Benedetta Brevini
Biographic Data
| ID | 2744668 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Benedetta Brevini |
| GIVEN NAMES | Benedetta |
| FAMILY NAME | Brevini |
| SIGNATURE | BREVINI B |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Sydney |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3596-6561 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 49 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 3 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Containing AI: From responsible to critical AI governance
This paper argues that most responsible AI (RAI) governance frameworks do not meaningfully address AI’s environmental and social costs. Rather, they merely create the impression of managing these problems. With the example of “sustainable AI”, we show that, in its most extreme form, current RAI governance not only results in weak regulation but in a regulatory vacuum . Against this, we propose the concept of critical AI governance . With this, we…
Reporting online abuse to platforms: Factors, interfaces and the potential for care
Evidence suggests that the rate of reporting abuse, harassment and problematic content to platforms is substantially low. This article assesses the extent to which platform interfaces may contribute to discouraging the use of reporting as a remedy to online harms. Using a walkthrough method, we analyse reporting interfaces for the extent to which they may contribute to a lack of trust in reporting. The study found that reporting interfaces (1) di…
Critical Perspectives on Communicative Ai
Current media coverage surrounding ChatGPT, LaMDA, and Luminous has brought questions about the automation of communication into the mainstream. Artificially intelligent media are no longer merely mediating instances of communication but are themselves becoming communicative participants. This has generated broad public discussion about these systems and others and the challenges they bring to domains such as education, public discourse, and jour…
Inteligência Artificial, Soluções Artificiais - Colocando a emergência climática no centro dos desenvolvimentos de IA
Despite growing attention to the environmental costs of information communication technology systems, Artificial Intelligence gets principally heralded as the key technology to solve contemporary challenges, including the environmental crisis, which is one of the goals of sustainable development. But how green is Artificial Intelligence? This text considers the materiality of AI and attempts to go beyond mainstream hypes as it explores the multif…
Global Digital Lords and Privatisation of Media Policy: The Australian Media Bargaining Code
After two decades of regulatory vacuum, powerful digital platforms such as Google and Meta/Facebook, also known as the “Digital Lords” (Brevini 2020 Brevini, Benedetta. 2020. “Conclusion.” In Amazon: Understanding a Global Communication Giant, edited by B. Brevini, and P. Swiatek, 65–70. New York: L. Routledge.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), have faced growing criticism worldwide. They are accused of possessing excessive economic, political, and …
Carbon Capitalism, Communication, and Artificial Intelligence
Communication has become crucial to the climate crisis, be it in promoting or impeding action for change. As the public has come to depend on social media platforms and communication channels to shape their understanding of the crisis, the computational systems upon which new digital technologies rely are generating a plethora of environmental problems of their own, most notably energy consumption and emissions, material toxicity, and electronic …
Analyzing the Platform Economy – Feudalism, Medievalism and Colonialism as Useful Frameworks
The platform economy challenges existing economic systems, social interactions and participation as well as the very foundation of democracy. As data is replacing labor as the central economic good, economy, society, class structures and democracy might change fundamentally. Or we might experience old wine on new bottles. Karl Marx famously said that history tends to repeat itself, first as comedy, later as tragedy. In this panel we ask, whether …
Black boxes, not green: Mythologizing artificial intelligence and omitting the environment
We are repeatedly told that AI will help us to solve some of the world's biggest challenges, from treating chronic diseases and reducing fatality rates in traffic accidents to fighting climate change and anticipating cybersecurity threats. However, the article contends that public discourse on AI systematically avoids considering AI's environmental costs. Artificial Intelligence- Brevini argues- runs on technology, machines, and infrastructures t…
Revisiting the Black Box Society by rethinking the political economy of big data
The Black Box Society was one of first scholarly accounts to propose a social theory of the use of data in constructing personal reputations, new media audiences, and financial power, by illuminating recurrent patterns of power and exploitation in the digital economy. While many corporations have a direct window into our lives through constant, ubiquitous data collection, our knowledge of their inner workings is often partial and incomplete. Clos…
Climate Change and the Media: Volume 2
Climate Change and the Media gathers contributions from a range of international scholars to explore the media's role in our understanding of climate change and our willingness to take action
Metadata Laws, Journalism and Resistance in Australia
The intelligence leaks from Edward Snowden in 2013 unveiled the sophistication and extent of data collection by the United States’ National Security Agency and major global digital firms prompting domestic and international debates about the balance between security and privacy, openness and enclosure, accountability and secrecy. It is difficult not to see a clear connection with the Snowden leaks in the sharp acceleration of new national securit…
WikiLeaks: Between disclosure and whistle‐blowing in digital times
The 2010 WikiLeaks' disclosures of U.S. war logs were the first megaleaks to shake the world of international diplomacy and political elites. Since then, more leaks followed, from the Snowden to the Panama Papers . As this phenomenon continues to evolve, a significant body of scholarly work has analysed the emergence, the struggle, and the history of WikiLeaks .This article aims to provide a cross disciplinary overview of the research that has ex…
Carbon Capitalism and Communication: Confronting Climate Crisis
This volume examines the role of communication in contributing to and contesting the current climate crisis. There is now widespread agreement that even if increases in carbon emissions are kept to th
The value of environmental communication research
Is environmental communication research returning something of value to society? Is it interdisciplinary enough? This article charts the recent rise and development of environmental communication, its successes and failures to produce public value. As the environmental crisis is the most crucial social and political issue of our time, there is a pressing need for environmental communication to engage with questions that are already familiar to sc…
The struggle for PSB 2.0: An assessment
A vigorous debate about the redefinition and expansion of Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) in the new media environment has taken centre stage in global policy fora in the last two decades. It is now crucial to develop new conceptualizations of PSB and analyse how the public service philosophy is being adjusted to the new online and multi-platform environment. Born and Prosser identified the principles of citizenship, universality and quality as…
Following the Money
Amy Goodman in conversation with Julian Assange and Slavoj Žižek
The following is a shortened and edited transcript of a conversation between Julian Assange, editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, and Slavoj Žižek, Slovenian philosopher and cultural theorist. The conversation was moderated by journalist Amy Goodman from the TV news show Democracy Now! and sponsored by the Frontline Club. It took place in front of a live audience on July 2, 2011 at the Troxy, London, England. These keywords were added by machine and not…
Following the Money: WikiLeaks and the Political Economy of Disclosure
In a pivotal scene in All the President’s Men , the Oscar-winning film about the Watergate scandal, Bob Woodward, an ambitious young reporter on the Washington Post , goes to meet his anonymous, shadowy, informant, “Deep Throat,” in an underground car park. Woodward hopes the encounter will offer clues to possible connections between the burglary at the Watergate Hotel and malpractice in President Nixon’s re-election campaign. He is told to “foll…
Digital television in Iitaly: From analogue to digital duopoly
This study aims at unveiling the difficult transition to digital terrestrial television (DTT) in Italy. After sketching the theoretical framework, the article focuses on how the Italian government, communications regulatory authority AGCOM and the European Commission (EC) have shaped the current digital framework in Italy. The findings indicate that Italian DTT policies are deeply rooted within their national context and that Italian policy-maker…
European Commission media policy and its pro-market inclination: The revised 2009 Communication on State Aid to PSBs and its restraining effect on PSB online
This article explores the most recent policy-making of the European Commission that is shaping the online expansion of public service broadcasters. This process culminated in the renewal of the Communication on State Aid to Public Service Broadcasters (PSBs). The article argues that, whereas until 2002, the Commission was supportive of new media initiatives by PSBs, the more recent reasoning – substantiated in Communication 2009 – reveals a more …
Beyond WikiLeaks: Implications for the Future of Communications, Journalism and Society
The 2010 release of US embassy diplomatic cables put WikiLeaks into the international spotlight. Revelations by the leaks sparked intense debate within international diplomacy, journalism and society
Towards PSB 2.0? Applying the PSB ethos to online media in Europe: A comparative study of PSBs’ internet policies in Spain, Italy and Britain
European institutions such as the European Parliament and the European Council have repeatedly asserted the importance for public service broadcasters (PSBs) to develop online media services. The crucial necessity for PSBs to expand their new media activities has been emphasized by the Council of Europe in numerous Recommendations. The European Commission reaffirmed the opportunity for PSBs to expand online in the 2001 Communication on the applic…
Beyond WikiLeaks: Implications for the Future of Communications, Journalism and Society
The 2010 release of US embassy diplomatic cables put WikiLeaks into the international spotlight. Revelations by the leaks sparked intense debate within international diplomacy, journalism and society
Black boxes, not green: Mythologizing artificial intelligence and omitting the environment
We are repeatedly told that AI will help us to solve some of the world's biggest challenges, from treating chronic diseases and reducing fatality rates in traffic accidents to fighting climate change and anticipating cybersecurity threats. However, the article contends that public discourse on AI systematically avoids considering AI's environmental costs. Artificial Intelligence- Brevini argues- runs on technology, machines, and infrastructures t…
Carbon Capitalism and Communication: Confronting Climate Crisis
This volume examines the role of communication in contributing to and contesting the current climate crisis. There is now widespread agreement that even if increases in carbon emissions are kept to th
Revisiting the Black Box Society by rethinking the political economy of big data
The Black Box Society was one of first scholarly accounts to propose a social theory of the use of data in constructing personal reputations, new media audiences, and financial power, by illuminating recurrent patterns of power and exploitation in the digital economy. While many corporations have a direct window into our lives through constant, ubiquitous data collection, our knowledge of their inner workings is often partial and incomplete. Clos…
WikiLeaks: Between disclosure and whistle‐blowing in digital times
The 2010 WikiLeaks' disclosures of U.S. war logs were the first megaleaks to shake the world of international diplomacy and political elites. Since then, more leaks followed, from the Snowden to the Panama Papers . As this phenomenon continues to evolve, a significant body of scholarly work has analysed the emergence, the struggle, and the history of WikiLeaks .This article aims to provide a cross disciplinary overview of the research that has ex…
Towards PSB 2.0? Applying the PSB ethos to online media in Europe: A comparative study of PSBs’ internet policies in Spain, Italy and Britain
European institutions such as the European Parliament and the European Council have repeatedly asserted the importance for public service broadcasters (PSBs) to develop online media services. The crucial necessity for PSBs to expand their new media activities has been emphasized by the Council of Europe in numerous Recommendations. The European Commission reaffirmed the opportunity for PSBs to expand online in the 2001 Communication on the applic…
The value of environmental communication research
Is environmental communication research returning something of value to society? Is it interdisciplinary enough? This article charts the recent rise and development of environmental communication, its successes and failures to produce public value. As the environmental crisis is the most crucial social and political issue of our time, there is a pressing need for environmental communication to engage with questions that are already familiar to sc…
European Commission media policy and its pro-market inclination: The revised 2009 Communication on State Aid to PSBs and its restraining effect on PSB online
This article explores the most recent policy-making of the European Commission that is shaping the online expansion of public service broadcasters. This process culminated in the renewal of the Communication on State Aid to Public Service Broadcasters (PSBs). The article argues that, whereas until 2002, the Commission was supportive of new media initiatives by PSBs, the more recent reasoning – substantiated in Communication 2009 – reveals a more …
Reporting online abuse to platforms: Factors, interfaces and the potential for care
Evidence suggests that the rate of reporting abuse, harassment and problematic content to platforms is substantially low. This article assesses the extent to which platform interfaces may contribute to discouraging the use of reporting as a remedy to online harms. Using a walkthrough method, we analyse reporting interfaces for the extent to which they may contribute to a lack of trust in reporting. The study found that reporting interfaces (1) di…
Digital television in Iitaly: From analogue to digital duopoly
This study aims at unveiling the difficult transition to digital terrestrial television (DTT) in Italy. After sketching the theoretical framework, the article focuses on how the Italian government, communications regulatory authority AGCOM and the European Commission (EC) have shaped the current digital framework in Italy. The findings indicate that Italian DTT policies are deeply rooted within their national context and that Italian policy-maker…
Towards PSB 2.0? Applying the PSB ethos to online media in Europe: A comparative study of PSBs’ internet policies in Spain, Italy and Britain
European institutions such as the European Parliament and the European Council have repeatedly asserted the importance for public service broadcasters (PSBs) to develop online media services. The crucial necessity for PSBs to expand their new media activities has been emphasized by the Council of Europe in numerous Recommendations. The European Commission reaffirmed the opportunity for PSBs to expand online in the 2001 Communication on the applic…
Following the Money
Amy Goodman in conversation with Julian Assange and Slavoj Žižek
The following is a shortened and edited transcript of a conversation between Julian Assange, editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, and Slavoj Žižek, Slovenian philosopher and cultural theorist. The conversation was moderated by journalist Amy Goodman from the TV news show Democracy Now! and sponsored by the Frontline Club. It took place in front of a live audience on July 2, 2011 at the Troxy, London, England. These keywords were added by machine and not…
Following the Money: WikiLeaks and the Political Economy of Disclosure
In a pivotal scene in All the President’s Men , the Oscar-winning film about the Watergate scandal, Bob Woodward, an ambitious young reporter on the Washington Post , goes to meet his anonymous, shadowy, informant, “Deep Throat,” in an underground car park. Woodward hopes the encounter will offer clues to possible connections between the burglary at the Watergate Hotel and malpractice in President Nixon’s re-election campaign. He is told to “foll…
Digital television in Iitaly: From analogue to digital duopoly
This study aims at unveiling the difficult transition to digital terrestrial television (DTT) in Italy. After sketching the theoretical framework, the article focuses on how the Italian government, communications regulatory authority AGCOM and the European Commission (EC) have shaped the current digital framework in Italy. The findings indicate that Italian DTT policies are deeply rooted within their national context and that Italian policy-maker…
European Commission media policy and its pro-market inclination: The revised 2009 Communication on State Aid to PSBs and its restraining effect on PSB online
This article explores the most recent policy-making of the European Commission that is shaping the online expansion of public service broadcasters. This process culminated in the renewal of the Communication on State Aid to Public Service Broadcasters (PSBs). The article argues that, whereas until 2002, the Commission was supportive of new media initiatives by PSBs, the more recent reasoning – substantiated in Communication 2009 – reveals a more …
Beyond WikiLeaks: Implications for the Future of Communications, Journalism and Society
The 2010 release of US embassy diplomatic cables put WikiLeaks into the international spotlight. Revelations by the leaks sparked intense debate within international diplomacy, journalism and society
The struggle for PSB 2.0: An assessment
A vigorous debate about the redefinition and expansion of Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) in the new media environment has taken centre stage in global policy fora in the last two decades. It is now crucial to develop new conceptualizations of PSB and analyse how the public service philosophy is being adjusted to the new online and multi-platform environment. Born and Prosser identified the principles of citizenship, universality and quality as…
The value of environmental communication research
Is environmental communication research returning something of value to society? Is it interdisciplinary enough? This article charts the recent rise and development of environmental communication, its successes and failures to produce public value. As the environmental crisis is the most crucial social and political issue of our time, there is a pressing need for environmental communication to engage with questions that are already familiar to sc…
Metadata Laws, Journalism and Resistance in Australia
The intelligence leaks from Edward Snowden in 2013 unveiled the sophistication and extent of data collection by the United States’ National Security Agency and major global digital firms prompting domestic and international debates about the balance between security and privacy, openness and enclosure, accountability and secrecy. It is difficult not to see a clear connection with the Snowden leaks in the sharp acceleration of new national securit…
WikiLeaks: Between disclosure and whistle‐blowing in digital times
The 2010 WikiLeaks' disclosures of U.S. war logs were the first megaleaks to shake the world of international diplomacy and political elites. Since then, more leaks followed, from the Snowden to the Panama Papers . As this phenomenon continues to evolve, a significant body of scholarly work has analysed the emergence, the struggle, and the history of WikiLeaks .This article aims to provide a cross disciplinary overview of the research that has ex…
Carbon Capitalism and Communication: Confronting Climate Crisis
This volume examines the role of communication in contributing to and contesting the current climate crisis. There is now widespread agreement that even if increases in carbon emissions are kept to th
Climate Change and the Media: Volume 2
Climate Change and the Media gathers contributions from a range of international scholars to explore the media's role in our understanding of climate change and our willingness to take action
Black boxes, not green: Mythologizing artificial intelligence and omitting the environment
We are repeatedly told that AI will help us to solve some of the world's biggest challenges, from treating chronic diseases and reducing fatality rates in traffic accidents to fighting climate change and anticipating cybersecurity threats. However, the article contends that public discourse on AI systematically avoids considering AI's environmental costs. Artificial Intelligence- Brevini argues- runs on technology, machines, and infrastructures t…
Revisiting the Black Box Society by rethinking the political economy of big data
The Black Box Society was one of first scholarly accounts to propose a social theory of the use of data in constructing personal reputations, new media audiences, and financial power, by illuminating recurrent patterns of power and exploitation in the digital economy. While many corporations have a direct window into our lives through constant, ubiquitous data collection, our knowledge of their inner workings is often partial and incomplete. Clos…
Analyzing the Platform Economy – Feudalism, Medievalism and Colonialism as Useful Frameworks
The platform economy challenges existing economic systems, social interactions and participation as well as the very foundation of democracy. As data is replacing labor as the central economic good, economy, society, class structures and democracy might change fundamentally. Or we might experience old wine on new bottles. Karl Marx famously said that history tends to repeat itself, first as comedy, later as tragedy. In this panel we ask, whether …
Global Digital Lords and Privatisation of Media Policy: The Australian Media Bargaining Code
After two decades of regulatory vacuum, powerful digital platforms such as Google and Meta/Facebook, also known as the “Digital Lords” (Brevini 2020 Brevini, Benedetta. 2020. “Conclusion.” In Amazon: Understanding a Global Communication Giant, edited by B. Brevini, and P. Swiatek, 65–70. New York: L. Routledge.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), have faced growing criticism worldwide. They are accused of possessing excessive economic, political, and …
Carbon Capitalism, Communication, and Artificial Intelligence
Communication has become crucial to the climate crisis, be it in promoting or impeding action for change. As the public has come to depend on social media platforms and communication channels to shape their understanding of the crisis, the computational systems upon which new digital technologies rely are generating a plethora of environmental problems of their own, most notably energy consumption and emissions, material toxicity, and electronic …
Inteligência Artificial, Soluções Artificiais - Colocando a emergência climática no centro dos desenvolvimentos de IA
Despite growing attention to the environmental costs of information communication technology systems, Artificial Intelligence gets principally heralded as the key technology to solve contemporary challenges, including the environmental crisis, which is one of the goals of sustainable development. But how green is Artificial Intelligence? This text considers the materiality of AI and attempts to go beyond mainstream hypes as it explores the multif…
Critical Perspectives on Communicative Ai
Current media coverage surrounding ChatGPT, LaMDA, and Luminous has brought questions about the automation of communication into the mainstream. Artificially intelligent media are no longer merely mediating instances of communication but are themselves becoming communicative participants. This has generated broad public discussion about these systems and others and the challenges they bring to domains such as education, public discourse, and jour…
Containing AI: From responsible to critical AI governance
This paper argues that most responsible AI (RAI) governance frameworks do not meaningfully address AI’s environmental and social costs. Rather, they merely create the impression of managing these problems. With the example of “sustainable AI”, we show that, in its most extreme form, current RAI governance not only results in weak regulation but in a regulatory vacuum . Against this, we propose the concept of critical AI governance . With this, we…
Reporting online abuse to platforms: Factors, interfaces and the potential for care
Evidence suggests that the rate of reporting abuse, harassment and problematic content to platforms is substantially low. This article assesses the extent to which platform interfaces may contribute to discouraging the use of reporting as a remedy to online harms. Using a walkthrough method, we analyse reporting interfaces for the extent to which they may contribute to a lack of trust in reporting. The study found that reporting interfaces (1) di…
Political science (14 works) · Politics (13 works) · Law (11 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Media Studies and Communication (7 works) · Business (5 works) · Public relations (5 works) · Climate Change Communication and Perception (4 works)