Institute for Information Policy

IIP Pre-Conference

The Political Power of Information Technology Industries

June 12, 2025 / University of Denver
Room 301, Anderson Academic Commons

Schedule

9:00-9:15 a.m. -- Registration + coffee

9:15-9:30 a.m. --  Welcome and Introduction  Chair: Roei Davidson, University of Haifa)

9:30-11:10 a.m. -- Session 1 - The Path to Industrial Dominance

Four papers (15 minutes per presentation, 12 minutes for the respondent, 28 minutes for discussion). Chair and respondent: Roei Davidson (University of Haifa)

-- Benjamin W. Cramer (Penn State), Power Trip: The Big Tech Push for Nuclear-Powered Data Centers
-- James Alleman (University of Colorado at Boulder) & Jon Liebenau (London School of Economics), High Tech Politics
-- Juan Ortiz Freuler (University of Southern California), Digital Power and the Return of the Peripheries: Internet Centralization as Geopolitical Gatekeeping
-- Sara Bannerman (McMaster University), Bradley McNeil (McMaster University), Tamara Shepherd (University of Calgary), Tanner Mirrlees (Ontario Tech University) & Elizabeth Dubois (University of Ottawa), The Tech Lobby Project: Methods for Studying Big Tech Lobbying in Canada

11:10-11:20 a.m. -- Coffee Break

11:20 a.m.-12:50 p.m. -- Session 2 - The Industry and Political Behavior

Three papers (15 minutes per presentation, 12 minutes for the respondent, 33 minutes for discussion). Chair and respondent: Amit Schejter (Ben-Gurion University and Penn State)

-- Gilad Be’ery, Dmitry Epstein & Raanan Sulitzeanu-Kenan (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), “Let this sink in”: The Politics and Policy Attitudes of Tech-Workers
-- Genius Amaraizu (Northwestern University), Elon Musk’s Twitter: Participatory Culture and Networked Publics in a Personalized Tech Industry Power
-- Jonathan Plotkin and Dmitry Epstein (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), The ‘Political Awakening’ of Tech Workers in Israel: Values, Professional Identities, and Political Engagement

12:50-1:50 p.m. -- Lunch

1:50-3:30 p.m. -- Session 3 - Regulation of and Governance by the Industry

Four papers (15 minutes per presentation, 12 minutes for the respondent, 28 minutes for discussion). Chair and respondent: Rodrigo Cetina-Presuel (UPF-BSM)

-- Le-Tian Cheng (Georgia Institute of Technology), Diyi Liu (University of Oxford) &Le Yang (Tsinghua University), How Do Speech Platforms Navigate Through Governance Demands During Crisis Events?
-- Joe F. Khalil (Northwestern University in Qatar) and Mohamed Zayani (Georgetown University in Qatar), Navigating the Digital Double Bind: Political Contention and Agency in the Middle East
-- Jing Wang (New York University, Shanghai), Perpetuating the Platform Power: Socio-technical Enveloping in the Case of Alipay+
-- Youngrim Kim (Rutgers University), Infrastructural desires for digital sovereignty: Hyperscale data centers and postcolonial imaginaries in South Korea

3:30-3:50 p.m. -- Coffee Break

3:50-4:30 p.m. -- Concluding Thoughts and Future Directions

Chair: Amit Schejter (Ben-Gurion University and Penn State)

About the Conference

Affiliated with the Communication, Law and Policy Division and the Media Industries Interest Group of ICA

Sponsors

• The Institute for Information Policy, Pennsylvania State University
• Department of Media, Film & Journalism Studies, University of Denver
• The Underwood Institute

Scientific committee: Roei Davidson, Krishna Jayakar, Brandie Nonnecke, Rodrigo Cetina Presuel, Amit Schejter and Richard Taylor