This trust-building process necessitates the development of transparent pathways for converting raw data into actionable insights, a task that […]
Via Zoom RSVP Here | or email quello@msu.edu Early in 2020, the use of telehealth for primary care exploded because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Funded by PCORI, their team launched an extensive set of quantitative and qualitative evaluations of this natural experiment and its impact on healthcare. Ancker will report on their findings about patient and provider experiences in three states on the basis of interviews and surveys, as well as a Medicare claims-based analysis of the effects of telehealth on preventable healthcare utilization. Jessica S. Ancker, MPH, PhD, is a professor of biomedical informatics and health policy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. […]
Via Zoom RSVP Here | or email quello@msu.edu Persistent digital divides exist between Northern and Southern Canada, and among communities in Northern Canada. Along with large-scale commercial telecommunications projects, locally designed and deployed networks offer potential solutions to improve connectivity. Community Networks involve residents in the deployment, ownership, and control of digital infrastructures – though such efforts also face many challenges. In this presentation Dr. McMahon will introduce DigitalNWT, a participatory action research initiative focused on these issues. After an overview of DigitalNWT’s research, education and policy engagement activities, he will discuss the process that was used to codesign community networking resources with […]
Via Zoom – RSVP Here The Quello Center 2024-2025 speaking series is co-hosted by the Information Policy Workshop and presents works-in-progress on topics covered by the Information Policy Book Series of The MIT Press. The series is co-organized by Sandra Braman and Keith Hampton. Proposals for presentations (and for books!) are welcome; please contact Sandra at bramansa@msu.edu if you are interested. All talks will be recorded and will be available to those who have registered. For a copy of the recording, please reach out to Ashley Wilson at wils1620@msu.edu In the wake of the end of the USSR, the Russian Internet initially developed […]
Join us in person in room CAS 233 or via Zoom (register here). Dr. Sandra Braman, Scholar and Professor of Media & Information. John Locke’s An Essay on Human Understanding (1690) introduced his concept of the fact and became the most important book of the 17th and 18th centuries after the Bible. As Tom Wolfe put it, the effects of the turn to reason in text were as powerful as “the introduction of electricity into machine technology.” Facticity is the social formation that resulted across Western societies — the social orientation around the fact, whether towards or away. This presentation will briefly […]
Via Zoom – RSVP Here The Quello Center 2024-2025 speaking series is co-hosted by the Information Policy Workshop and presents works-in-progress on topics covered by the Information Policy Book Series of The MIT Press. The series is co-organized by Sandra Braman and Keith Hampton. Proposals for presentations (and for books!) are welcome; please contact Sandra at bramansa@msu.edu if you are interested. All talks will be recorded and will be available to those who have registered. For a copy of the recording, please reach out to Ashley Wilson at wils1620@msu.edu On a planet of waste, where whole populations and regions are written off as externalities, the notion […]
Via Zoom RSVP Here | or email quello@msu.edu A Rural Computing Research Consortium/Quello Center joint event. Between June and September of 2024, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) accepted public comments on whether a statutory law should be established to allow an experimental use exception for products protected by utility patents. This problem has emerged because of conflicting court decisions over whether scientific research on patented products constitutes patent infringement. Agricultural crops were immune to these concerns until the 1980s, when utility patents began to be applied to living organisms. Prior to this, crops were protected by the Plant Variety Protection Act […]
Via Zoom RSVP Here | or email quello@msu.edu An Internet Governance Project (IGP)/Quello Center joint event. On April 4, 2025, the Internet Governance Project (IGP) in collaboration with the Quello Center will gather scholars of differing views to debate what digital sovereignty means, how it is being used as a label, and whether the various interpretations of the term are compatible with the foundational values of the open internet. Recently, new books and analyses have been published, including the book edited by Min Jiang and Luca Belli, Digital sovereignty in the BRICS countries (Cambridge, 2025), the volume by Johannes Thumfart, The liberal internet […]
Robert Gorwa, WZB Berlin Social Science Center Michael Veale, University College London Via Zoom To RSVP please email quello@msu.edu Every time someone trains, deploys, or queries an ‘artificial intelligence’ system, whether they know it or not, they are implicating the practices and services of an enormous number of interlinked businesses in the AI ‘stack’. In this talk, Robert Gorwa and Michael Veale will present early findings from their ongoing book project on emerging public-private regulatory practices emerging across this stack, focusing on what does, could, and should be done to prevent very real emergent forms of AI misuse. As more obligations […]
Sarah Fox, Carnegie Mellon University in the Human Computer Interaction Institute In Person: Communication Arts and Sciences Room 191 Online: Via Zoom- RSVP Here or please email quello@msu.edu Work is transforming rapidly. While some might suggest labor is in a perpetual state of change, the accelerated development and deployment of artificially intelligent (AI) systems within workplaces is set to reshape the livelihoods of millions of workers across industries for decades to come. Though proponents see potential in automation as a means to rid work of monotony and boost productivity, many workers and worker advocates view AI as an existential threat […]
Borrowing Berlo: Singapore’s Evolving Approach to Online Harms a Brownbag lunch with Dr Han-Ei CHEW, Visiting Fellow, Quello Center, Michigan State University. Tuesday September 2, 2025, 12-1 PM EDT In-Person CAS 405 Please Register HERE Singapore has developed one of the most comprehensive legal frameworks in the Asia-Pacific region to address online harms, spanning issues such as misinformation, cyber harassment, and image-based sexual abuse. In recent years, legislative efforts have taken on a more consultative approach, incorporating more public consultations and expert roundtables in the policymaking process. This includes the forthcoming Online Safety (Relief and Accountability) Bill, which aims to […]
Declaring Independence in Cyberspace: Internet Self-Governance and the End of US Control of ICANN a conversation with Milton L. Mueller, Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology Marília Maciel, Digital Policy Senior Researcher at Diplo Foundation Bob Cannon, Internet Policy Analyst Join us on September 3, 2025, from 10:00 – 11:00 am EDT for what is sure to be a riveting discussion! Use the link here to register for the Zoom webinar: https://tinyurl.com/yh9m8wh8 Originally, ICANN was a bold institutional innovation based on a vision of Internet governance that was thoroughly globalized and independent of nation-states. The recent MIT Press book by Milton […]
Measuring Digital Trust: A Framework for Smart Societies a conversation with Dr Han-Ei CHEW, Visiting Fellow, Quello Center, Michigan State University. Tuesday September 16, 2025, 12-1 PM EDT In-Person (CAS 191) and Via Zoom (Register Here) Trust undergirds digital life — essential, yet often vaguely defined and rarely measured with rigor. Since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, global trust in the tech industry has declined even as digital systems have become more deeply embedded in everyday life. This raises a fundamental question: what exactly is this trust that is being lost, and how should we understand its erosion? This talk explores […]
The Digital Usage Divide: Evidence and New Measures from 40 Million Windows Devices a talk with Shane Greenstein, Harvard Business School Join us on September 25, 2025, from 2:00-3:00 pm EDT for what is sure to be a fascinating exchange! Use the link here to register for the Zoom webinar: https://tinyurl.com/4wzk5mm7 A Joint event brought to you by the Quello Center and the Broadband Access Initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts Access to digital infrastructure is crucial for economic opportunities, social inclusion, and civic participation. However, the use of digital technologies may be unevenly distributed, leaving some communities unable to […]
A Brownbag Lunch with Dr Chris Adami, Microbiology and Molecular Genetics & Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University. Wednesday October 22, 2025, 12-1 PM EDT In-Person CAS 405 and on Zoom Please Register HERE Light refreshments will be provided. Chris Adami has done innovative work in applying evolutionary methods and game theory to complex phenomena, social issues, cognitive issues, and artificial life. He often writes in non-technical ways for broader audiences, and his contributions regularly appear in Nature. The brownbag lunch talk explores the systemic nature of inequality in a highly abstract framework to isolate critical factors that drive inequality but […]
Co-sponsored talk by the PEW Broadband Access Initiative & the Quello Center with Laasya Koduru, PhD Student at UC Santa Barbra Thursday, December 11, 2025, 2-3 PM EST Via Zoom | Please Register HERE Effective broadband policy depends on accurate, granular data on service availability, speeds, and prices—yet existing datasets are often self-reported, inconsistent, and insufficient for evaluating affordability or targeting public investments. This talk will introduce the Broadband-Plan Querying Tool (BQT), which independently collects advertised broadband plans directly from ISP websites at street-address resolution to provide a more reliable evidence base. It will show how BQT enabled audits of the FCC’s […]