Dr Damian Tambini

Biography

In September 2006 I was appointed as Senior Lecturer in the Department of Media and Communications, LSE and convenor of the MSC in Communication Regulation and Policy.

I am Associate Fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) and at The Oxford Internet Institute. I am a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and serve on the Advisory Groups of: The Oxford Media Convention and Polis.

From June 2002 - August 2006 I was Head of the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy at Oxford University. Before that I was at Nuffield College, Oxford (Postdoctoral Fellow, 1998) Humboldt University, Berlin (lecturer, 1997) and the European University Institute, Florence, Italy (PhD 1996). My research interests include media and telecommunications policy and democratic communication. I co-edited 'Cyberdemocracy' (Routledge 1998) and 'Citizenship, Markets, and the State' (Oxford University Press 2000). Other recent and forthcoming 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); 'Privacy and the Media' (IPPR, December 2003). In January 2008 I published a book on media self regulation called 'Codifying Cyberspace' (Tambini, Leonardi and Marsden). (Routledge January 2008).

Research interests

• My recent work addresses a range of current issues in media law and policy. Much of this research has been applied, on projects funded by government and by international organizations, and I have been actively involved in key policy debates on new media in recent years. Behind the individual projects listed below have been long-standing normative and methodological concerns of media studies in the social and political sciences: in particular the social integrative role of media in complex societies, and the public sphere.
   
• Financial Journalism. Ethics and regulation in a changing media environment. In 2007 I was awarded a research development grand from the LSE research seed fund, to conduct a research project on Financial journalism under the auspices of Polis, the LSE media and society think tank. A report will be published in late 2008.
   
• Migration, minorities and media
   
• Between 2003 and 2006 I was responsible for co-designing an EC funded survey of 5000 migrants across Europe, and designing the part of the questionnaire dealing with media and communication habits of migrants within Europe, identity and participation. I presented a paper outlining survey findings to the EC in November 2005. http://www.obets.ua.es/pioneur/ 
  Self-Regulation
   
• In 2004, I submitted a report to the EC detailing findings of a 2 ½ year pan-European study of self-regulation in converging media sectors. www.selfregulation.info. A book on the same topic was published by Routledge in 2008.
   
• Intellectual Property and the Public Domain
  Between 2002 and 2005 I was the project lead for the Creative Commons in the UK. This project (www.creativecommons.org) develops innovative intellectual property frameworks for those that want to share, remix and redistribute digital content, and my role was to introduce the framework to the UK and supervise the transposition of CC licenses under UK law. I was commissioned by the European Broadcasting Union to write a book chapter outlining the copyright challenges faced by public broadcasters, and have been appointed to serve on the advisory group of the Creative Archive Licence Group. 
   
• Content Regulation
  During 2000-2001, I was appointed by UK Ministers to advise on the Communications White Paper, the document defining policy for the 2003 Communications Act. In particular, I was asked to write a paper on content regulation, which focuses mainly on television. http://www.communicationsact.gov.uk/
   
• Digital Broadcasting
  In December 2005 I submitted written evidence in response to an invitation from the Culture Media and Sport Select Committee. This advice, which I wrote in collaboration with colleagues, compares UK policy with that of other European countries, Japan and with the US. This paper has been accepted for publication in the journal Info. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmselect/cmcumeds/650/650we26.htm
   
• Public Broadcasting
  In January 2004 I published a co-edited volume of essays discussing challenges for public service broadcasting. A peer-reviewed journal article on the same theme was published later in the year. During 2005 and again since January 2006 I have served as consultant to UK regulator Ofcom advising on the measurement of the public value of broadcasting. In June 2008 I was invited to act as an expert Rapporteur when the French EU Presidency held a conference to review a new EC Communication on Public Service Broadcasting.

My assumption is that through study of rules, such as law, codes of practice, and licences, it is possible to gain new insight into current transformations of the nature and extent of the public sphere.

Selected recent academic publications

Download Damian's CV (in PDF format) for a full list of publications.

Contact details

Dr. Damian Tambini
Room S119e
Department of Media and Communications
London School of Economics and Political Science
Houghton Street
London WC2A 2AE
UK
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7955 6243
Fax: +44 (0) 20 7955 7248
Email: d.tambini@lse.ac.uk
 

If you are coming to the LSE, you will find my office on the second floor of St. Clements Building. For details, click here.

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Last updated 13 January 2010

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