Neli Frost

This course is available on the LLM (extended part-time), LLM (full-time), MSc in Law and Finance, MSc in Media and Communications (Data and Society), MSc in Media and Communications (Media and Communications Governance), MSc in Regulation and University of Pennsylvania Law School LLM Visiting Students. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit. This course uses controlled access as part of the course selection process. For information on controlled access courses, including eligibility, application processes, deadlines, and departmental contact details, please refer to the Controlled Access Courses webpage.

How to apply: Priority will be given initially to LLM, MSc Regulation and MSc Law and Finance students on a first-come-first-served allocation.

Spaces permitting, requests from all other students will be processed on the same first-come-first-served allocation from 10am on Thursday 1 October 2026

By submitting an application, students are confirming that they meet any pre-requisites specified. Providing an additional written statement will not aid a student's chances of being accepted onto a course, and statements are not read.

Deadline for application: Not applicable

For queries contact: Law.llm@lse.ac.uk

This course does not require an in-depth understanding of contemporary computer technology.

This course has a limited number of places and demand is typically high. This may mean that you’re not able to get a place on this course.

The course examines the intersections between 'law' and 'technology' as two regulatory forces that shape the affordances and limitations of human societies. It encourages students to think critically about the variety of ways in which key digital and artificial intelligence technologies increasingly mediate political and legal interactions in a variety of contexts, and what the implications might be for long-standing democratic legal values, principles, structures, and institutions. 

The first half of the course introduces students to theoretical frameworks and technical knowledge which allow them to analyse and evaluate how technology operates as a regulatory force in the world and what the implications might be for law. The second half turns to a critical interrogation of key legal frameworks enacted to regulate technology, and the potentials and limits of these frameworks. The course therefore proceeds from thinking about 'technology as regulation' to the 'regulation of technology'. By combining theoretical engagement with technical and legal knowledge, the course prepares students to critically analyse real-world interactions between law and technology. 

20 hours of seminars in the Autumn Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn Term.

Students should submit an essay plan and working bibliography for the assessed essay. All students are expected to contribute to a series of class and online exercises, and to submit one 2,000 word formative essay.

Langdon Winner, 'Do Artifacts Have Politics?' (1980).

Luana Lund, 'Cyber-regulatory Theories: Between Retrospection and Ideologies'  (2019).

Tarleton Gillespie, 'The Politics of Platforms' (2010).

Neli Frost, 'The Impoverished Publicness of Algorithmic Decision Making' (2024).

Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (2018).

Julie Cohen, Between Truth and Power (2019).

Lisa Gitelman, Raw Data is an Oxymoron (2013).

Anu Bradford, Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology (2023).

Andrew Murray, Information Technology Law: The Law and Society (2023).

GDPR, DSA, EU AI ACT
 

Exam (100%), duration: 150 Minutes in the Spring exam period.