IIC Italy Chapter Webinar: Insights for a balanced regulation: considering platforms benefits and protection needs

Professor Adam Erik Arvidsson’s main interest lies with the new forms of cooperation enabled by new media and their economic and political potential.

Professor Arvidsson is author (and co-author) of many articles in the field of digital media. To name but a few, Ethnography of algorithms: The cultural analysis of a sociotechnical construct (2020); Capitalism and the commons (2019); Changemakers. The Industrious Future of the Digital Economy (2019); Introduction to Digital Media (2019); Critical Perspectives on Brand Management (2018); Value and virtue in the sharing economy (2018); Facebook and Finance. On the Social Logic of the Derivative (2016); Brand Public (2016); Crowds and value. Italian Directioners on Twitter (2015).

Professor Alberto Cossu is a sociologist and media scholar whose research focuses on art & creative work; collaborative and digital economies; with a focus on the organisational processes and new forms of value creation that he studies combining qualitative and digital methods. He is also active on policymaking and consulting for both public and private sector: he consulted for EU grants, he collaborates regularly with Fondazione Feltrinelli and took part in Facebook Policy Meetings. He currently works as Assistant Professor in Media & Communication within the School of Media, Communication and Sociology at the University of Leicester where he is Programme Director for the MA in Digital Media & Society and leads the Research Cluster on Digital Media. His current funded research agenda explores the societal impact of crypto-finance and the transformations of collaborative work in the post-pandemic context. He is Co-PI for the H2020 Project Digigen for the work package on ICTs and the transformation of civic participation.

Professor Cossu was Lecturer in New Media & Digital Culture within the Dept of Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and previously a Research Fellow at the Department of Social & Political Sciences, University of Milan where he also obtained his PhD in Sociology (Sept. 2015). During his PhD he conducted research on the mobilisation of knowledge and art workers in Italy; within the EU project P2PValue he worked as part of an international team led by Prof A Arvidsson on peer-to-peer models of organisation and production in Italy and France; on digital economy and co-working spaces in Italy and Thailand.

He has published on peer-reviewed journals as: Social Media + Society, European Journal of Cultural Studies, International Journal of Cultural Studies, Sociologia del Lavoro, Studi Culturali, City Culture & Society. His first monograph, Autonomous Art Institutions – Artists Disruputing the Creative City, is due to appear in early 2022 for Rowman & Littefleld International. He acts as reviewer for several journals, including: Theory, Culture & Society, Sociological Review, Convergence, New Media & Society, Marketing Theory, Convergence, Cultural Trends, Sociologica.

Professor Andrea Miconi has been Associate Professor at the Department of Media, Arts & Communication of IULM University since 2017. There, he was a researcher from 2008 to 2017, after obtaining his PHD at Sapienza University of Rome (2001). A visiting lecturer at USP University, Sao Paolo (2007-2011) and Adjunct Professor at USI – University of Italian Switzerland (2013-2016), he was Coordinator of the Master Program in Management of Creative Processes at IULM University (2007-2010).

Coordinator of IULM University Unit in the Tempus Project “e-MEDia. A bottom-up approach for the design and pilot of a joint Master Course in Cross-Media Journalism” (2013-2017) and Project Coordinator for the Erasmus+ KA2 Project “PAgES – Post-Crisis Journalism in Post-Crisis Libya: A Bottom-up Approach to the Development of a Cross-Media Journalism Master Program”.

Professor Miconi is an Expert Peer-Reviewer for the Italian National Scientific Evaluation (CINECA) and Member of the Scientific Board of the PHD Program in Visual and Media Studies at IULM.

His articles have been published in “Social Media & Society”, “Creative Industries Journal”, “International Journal of Communication”, and “New Media & Society”.

Andrea Stazi, Regulatory Affairs Lead for South Europe and Academic Outreach Europe at Google. Andrea leads on the regulatory issues and campaigns in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Malta & Cyprus, along with managing the academic outreach in Europe. He is also an Associate Professor of Comparative Law and New Technologies Law and Director of the InnoLawLab at European University of Rome, and Visiting Professor in Biotechnology Law at National University of Singapore. He authored many scientific publications, among which the books “Smart Contracts and Comparative Law”, Springer 2021, and “Biotechnological Inventions and Patentability of Life”, Edward Elgar 2015.

Previously, Mr Stazi was Advisor to the Chairman of the Italian Communications Authority and to the Italian Undersecretary of Defense, Visiting Professor in Law and Technology at the Singapore Management University, Research Associate at the FLACSO University of Buenos Aires, Max Planck Institute for Competition & IP Law of Munich, Institute for Information Law of the University of Amsterdam, and Coordinator of the Master in Competition and Innovation Law at Luiss University of Rome and Adjunct Professor at the University of Bologna. Ph.D. in Competition Law, he participated in the Executive Program in Exponential Technologies of the Singularity University.

Antonio Nicita is a Professor  of Economic Policy at Lumsa University, Italy.

Professor Nicita was previously Commissioner of the Italian regulatory authority (AGCOM) until October 2020.  He has also been Associate Professor of Economic Policy at the University of Siena and Visiting Fulbright Professor at Yale University. From 2005-06 he was a Non- Governmental Adviser to the International Competition Network (ICN) for the report on telecommunications sector. From 2006-07 he was an economic adviser to the Italian Minister of Communications and member of the Governmental Unit for the Improvement of Regulation. He was Economic Adviser for the 2009 OECD Regulatory Report on Italy.

Professor Nicita is a member of the Regulatory Scrutiny Board, European Commission, as well as the Board of Directors of the Italian Society of Law and Economics, European Association of Law and Economics and of the International Society for New Institutional Economics (ISNIE).

He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Siena, Italy. His research interests cover industrial organisation, law and economics, competition economics and regulation.

Augusto Preta is a consultant, economist and market analyst, with long-established experience in the field of content media and digital markets. As Founder and CEO at ITMedia Consulting, he has assisted and advised for almost 30 years, public institutions, authorities and major companies in media, telecommunications and the internet industries.

Mr Preta is Member of the SIE (Società Italiana degli Economisti).  He has been a visiting professor on Media Economics at Urbino University, Sassari University e Università Cattolica di Milano for almost 20 years, and has been involved in many research projects, writing influential papers and cooperating with organisations such as: Aspen Institute, European Law and Economics Society, Luigi Einaudi Foundation. He is author of “Economia dei contenuti” (2008) and “TV and relevant markets” (2013). He co-authored with Gerard Pogorel the Fondation Robert Schuman research report  “Convergence in Media and Telecom in face of Covid-19” (2020).

Mr Preta is President of the Italian Chapter.

Prof Dr Barbara Thomaß has been a senior researcher at the Leibniz Institute for Media Research │ Hans-Bredow-Institut (HBI) in the EUMEPLAT project since March 2021.

From 2003 to 2020, Prof Thomaß held the professorship for “Media Systems in International Comparison” at the Institute for Media Studies at the Ruhr University Bochum. There she is still co-director of the research training group “MEDAS21 Media Development Assistance in the 21st Century”.

Prof Thomaß is second deputy chairwoman of the ZDF board of directors and chairwoman of the board of the Akademie für Publizistik in Hamburg. She is a member of the European Media Research Group as well as a member of the expert committee of Deutsche Welthungerhilfe. Her work focuses on international communication, the politics and economics of media and communication, and media systems in Western and Eastern Europe. She has worked on issues of European media policy, media ethics and journalistic ethics as well as on media development cooperation and media in democratization and transformation processes. She studied journalism, political science and economics in Berlin and Grenoble and received her PhD from Universität Hamburg in 1998. Since 1995, she has taught at the universities of Hamburg, Lüneburg, Bremen, Göttingen and as a guest lecturer at the Nouvelle Sorbonne in Paris, the University of Vienna and Mc Gill University in Montreal. She has also worked as a lecturer in international journalism training. Before her academic career, she completed a newspaper traineeship and worked as a journalist for several years.

Professor Beatrice Rabai is a contract Professor in Prevention, Privacy and New Technologies at the University of Pavia (School of Law) and she is Scientific and Teaching Coordinator of the Postgraduate Master of Law at Bocconi and Pavia Universities (SSPL).

Professor Rabai is author of several contributions, both in Italian and in English (articles, case-law comments and chapters of books), on administrative law in the following main topics: Digital accessibility, ICT and Big Data, Independent Administrative Authorities, Consumer protection, Public Procurement, Higher education.

Professor Rabai is a member of the research team coordinated by Silvia Favalli and Carola Ricci (Department of Political and Social Sciences of the University of Pavia) of the interdisciplinary research project “RISID – Realizing the right to Social Inclusion for persons with Disabilities through new tools of smart communication and sharing knowledge: from international to local effectiveness”, financed by Fondazione Cariplo

She holds a PHD in Public Law and a LLB from the School of Law of the University of Pavia.

Ben Wagner is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management at TU Delft, as well as Professor of Media, Technology and Society at Inholland. His research focuses on the governance of socio-legal systems, in particular human rights in digital technologies, and designing more accountable decision-support systems.

Professor Wagner is a visiting researcher at the Human Centred Computing Group at Oxford University, advisory board member of the data science journal Patterns and on the International Scientific Committee of the UKRI Trustworthy Autonomous Systems Hub.

Previously, he served as founding Director of the Center for Internet & Human Rights at European University Viadrina, Director of the Sustainable Computing Lab at Vienna University of Economics and member of the Advisory Group of the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA).

Professor Wagner holds a PhD in Political and Social Sciences from European University Institute in Florence.

Carlos Aguilar Paredes is a member of the board of the Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia.

Until Professor Aguilar Paredes appointment, he was Vice Dean of the Faculty of Information and Audiovisual Media UB, Professor of Applied Media Economics and Professor of Audiovisual System Structure.

Professor Aguilar Paredes is a six-year AQU 2019 active researcher, member of the DHiGeCS consolidated research group and participant in a dozen competitively funded research projects. She is also a member of the In-COMAV teaching innovation group. He has also presented papers at more than 50 conferences.Professor Aguilar Paredes is the author of numerous scientific publications. To name a few: The ecosystem for accessing TV series and films in Spain: An outline of the situation following the Intellectual property act 2015. Profesional de la Información (2016);  Political Participation, Media and Social Networks in Catalan Adolescents. Revista Internacional de Sociología de la Educación (2017);  Discourse and information quality as a threat to internal pluralism in public broadcasting television services. Revista Latina de comunicacion social (2018); Digital Technologies and Selective Exposure: How Choice and Filter Bubbles Shape News Media Exposure. International Journal of Press-Politics (2019); Echo-chambers in online news consumption: Evidence from survey and navigation data in Spain. European Journal of Communication (2019).

Professor Aguilar Paredes holds a Master in Political Analysis from the Open University of Catalunya (2018) and a PhD in Audiovisual Communication, University of Barcelona (2012).

Professor Carolina Bandinelli is Associate Professor in Media and Creative Industries at Warwick’s Centre for Media Cultural and Policy Studies.

Professor Bandinelli is concerned with emerging forms of subjectivity and sociality in the digital culture industries, her monograph Social entrepreneurship and Neoliberalism: Making Money While Doing Good, is published by Rowman and Littlefield International (2020).

At present, Professor Bandinelli is researching digital cultures of love.

Celene Craig is Deputy Chief Executive of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI), since its establishment in 2009, in addition to having worked with its predecessors the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) and the Independent Radio and Television Commission (IRTC).

A significant dimension of her work in the BAI has been her responsibilities for the formulation and review of a wide range of broadcasting/media-related policies and for advising on the implementation of legislative and policy changes in the audiovisual field at national and European levels. Most recently, she has led the development of the BAI’s Policy Position on the Implementation of the revised Audiovisual Media Services Directive and on the Regulation of Harmful Content on Online Platforms.

Ms Craig has had responsibility for regulatory oversight of public funding for the Irish public service broadcasters, RTÉ and TG4, and has acted as an Authority nominee to the BAI’s statutory committees for Contract Awards and for Compliance.

From 2015 to May 2019, Ms Craig was Chairperson of the European Platform of Regulatory Authorities (EPRA) and is an active participant in European fora, such as ERGA, on audiovisual legislative and regulatory matters.

Dr Tambini is an expert in media and communications regulation and policy, and active in policymaking as well as academic research. He is frequently called to give evidence to parliamentary committees and provide formal and informal policy advice to government and international organisations. From 2014-2015 he served on the UK Government Expert Panel advising on the value of electromagnetic spectrum. He was called to give evidence to the Leveson Inquiry in 2012, and from 2009-2010 he served on the Communications Consumer Panel, a non-executive role at the communications regulator Ofcom. He has advised the European Commission and served on several expert groups for the Council of Europe.

Dr Tambini was inaugural Director of the LSE Media Policy Project between 2010 and 2018. From June 2002-August 2006 Dr Tambini was Head of the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy at Oxford University. Before that he was director of the IPPR Media Policy Project (1999-2002), Postdoctoral Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford (1998). Lecturer, Humboldt University, Berlin (1997-8), and researcher at the European University Institute, Florence, Italy (PhD 1996).

Dr Tambini’s research interests include media and telecommunications policy and democratic communication. He is the author of many articles on media and communications regulation and policy and author/ editor of several books. His most recent book is ‘Media Freedom’ published by Polity Press in 2021. He co-edited ‘Regulating Big Tech. Policy Responses to Digital Dominance’ (Oxford University Press 2021) and ‘Digital Dominance: The Power of Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple.’ (Oxford University Press 2018). He co-wrote ‘Codifying Cyberspace’ (Routledge, 2008), co-edited ‘Cyberdemocracy’ (Routledge 1998) and ‘Citizenship, Markets, and the State’ (Oxford University Press 2000). Other publications include: ‘Nationalism in Italian Politics’ (Routledge 2001), ‘Collective Identities in Action: Theories of Ethnic Conflict’ (Ashgate, September 2002); ‘New News: Impartial Broadcasting in the Digital Age’ (edited by D. Tambini and J. Cowling, IPPR 2002) and ‘Privacy and the Media’ (IPPR, December 2003).

Dr Elia Cornelio Marí is assistant professor in communication at the Universidad Juárez Autónoma de Tabasco, Mexico.

Dr Cornelio Marí specialises in television studies. Her most recent publications focus on the original productions of Netflix for Mexico, and on the reception of dubbed television by international audiences.

Currently, Dr Cornelio Marí is leading a research project about binge-watching among university students.

Dr Cornelio Marí holds a PhD in Communication, Technology and Society by Sapienza University of Rome, and a M.A. in Media Studies by the University of Texas at Austin.

Elisa Giomi is an Associate Professor at Roma Tre University, Department of Philosophy, Communication and Performing Arts, where she teaches Sociology of Media and Communication, Television Narrative, and Advertising. Prof. Giomi also teaches at the MA course in Cultural Leadership Research, a double postgraduate degree programme (University of Groningen and Roma Tre University) and coordinates the Media and Communication module of the MA in Gender and Political Studies.

Prof. Giomi is the author of more than 60 publications for major italian and international publishers and peer-reviewed journals.  Her latest publication is “Male and Female Violence in Popular Media” (Bloomsbury 2022) and “The Media today. Technologies, markets, socio-cultural issues and regulatory responses” (forthcoming).

Prof. Giomi has coordinated national and international scientific projects aimed at studying the media and identifying good practices in the sector, on behalf of various bodies and institutions including: European Parliament, EJC-European Journalism Center, EIGE-European Institute for Gender Equality. She has coordinated television content analysis projects on behalf of italian broadcasters, including monitoring the representation of women in public programming.

Prof. Giomi has collaborated with the “Commission of enquiry on feminicide, as well as on all forms of gender-based violence” of Italian Parliament; she is a member of the board of the “Gender Studies” section of the AIS-Italian Association of Sociology and of the magazine “AG.About Gender-International Journal of Gender Studies”.

By decree of the President of the Republic, Prof. Giomi was appointed on 15 September 2020 as a member of the Board of AGCOM- Authority for Communications Guarantees.

Professor Botti is a Senior Fellow at Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI). He is also Assistant Professor at the Department of Economic and Business Science – “Guglielmo Marconi” University where he teaches Economics and Economics of Real Estate.

Professor Botti is Core Member of “Minerva – Laboratory on Gender Diversity and Gender Inequality” at the Department of Statistics of “Sapienza” University of Rome. He has been member of different research projects and collaborates with Universities, Government bodies, European and International institutions.

Professor Botti is author of several publications in the following fields of research: development and international economics; poverty, social and financial exclusion; discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation.

Francesca Pasquali is full Professor of media studies at the Department of Letters, Philosophy, Communication at the University of Bergamo. She is the coordinator of the MA program in Information, Communication, Publishing.

Her scientific interests are in the field of sociology of communication and culture, with a particular focus on: 1) The relations between digital platforms and legacy media; 2) Digital platforms and the mediatization of everyday life; 3) Digital communication and media participation.

In the past, Professor Pasquali has focused her research on these macro-areas of interest: media and generation, imagery and media, media audiences and ICTs users, social reading and e-books, and theories of authorship.

Among her publications: Fenomenologia dei social network. Presenza, relazioni e consumi mediali degli italiani online (con G. Boccia Artieri, L. Gemini L., S. Carlo, M. Farci, M. Pedroni).

Giacomo Lasorella is, since October 2, 2020, President of Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni (AGCOM), the independent Italian regulatory Authority in charge of electronic communications, media and postal services, recently designated as Digital Services Coordinator pursuant to the DSA regulation.

Mr Lasorella has served as Chairman for 2023 of the European Regulators Group for Audiovisual media services – ERGA, and he has been reappointed for 2024.

Lawyer and expert in legislation and in parliamentary procedure, he has been Deputy Secretary General of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, and he has held for many years the responsibility to assist the President and the vice Presidents of the Chamber of Deputies in conducting the work of the Assembly.

In his long career as parliamentary officer (to which he was appointed after an official public contest), he was also Secretary of the Communication Parliamentary Commission and responsible of the staff to the Parliamentary Commission on radio and television services.

He is a contract Professor of parliamentary law at the University of Tor Vergata in Rome, and he is author of many publications on parliamentary and constitutional law published in relevant academic
journals.

Giacomo Lev Mannheimer is Head of Government Relations and Public Policy, Southern Europe, TikTok.

Prior to joining TikTok, Mr Lev Mannheimer has worked in tech companies, politics, and consultancy and is also a Research Fellow at Istituto Bruno Leoni think tank, a member of the board at Forum Economia Innovazione and the scientific director of the Metropolitan Observatory of Milan.

Mr Lev Mannheimer holds a degree in law from the University of Milan and a masters in international political economy from the University of Kent.

Scott Marcus is a Senior Fellow at Bruegel, a Brussels-based economics think tank, and also works as an independent consultant dealing with policy and regulatory policy regarding electronic communications. His work is interdisciplinary and entails economics, political science / public administration, policy analysis, and engineering.

From 2005 to 2015, he served as a Director for WIK-Consult GmbH (the consulting arm of the WIK, a German research institute in regulatory economics for network industries). From 2001 to 2005, he served as Senior Advisor for Internet Technology for the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), as a peer to the Chief Economist and Chief Technologist. In 2004, the FCC seconded Mr. Marcus to the European Commission (to what was then DG INFSO) under a grant from the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Prior to working for the FCC, he was the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Genuity, Inc. (GTE Internetworking), one of the world’s largest backbone internet service providers.

Mr Marcus is a member of the Scientific Committee of the Communications and Media program at the Florence School of Regulation (FSR), a unit of the European University Institute (EUI). He is also a Fellow of GLOCOM (the Center for Global Communications, a research institute of the International University of Japan). He is a Senior Member of the IEEE; has served as co-editor for public policy and regulation for IEEE Communications Magazine; served on the Meetings and Conference Board of the IEEE Communications Society from 2001 through 2005; and was Vice Chair and then Acting Chair of IEEE CNOM. He served on the board of the American Registry of Internet Numbers (ARIN) from 2000 to 2002.

Mr Marcus is the author of numerous papers, a book on data network design. He either led or served as first author for numerous studies for the European Parliament, the European Commission, and national governments and regulatory authorities around the world.

Mr Marcus holds a BA in Political Science (Public Administration) from the City College of New York (CCNY), and an M.S. from the School of Engineering, Columbia University.

Jean-François Furnemont held the position of Director General (2003-2014) of the audiovisual media regulatory authority (CSA) of the French speaking Community in Belgium. He has also been actively involved in the Board of the European Platform of Regulatory Authorities (EPRA) as vice-Chairman (2008-2011) and as Chairman (2011-2014).

As the author of many studies, research projects and publications, Mr Furnemont excels in the following fields : drafting and reviewing of media primary/secondary legislation and broadcasting codes, advice and capacity building for media regulatory authorities and ministries, material scope of media regulation (online media, social networks, video-sharing platforms), jurisdiction issues, licensing and related systems, media concentration and transparency of media ownership, promotion of domestic and European works and financial support schemes to audiovisual creation, hate speech, fight against disinformation, protection of minors, commercial communications, articulation between self- and co-regulation and statutory regulation.

Mr Furnemont holds a BA in Journalism and Communication Studies at the Université Libre de Bruxelles – ULB, a MA in International Relations and European policy at the Université de Liège – ULG and a MA in Public Finances at the Université Catholique de Louvain – UCL. Former freelance journalist and former spokesman of a political party, he is the author of several books of political science and a number of publications on media policy and regulation.

Johan Keetelaar joined Oxera in 2022, and is a member of its senior digital leadership team. He has spent most of his career working in the digital, telecoms and transport sectors, including more than 15 years as a strategic leader in competition and sector-specific regulation. More recently, he worked as a digital practitioner at Meta Inc.

Mr Keetelaar spent more than 15 years at the Authority for Consumers & Markets (the Dutch competition and regulatory authority), as well as one of its predecessors (OPTA) where he was Director Markets, Director of Transport, Telecoms and Post, and Director Competition. He was also a member of BEREC, the group of EU telecom and digital regulators.

Prior to joining Oxera, Mr Keetelaar was the Director of Economic Policy and Head of Connectivity and Access Policy in the EMEA region at Meta Inc. for four years.

Mr Keetelaar holds an MSc. in Econometrics from the University of Amsterdam.

Laura Aria graduated in Political Science from Sapienza University of Rome.

Ms Aria spent part of her professional career at the Italian Ministry of Communications, dealing with public broadcasting and electronic communications (1998-2004).

From 2004 to 2018 Ms Aria worked at the Italian Communications Authority (AGCOM) where she held the position of Director of Services and Departments related to the regulation and supervision of the audiovisual, multimedia and political communication networks, services and content sectors. She also served as AGCOM’s Director of Legal Service, interim Secretary-General and Deputy Secretary-General.

From 2019 to 2020 she took the position of general manager at the Directorate General for Business Incentives at the Italian Ministry of Economic Development.

Ms Aria has been a member of various committees on new information and communication technologies and on the experimentation of digital terrestrial television broadcasts and interactive services.

Ms Aria has written on radio and television and electronic communications.

By decree of the President of the Republic, on 15 September 2020, she was appointed as AGCOM’s Member.

Maja Cappello joined the European Audiovisual Observatory, part of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, as Head of the Department for Legal Information in 2014. Set up in 1992, the Observatory’s mission is to gather and diffuse information on the audiovisual industry in its 41 member states.

Ms Cappello is member of the Italian Superior Council for Cinema and Audiovisual since 2017 and since 2020 she is also member of the Advisory Board of the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO).

Before joining the Observatory, Ms Cappello worked for the Italian regulator AGCOM from 1998 and was Head of AGCOM’s Digital Rights Unit of the Media Services Directorate. Ms Cappello was also Vice President of EPRA (European Platform of Regulatory Authorities) from 2011 to 2014.

Ms Cappello is author of articles and speeches in the areas of audiovisual media services, media pluralism, copyright and consumer protection and holds an LLM in EU law and a PhD in European social law after graduating in Law in 1994.

Marco Pierani is Director Public Affairs and Media Relations, Euroconsumers.

Formerly a lawyer at the Milan Bar, for 20 years he has been dealing full-time with consumer protection, first in Altroconsumo, the most representative Italian consumers organization, as Head of External Relations and, more recently, from 2016 as Director of Public Affairs & Media Relations and Executive Board Member at Euroconsumers, the world’s leading consumer cluster in terms of innovative information, personalized services and defense of consumer’s rights, gathering five national consumer organizations, Test-Aankoop/Test-Achats (Belgium), Altroconsumo (Italy), DECOProteste (Portugal), OCU (Spain), Proteste (Brazil) and giving voice to a total of more than 1.5 million people.

Mr Pierani is a communication and policy expert, a passionate user of the Internet and, above all, he believes in innovation as a lever for social, economic and democratic development.

Mr Pierani graduated in Law at the University of Bologna (IT), LL.M. in European Business Law at the University of Nijmegen (NL).

Marianna Scharf is Director and Head of EU Public Policy at Netflix, the world’s leading online entertainment service. In this role, she focuses on entertainment and media policies and is the primary point of contact for European institutions and stakeholders.

Together with her team, Ms Scharf works with policymakers to promote policies that enable a thriving digital media landscape and benefit the creative ecosystem, including consumers.

Previously, Ms Scharf worked for Facebook, where she focused on economic policy, and for FIPRA, an EU public affairs consulting firm.

A lawyer by training, Ms Scharf holds an LLM in European Law from the College of Europe.

Nicola Bilotta is a researcher at the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) where he works on political economy, digital economy and geofinance. He is also a Senior Research Analyst at the Banker Research Team (Financial Times).

Mr Bilotta was the coordinator of the T20 Task Force ”Infrastructure Investment and Financing” in 2021. He co-edited the volumes “The Rise of Tech Giants. A game changer in global finance and politics” and “The (near) Future of CBDCs. Risks and Opportunities for the global economy and society”.

Professor Roberta Bartoletti, is a Full Professor of Sociology of Culture and Communication at the Department of Communication, Humanities and International Studies of the Urbino University “Carlo Bo” (Italy). Her research is in cultural studies and practices of consumption, sociology of communication and memory studies.

Among her publications are: Pasquali F., Bartoletti R. (2020), Gli italiani, la morte e i media digitali: sospensioni, accelerazioni e prospettive di ricerca oltre il Covid-19, Mediascapes journal; Bartoletti R., Antonioni S., Brancato S. e Pasquali F. (2020), Il dispositivo del fantasma Narrazioni della perdita e del lutto nella serialità televisiva italiana, Studi Culturali; Roberta Bartoletti e Franca Faccioli (2016), Public Engagement, Local Policies, and Citizens’ Participation: An Italian Case Study of Civic Collaboration, Social Media + Society.

Professor Bartoletti has a PhD in Sociology and Social Policies from University of Bologna.

Roberto Viola is Director-General of DG CONNECT (Directorate General for Communication Networks, Content and Technology) at the European Commission.

Dr Viola was the Deputy Director-General of DG CONNECT, European Commission from 2012 to 2015. He served as Chairman of the European Radio Spectrum Policy group (RSPG) from 2012 to 2013, as Deputy Chairman in 2011 and Chairman in 2010. He was a member of the BEREC Board (Body of European Telecom Regulators), and Chairman of the European Regulatory Group (ERG). He held the position of Secretary General in charge of managing AGCOM, from 2005 to 2012. Prior to this, he served as Director of Regulation Department and Technical Director in AGCOM from 1999 to 2004.

From 1985 to 1999 he served in various positions including Head of Telecommunication and Broadcasting Satellite Services at the European Space Agency (ESA).

Dr Viola holds a Degree in Electronic Engineering and a Masters in Business Administration (MBA).

Bio cominf soon …..

Ľuboš Kukliš is Chief Executive at the Council for Broadcasting and Retransmission of Slovakia and Chair of the European Platform of Regulatory Authorities (EPRA).

In 2018 and 2019, he was Chair of European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media Services (ERGA) and currently leads ERGA’s work on disinformation.

Mr Kukliš frequently speaks at public events and cooperates with international organizations on possible solutions on topics such as the spread of disinformation, protection of minors in the online space, or regulation of new media.

Mr Kukliš is a lawyer by training and holds PhD in Administrative law.