Our team

Our core team is comprised of leading researchers in digital policy, platform governance, human rights and data governance.

Alexandros Minotakis

Alexandros Minotakis holds a Ph.D. in communication studies from the University of Athens in Greece. Among his research interests are critical political economy of media, discourse analysis, and fake news. He completed a Masters degree in Political Communication and New Media in the same department. His thesis was on Neoliberalism and the Greek Media System, focusing on the transformations in the Greek public sphere during the debt crisis and was funded by an Onassis Foundation fellowship. His research interests include the critical political economy of media, propaganda, alternative media, and social movements. In 2020, he participated in the design and development of the Ermis project, contributing to teaching material on issues of misinformation, stereotypes, cultural trauma, and media representations of vulnerability. In the last years, he has published on fake news, news work, radical media and media reporting of the Covid-19 pandemic. He has taught vocational journalism courses.

Jet Klokgieters

Jet Klokgieters is a first-year PhD student at our Centre. She researches the digital divide in Ireland and the Netherlands. Jet completed our MSc in Digital Policy in 2022 before joining us as a Research Assistant. Her research interests lie in identifying obstacles and finding solutions in the digital transition (the 4th Industrial Revolution), in areas such as e-government and digital poverty. 

Prior to coming to Dublin, she studied Interdisciplinary Social Science and Sociology at Utrecht University (The Netherlands). Here, she also worked as a Student Assistant to Professor Kees van den Bos. She assisted him with the writing of his book ‘Why People Radicalize’. She has also done an internship at the Horizon 2020 project ‘SOLIDUS’, where she contributed to the Dutch part of the main report.

Colin Scott

Colin Scott serves as Registrar, Deputy President and Vice President for Academic Affairs University College Dublin. Previously, he was the Vice President for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Principal of UCD College of Social Sciences and Law, and Dean of Social Sciences and Dean of Law.

Research Interests

His research interests focus centrally on the trends of and implications from the fragmentation of regulatory governance. He has more than 100 publications in books, edited books, articles and book chapters with leading journals and presses.

Research Projects

Colin’s major collaborative research projects have included an innovative interdisciplinary study of the regulation of the public sector (UK Economic and Social Research Council), an ethnographic study of UK telecommunications regulation (Leverhulme Trust), and a study of the development of meta-regulation (Australian Research Council). It also comprises of a comparative study of liability regulation in local government (ESRC and Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences), a project to build and deploy a database of all central state agencies in Ireland (IRCHSS), and a study of the development of reflexive modes of governance (EU Framework Programme 6). Lastly, his research projects also include a multi-sector study of the growth of transnational private regulation (Hague Institute for Internationalisation of Law) and a study of regulation in Ireland (IRCHSS and Institute for Public Administration).

Affiliations

Between 2011 and 2014, Colin Scott was Dean of Law at UCD and Associate Dean of the UCD School of Law. Before that, between 2006-2009, he was vice principal for Research and Innovation for the UCD College of Business and Law and a professor at the College of Europe, in Bruges, where he taught on the interdisciplinary masters on European Law and Economic Analysis (ELEA). Colin Scott gave his inaugural lecture, ‘Regulating Everything’ in February 2008. Prior to his appointment at UCD, in April 2006, he lectured at the London School of Economics (1992-2006) and at the University of Warwick (1989-1991).

Colin Scott is a co-author of the Irish State Administration Database (2010-). He has also been convenor of the ECPR Standing Group on Regulatory Governance 2016-2021, and chair of the Biennial Regulatory Governance Conference, ‘Regulation in the Age of Crisis’, held in Dublin in June 2010. Prior to that, he has been director of the UCD Centre for Regulation and Governance, in 2010-2013. From 2000-2010, he was working as a research associate of the ESRC Centre for the Analysis of Risk and Regulation (CARR), based at the London School of Economics.

He was appointed to the Irish Research Council in 2021 and to the editorial board of The Conversation UK in 2017. Before that, he was a member of the Board of Institute for Public Administration, in 2014-2016. He has previously had editorial roles with Legal Studies (2011-2016), Law & Policy (2006-2011), and the Modern Law Review (1994-2007).

He studied at the London School of Economics and at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto.

He is married with two children.

Publications

  • Schmidt, R., & Scott, C. (2021). Regulatory discretion: structuring power in the era of regulatory capitalism. Legal Studies, 41(3), 454-473.
  • Hardiman, N., Farrell, D. M., Carolan, E., Coakley, J., Regan, A., Scott, C., … & Zellentin, A. (2021). What Kind of Ireland?. The Oxford Handbook of Irish Politics, 1.
  • Scott, C. (2021), “Managing higher education for a changing regulatory environment”, Public Administration and Policy: An Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 24 No. 1, pp. 7-20. https://doi.org/10.1108/PAP-10-2020-0045
  • Scott, C. (2021). The Politics of Regulation in Ireland. In Farrell, D., Hardiman, N.(eds.). Oxford Handbook of Irish Politics. Oxford University Press.
  • Scott, C. (2020). Implementation: facilitating and overseeing public services at street level. In Cane P., Lindseth P., Ip, E., Hoffman H.(eds.). Oxford Handbook of Comparative Administrative Law. Oxford University Press.
  • Scott, C. (2020). Managing and regulating commitments to equality, diversity and inclusion in higher education. Irish Educational Studies, 39(2), 175-191.
  • Scott, C. (2019). The Democratic Challenges of Effective Private Regulation and Enforcement. In Senden L., de Cock Buning M.(eds.). Private Regulation and Enforcement in the EU: Finding the Right Balance from a Citizen’s Perspective. Hart Publishing.

You can see his full Google Scholar Profile here.

Contact: colin.scott@ucd.ie

Marco Bastos

Marco Bastos is the UCD Ad Astra Fellow at the School of Information and Communication Studies and senior lecturer at City, University of London. He is the author of Spatializing Social Media: Social Networks Online and Offline (Routledge, 2021) and of several research papers that appeared in Journal of Communication, Social Networks, and New Media & Society – where Marco serves in the Editorial Board.

Research Interests

Marco‘s research explores the social implications of technology, including the dynamics of social influence and contagion and the forecasting of social phenomena with digital trace data. Methodologically, Marco’s research leverages network science and computational methods to explore the intersection of communication and critical data studies. His research group studies political communication, algorithmic filtering, and the study of problematic content and misinformation online.

Research Projects  

Marco is the PI of the Twitter-funded project “The Brexit Value Space and the Geography of Online Echo Chambers.” The project has identified botnets and echo chambers in the context of the Brexit referendum. The project and the ensuing Impact Case Study have been featured in major media outlets such as the BBC, the New York Times, the Guardian, the Washington Post, Bloomberg, Wired, and BuzzFeed. Marco has also received funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation in Switzerland, the National Science Foundation in the US, and the São Paulo Research Foundation in Brazil.

Affiliations

Prior to coming to University College Dublin, Marco held teaching and research positions at the University of California at Davis (US), Duke University (US), University of São Paulo (BR), and Goethe University of Frankfurt (DE).

Teaching 

Marco teaches the postgraduate modules IS40980 – Social Networks Online Offline and IS40880 – Communication Theory at the School of Information and Communication Studies, UCD.

Publications

Marco‘s most recent books include “Social Networks Online and Offline” (Routledge, 2021) and the co-edited “Disinformation and Data Lockdown on Social Platforms” (Routledge, 2021). Marco publishes regularly in the journals New Media & Society, Information, Communication & Society, and American Behavioral Scientist.

Bastos, M.T. (2021) Spatializing Social Media: Social Networks Online and Offline. London: Routledge

Bastos M.T. (2022) Network Spillover Effects and the Dyadic Interactions of Virtual, Social, and Spatial. In: Million, A.; Haid, C., & Baur, N. Spatial Transformations. London, Routledge

Bastos M.T. (2022) Network Spillover Effects and the Dyadic Interactions of Virtual, Social, and Spatial. In: Million, A.; Haid, C., & Baur, N. Spatial Transformations. London, Routledge

Contact: marco.bastos@ucd.ie

Elizabeth Farries

Dr Farries is a lecturer in the school of Information and Communication Studies and programme director of the MSc, Graduate Diploma and Professional Certificate programmes in Digital Policy. Co-Director of the UCD Centre for Digital Policy, and a senior fellow with the International Network of Civil Liberties Organizations. She is a qualified lawyer in Canada and a member of the Law Society of British Columbia. She is a member of several public interest boards and working groups.

Research Interests

Elizabeth’s reserach lies at the intersection of new technologies and regulation. She has a particular interest in digital policy cycles and assamblages emerging in the Digital Transformation. Her related research interests include gendered safety online, secure and private online communications, digital identities, as well as policing surveillance technologies, pandemic technologies, data retention and protection, and international intelligence sharing. She considers these topics in relation to technological impacts on vulnerabilised and special interest communities.

Teaching 

Liz designs and delivers our MSc, Graduate Diploma and Professional Certificate in Digital Policy. She is also coordinator and/or lecturer on the following modules at UCD in the School of Information and Communication Studies:

Previous teachings:

  • LLM International and EU Copyright Law. Trinity College Dublin, Winter 2019.
  • L3 Social Inclusion Law Clinic. University College Dublin, 2018 (co-taught with Dr O’Rourke)

Publications

  • Farries, E. 2023 “An Irish Perspective” in Psychogiopoulou E and Casarosa F (Eds). Social Media, Fundamental Rights and Courts: A European perspective. Routledge
  • Farries, E. et al (2022). Expert Letter to Oireachtas Cabinet Members: Policing FRT, 20 June 2022. Ireland
  • Farries, E. and Cronin, O. (4 June 2022). Submission to inform the report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the right to privacy in the digital age at its 51th session in 2022, Human Rights Council adopted resolution 48/4. Cited at paras. 32 and 40
  • Milosevic, T., Farries, E., Jennings, F., & Viejo Otero, P. (2022). Submission to Consultation on Online Safety and Media Regulation: An individual complaints mechanism, Ireland. Acknowledge stakeholder in Expert Report
  • Flaherty, E., Sturm, T., and Farries, E. (2022). “The Conspiracy of Covid-19 and 5G: Spatial Analysis Fallacies in the age of Data Democratization.” Social Science & Medicine
  • Farries, E., & Ansbro, D. (24 November 2020). Submission to Oireachtas Committee re Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Bill 2017
  • Farries, E., Ansbro, D. & Tierney, G. (6 October 2019). Submission to Joint Committee on Justice and Equality re Gendered Online Harassment
  • Farries, E. 2019. Spying on Dissent – Policing technologies and protest. International Network of Civil Liberties Organizations
  • Farries, E. & Sturm, T. (2018). “Feminist legal geographies of intimate-image sexual abuse: Using copyright logic to combat the unauthorized distribution of celebrity intimate images in cyberspaces.” Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space. 51(5) 1145–1165.
  • Farries, E. (2019). “Regulation of online content”. Submission to The Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment

Media

Elizabeth is available for opinion and comment to journalists. Her previous publications and appearances include: Newstalk, Tonight Show, Hard Shoulder, Claire Byrne, The Irish Times, Business Post,  Irish Examiner, Irish Legal News, Big Tech Show

Contact: elizabeth.farries@ucd.ie

Eugenia Siapera

As well as being a professor of Information and Communication Studies, Eugenia Siapera is head of the School of Information and Communication Studies at UCD. She is the author of multiple publications, including books and edited collections, book chapters and journal articles. Eugenia is also the editor of the academic journal Online Information Review. 

Research Interests

Her research interests are in the areas of digital and social media, political communication and journalism. She is further researching and publishing on critical technology studies, digital inequalities, online hate speech and platform governance, digital racism and digitally enabled gender based violence.  

Research Projects  

Eugenia was the PI of HateTrack, a research project on racist hate speech in the Irish digital sphere, jointly funded by the Irish Research Council and the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission. The project was one of the first to combine social and computer science in developing a machine learning tool for identifying and classifying racially toxic contents on digital platforms. She is currently finishing the Horizon 2020 funded project RePAST, which explores the digital and mediated memory of conflict and European integration. She has also received funding from Science Foundation Ireland, HERA, and the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland. 

Eugenia was recently awarded a COALESCE grant from the Irish Research Council to examine Alt-Tech Platforms and Covid-19 health narratives. 

Affiliations

Previous affiliations include Dublin City University, Aristotle University (Greece), University of Leicester (UK),  Anglia Ruskin University (UK) and University of Amsterdam (NL).

Teaching 

Professor Siapera delivers the UG module Gender, Race and Diversity in the Digital Age (with Elizabeth Farries and Paraic Kerrigan) and the PG module Platform Governance at the School of Information and Communication Studies, UCD. 

Publications

Eugenia’s most recent books include Understanding New Media (Sage, 2018, second edition) and an edited volume on Gendered Cyber Hate (Palgrave, 2019) with Debbie Ging. She is currently co-editing a volume on Radical Journalism (under contract with Routledge) and working on the 3rd edition of Understanding New Media (under contract with Sage). For a full publication list please see Eugenia’s Google Scholar Profile. 

Contact: eugenia.siapera@ucd.ie

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