Greetings! Sonia Livingstone will give the Steve Jones Internet Research Lecture at the 2023 annual conference of the International Communication Association (ICA) on Friday, May 26, 2023, 9am - 10:15am, in Toronto Sheraton, at Osgoode East. The title of Livingstone’s lecture is “The pros and cons of an age-blind internet: the challenge from a child rights perspective.” In this lecture, Livingstone brings the audience’s attention to the significance of age in examining the tensions and injustices in a digital world. Livingstone argues that "the user" - along with "the population" or "the public" - is generally assumed to be roughly between 15 and 65, and arguably the internet is built for them. It is also, as is often argued, built for those who are Western, educated, able-bodied, and so forth. When socialising research findings among policymakers, Livingstone indicates that she hears rising calls to protect children online through "solutions" that could transform the internet (e.g. content regulation, age gating and age verification, digital identity) and/or increase exclusion from civil freedoms online. In this lecture, she will explore the analytic and normative insights that can be drawn from a child rights approach. Then she will widen the lens to consider the implications of research and policy of a kind of coalition of the excluded: can those working with children join forces with those researching other marginalised or disadvantaged groups? Livingstone FBA, OBE is a Professor of Social Psychology at the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She has published 20 books including “Parenting for a Digital Future: How hopes and fears about technology shape children’s lives.” She directs the “Digital Futures Commission” (with 5Rights Foundation) and “Global Kids Online” (with UNICEF). She also works on a series of European Commission and UKRI funded projects concerned with children’s opportunities, risks and rights in a digital world. Since founding the 33 country EU Kids Online network, Sonia has advised the UK government, European Commission, European Parliament, UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, Council of Europe, OECD, ITU and UNICEF on children’s internet safety and rights in the digital environment. See https://www.lse.ac.uk/media-and-communications/people/academic-staff/sonia-l... <https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lse.ac.uk%2Fmedia-and-communications%2Fpeople%2Facademic-staff%2Fsonia-livingstone&data=05%7C01%7Csjones%40uic.edu%7Cb22689cd63b349bdaed008db1db433e0%7Ce202cd477a564baa99e3e3b71a7c77dd%7C0%7C0%7C638136432050225267%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=w9RQpd%2BZpTSR3qNUmAiNB2Gr%2Fn%2FL%2FqDfXLVAHpauTwU%3D&reserved=0> Steve Jones Internet Research Lecture Series, established by Carl Couch Center for Social and Internet Research (CCCSIR, www.cccsir.com) in 2003, brings leading Internet researchers to annual ICA conferences to promote the development and interest of Internet research. With the interdisciplinary nature of Internet research, the lecture series brings researchers from various disciplines as well as industry leaders to establish dialogues with communication researchers about topics and issues of Internet research. The theme of Steve Jones Lecture Series is " The Internet as Culture.” For more information about this lecture and lecture series please contact Shing-Ling Sarina Chen at sarina.chen@uni.edu.