Benedetta Brevini

Last updated

Benedetta Brevini
NationalityItalian
Occupation(s)Academic, journalist
Employer University of Sydney

Benedetta Brevini is an Italian academic, author, journalist, and media and technology reformer. [1] Brevini is currently an Associate professor of political economy of communication at The University of Sydney and a Senior Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science. [1]

Contents

Brevini is known for her political economic analysis, investment in green tech literacy, and explorations of the relationship between artificial intelligence (AI) and the climate crisis. [1] Her most recent book, Is AI Good for the Planet?, was published by Polity in 2021. [2]

Life and career

Brevini initially attended the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, where she graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Law. [3] Brevini later obtained a Master of Laws and a Master of Science from London School of Economic and Political Science, where she studied Communication Policy and Regulation. [3] She earned her PhD at London's University of Westminster. [3]

Prior to her career in academia, Brevini worked as a journalist. [4] She was employed by CNBC in Milan, Italy; RAI in New York City, United States; and The Guardian in London, United Kingdom. [4] Brevini has also held tenured positions at City University London and Brunel University London. [4]

Brevini is currently employed as an Associate professor of political economy of communication at The University of Sydney. [3] She is also a Senior Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science. [4] Brevini has held further Visiting Fellowships at WZB in Berlin, Germany, New York University in New York City and the Central European University’s Centre For Media, Data and Society in Budapest, Hungary. [4]

Since 2010, Brevini has assisted multiple public inquiries into public interest journalism and media diversity and media pluralism in Australia and the United Kingdom. [4] [5] Brevini has also consulted for GetUp!, [6] the Open Society Foundations Media Program and Access Info Europe. [4] [7]

In addition to her academic pursuits, Brevini writes for The Guardian’s Comment is Free. [8] She also contributes to numerous web and print publications, including openDemocracy, [9] South China Morning Post, [10] The Conversation, [11] and MediaReform.co.uk. [3] As of February 2023, she is conducting research for the purposes of a new book that will examine communication, data capitalism and the climate emergency. [3]

Overview of work

Brevini is an expert in critical AI, environmental communication and the relationship between data capitalism, AI and the climate crisis. [12] Brevini often operates within the political economy tradition when writing on these issues. [12] [13] She authored Public Service Broadcasting Online (2013) and edited Beyond WikiLeaks (2013) in accordance with the political economy framework, [14] [15] and examined Amazon through the same intellectual lens in Amazon: Understanding a Global Communication Giant (2020). [16] Brevini also lists sustainable communication, communications systems and climate change, and media reforms in comparative perspective amongst her research interests. [12]

Public Service Broadcasting Online: A Comparative European Policy Study of PSB 2.0 (2013)

Within Public Service Broadcasting Online, Brevini explores the extent to which the ethos of public service broadcasting has transitioned to the European internet. [14] [17] Brevini considers this issue with reference to Denmark, France, Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom, where Public Service broadcasting has incurred major reforms that have altered its legal and policy-related frameworks. [14] [17] She formulates a normative, democratically minded framework for ‘public service broadcasting 2.0 (PSB 2.0)’ when considering how public service broadcasting has been expanded and redefined in the new media landscape. [14] [17] Brevini ultimately argues that PSB 2.0 and its reimagining of public service values are crucial in the 21st century – particularly if the internet is to embody the ideals of traditional, non-commercial broadcast television. [14] [17]

Amazon: Understanding a Global Communication Giant (2020)

Writing with Lukasz Swiatek, Brevini takes a political economy of media approach to understanding Amazon’s role in the global media landscape. [16] She describes Amazon as a "digital lord" that is adapting the principles and practices of medieval feudalism for the Digital Age. [16] [18] Brevini posits that Amazon has built a "digital estate" in its 25 years of operation. [16] Here, consumers are reduced to serfs who must sacrifice their privacy to access the products and services that Amazon offers. [16] Brevini notes that Amazon's rise to prominence has been expedited by a contemporary manifestation of capitalism that favours market concentration and dominance, as well as the absence of regulatory frameworks that could redistribute wealth. [16]

Is AI Good for the Planet? (2021)

In Is AI Good for the Planet?, Brevini investigates the environmental cost of AI applications. [19] She argues that, while AI is frequently presented as a "magic wand" that will liberate humanity from the climate crisis, [19] technological utopianism can obfuscate the materiality of technology. [19] [20] Accordingly, Brevini highlights four ways in which technologies, machines and infrastructures that use AI can exacerbate global warming. [20] [21]

  1. Algorithms require significant computational power to be developed and trained to analyse and categorise data. [19] [20]
  2. Substantial amounts of energy and water are required to cool down systems that power AI applications. [19] [20]
  3. The minerals required to manufacture AI technologies produce a substantive quantity of waste; waste is also created during AI's transportation and disposal, which exacerbates pollution on an international scale. [19] [20]
  4. AI assists oil and gas companies to become more "efficient" where the extraction of fossil fuels is concerned. [19] [20]

Brevini also explores Shoshana Zuboff’s notion of "surveillance capitalism", or the process by which personal data is collected and commodified by global corporations. [19] Brevini states that the surveillance capitalism perpetuated by AI-equipped devices has heightened uberconsumerism and a mode of hyperconsumption that precipitates unsustainable energy demands. [19]

Is AI Good for the Planet? was named ‘the best science book of the week’ by the English multidisciplinary science journal Nature . [22]

Selected bibliography

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Capitalism</span> Economic system based on private ownership

Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price systems, private property, property rights recognition, voluntary exchange, and wage labor. In a market economy, decision-making and investments are determined by owners of wealth, property, or ability to maneuver capital or production ability in capital and financial markets—whereas prices and the distribution of goods and services are mainly determined by competition in goods and services markets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Naomi Klein</span> Canadian author and activist

Naomi Klein is a Canadian author, social activist, and filmmaker known for her political analyses, support of ecofeminism, organized labour, leftism and criticism of corporate globalization, fascism, ecofascism and capitalism. As of 2021 she is Associate Professor, and Professor of Climate Justice at the University of British Columbia, co-directing a Centre for Climate Justice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anthony Giddens</span> British sociologist (born 1938)

Anthony Giddens, Baron Giddens is an English sociologist who is known for his theory of structuration and his holistic view of modern societies. He is considered to be one of the most prominent modern sociologists and is the author of at least 34 books, published in at least 29 languages, issuing on average more than one book every year. In 2007, Giddens was listed as the fifth most-referenced author of books in the humanities. He has academic appointments in approximately twenty different universities throughout the world and has received numerous honorary degrees.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bill McKibben</span> American environmentalist and writer

William Ernest McKibben is an American environmentalist, author, and journalist who has written extensively on the impact of global warming. He is the Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College and leader of the climate campaign group 350.org. He has authored a dozen books about the environment, including his first, The End of Nature (1989), about climate change, and Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? (2019), about the state of the environmental challenges facing humanity and future prospects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alex Callinicos</span> British political theorist (born 1950)

Alexander Theodore Callinicos is a Rhodesian-born British political theorist and activist. An adherent of Trotskyism, he is a member of the Central Committee of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and serves as its International Secretary. He is also editor of International Socialism, the SWP's theoretical journal, and has published a number of books.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diane Coyle</span> British economist (born 1961)

Dame Diane Coyle is a British economist, academic and writer. Since March 2018, she has been the Bennett Professor of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge, co-directing the Bennett Institute.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kate Crawford</span> Australian writer, composer, and academic

Kate Crawford is a researcher, writer, composer, producer and academic, who studies the social and political implications of artificial intelligence. She is based in New York and works as a principal researcher at Microsoft Research, the co-founder and former director of research at the AI Now Institute at NYU, a visiting professor at the MIT Center for Civic Media, a senior fellow at the Information Law Institute at NYU, and an associate professor in the Journalism and Media Research Centre at the University of New South Wales. She is also a member of the WEF's Global Agenda Council on Data-Driven Development.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raj Patel</span> British academic

Rajeev "Raj" Patel is a British Indian academic, journalist, activist and writer who has lived and worked in Zimbabwe, South Africa, and the United States for extended periods. He has been referred to as "the rock star of social justice writing."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iain Stewart (geologist)</span> Scottish geologist and professor

Iain Simpson Stewart is a Scottish geologist who is currently Jordan-UK El Hassan bin Talal Research Chair in Sustainability at the Royal Scientific Society in Jordan. He is a UNESCO Chair in Geoscience and Society and formerly a member of the Scientific Board of UNESCO's International Geoscience Programme. Described as geology's "rock star", Stewart is best known to the public as the presenter of a number of science programmes for the BBC, notably the BAFTA nominated Earth: The Power of the Planet (2007).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Climate crisis</span> Term used to refer to anthropogenic climate change

Climate crisis is a term describing global warming and climate change, and their impacts. This term and the term climate emergency have been used to describe the threat of global warming to humanity and the planet, and to urge aggressive climate change mitigation. In the scientific journal BioScience, a January 2020 article, endorsed by over 11,000 scientists worldwide, stated that "the climate crisis has arrived" and that an "immense increase of scale in endeavors to conserve our biosphere is needed to avoid untold suffering due to the climate crisis."

Degrowth or post-growth economics is an academic and social movement critical of the concept of growth in gross domestic product as a measure of human and economic development. Degrowth theory is based on ideas and research from a multitude of disciplines such as economics, economic anthropology, ecological economics, environmental sciences and development studies. It argues that the unitary focus of modern capitalism on growth, in terms of monetary value of aggregate goods and services, causes widespread ecological damage and is not necessary for the further increase of human living standards. Degrowth theory has been met with both academic acclaim and considerable criticism.

Colin Hay is Professor of Political Sciences at Sciences Po, Paris and Affiliate Professor of Political Analysis at the University of Sheffield, joint editor-in-chief of the journal Comparative European Politics. and Managing Editor of the journal New Political Economy.

Terry Flew is an Australian media and communications scholar, and Professor of Digital Communication and Culture in the Department of Media and Communication at the University of Sydney, Australia. He was formerly the Professor and Assistant Dean (Research) in the Creative Industries Faculty at the Queensland University of Technology. He has produced award-winning research in creative industries, media and communications, and online journalism. He is primarily known for his publication, New Media: An Introduction, which is currently in its fourth edition. His research interests include digital media, global media, media policy, creative industries, media economics, and the future of journalism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Kaldor</span>

Mary Henrietta Kaldor is a British academic, currently Professor of Global Governance at the London School of Economics, where she is also the Director of the Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit. She also teaches at the Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals (IBEI). She has been a key figure in the development of cosmopolitan democracy. She writes on globalisation, international relations and humanitarian intervention, global civil society and global governance, as well as what she calls New Wars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Immanuel Ness</span> Scholar of workers organisation and migration

Immanuel Ness is a scholar of worker's organisation, migration, mobilisation and politics and a labour activist and professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York.

<i>The Empathic Civilization</i> Book by Jeremy Rifkin

The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis is a 2010 non-fiction book written by Jeremy Rifkin. It connects the evolution of communication and energy development in civilizations with psychological and economic development in humans. Rifkin considers the latest phase of communication and energy regimes—that of electronic telecommunications and fossil fuel extraction—as bringing people together on the nation-state level based on democratic capitalism, but at the same time creating global problems, like climate change, pandemics, and nuclear proliferation. Rifkin extrapolates the observed trend into the future, predicting that Internet and mobile technology along with small-scale renewable energy commercialization will create an era of distributed capitalism necessary to manage the new energy regime and a heightened global empathy that can help solve global problems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mercedes Bunz</span> German art historian and journalist

Mercedes Bunz is a German art historian, journalist, and the Professor of Digital Culture and Society at King's College London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jodi Dean</span> American political theorist (born 1962)

Jodi Dean is an American political theorist and professor in the Political Science department at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in New York state. She held the Donald R. Harter ’39 Professorship of the Humanities and Social Sciences from 2013 to 2018. Dean has also held the position of Erasmus Professor of the Humanities in the Faculty of Philosophy at Erasmus University Rotterdam. She is the author and editor of thirteen books. Her most recent book is titled Comrade: An Essay on Political Belonging.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christian Fuchs (sociologist)</span> Austrian social scientist

Christian Fuchs is an Austrian social scientist. From 2013 until 2022 he was Professor of Social Media and Professor of Media, Communication & Society at the University of Westminster, where he also was the Director of the Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI). Since 2022, he is Professor of Media Systems and Media Organisation at Paderborn University in Germany. He also known for being the editor of the open access journal tripleC: Communications, Capitalism & Critique. The journal's website offers a wide range of critical studies within the debate of capitalism and communication. This academic open access journal publishes new articles, special issues, calls for papers, reviews, reflections, information on conferences and events, and other journal specific information. Fuchs is also the co-founder of the ICTs and Society-network which is a worldwide interdisciplinary network of researchers who study how society and digital media interact. He is the editor of the Open Access Book Series "Critical, Digital and Social Media Studies" published by the open access university publishing house University of Westminster Press that he helped establish in 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Climate communication</span> Environmental and science communication

Climate communication or climate change communication is a field of environmental communication and science communication focused on the causes, nature and effects of anthropogenic climate change.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Staff Profile". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 22 February 2023.
  2. ↑ Brevini, Benedetta (2021). Is AI Good For The Planet?. Polity. ISBN   978-1-509-54794-4.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Staff Profile". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 21 February 2023.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Benedetta Brevini Joins CMDS as Fellow | CMDS". cmds.ceu.edu. Retrieved 21 February 2023.
  5. ↑ Butler, Josh (11 April 2021). "Alarming News Corp ownership stats backing the media diversity inquiry". The New Daily. Retrieved 21 February 2023.
  6. ↑ "New GetUp report finds Australian media concentration at crisis point". GetUp. Retrieved 21 February 2023.
  7. ↑ "The seven capital sins of corporate-owned media: how ownership concentration curtails media freedoms in Europe". Media@LSE. 7 February 2013. Retrieved 21 February 2023.
  8. ↑ "Benedetta Brevini | The Guardian". the Guardian. Retrieved 21 February 2023.
  9. ↑ "Home". openDemocracy. 8 December 2016. Retrieved 21 February 2023.
  10. ↑ "Benedetta Brevini". South China Morning Post. 19 February 2021. Retrieved 21 February 2023.
  11. ↑ "Benedetta Brevini". The Conversation. 13 March 2014. Retrieved 21 February 2023.
  12. 1 2 3 "Staff Profile". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 21 February 2023.
  13. ↑ "Is AI Good for the Planet? by Benedetta Brevini – Book launch (Online)". ANU. 9 November 2021. Retrieved 21 February 2023.
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 Brevini, Benedetta (2013). Public Service Broadcasting Online. doi:10.1057/9781137295101. ISBN   978-1-349-45173-9.
  15. ↑ Brevini, Benedetta; Hintz, Arne; McCurdy, Patrick, eds. (2013). Beyond WikiLeaks. Springer Science+Business Media. doi:10.1057/9781137275745. ISBN   978-1-137-27573-8.
  16. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Brevini, Benedetta; Swiatek, Lukasz (2020). Amazon: Understanding a Global Communication Giant. doi:10.4324/9780367816711. ISBN   9780367816711. S2CID   242247717.
  17. 1 2 3 4 Brevini, Benedetta (2013). Public service broadcasting online: a comparative European policy study of PSB 2.0. Palgrave global media policy and business. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN   978-1-137-29509-5. OCLC   842208475.
  18. ↑ "Benedetta Brevini on the Australian News Media Bargaining Code | CMDS". cmds.ceu.edu. Retrieved 21 February 2023.
  19. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Brevini, Benedetta (2021). Is AI Good For The Planet?. Polity. ISBN   978-1-509-54794-4.
  20. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Benedetta Brevini Discusses AI's Impact on the Climate Crisis at CMDS Event | CMDS". cmds.ceu.edu. Retrieved 21 February 2023.
  21. ↑ "La Rete è di tutti / Ma l'intelligenza artificiale fa bene al pianeta?". Valigia Blu (in Italian). Retrieved 2 March 2023.
  22. ↑ Robinson, Andrew (19 November 2021). "Defining Alzheimer's, and the climate costs of AI: Books in brief". Nature. 600 (7887): 28. doi: 10.1038/d41586-021-03484-5 . S2CID   244454825.
  23. ↑ "Book launch: Climate change and the media". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2 March 2023.
  24. ↑ Svoboda, Michael (26 April 2018). "Books on climate change communication and activism » Yale Climate Connections". Yale Climate Connections. Retrieved 2 March 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.