‘Too much’ and ‘too little’ content moderation: Internet governance as a case study in advanced liberal modes of government: In Conversation with Terry Flew

On this week’s episode of the Governance Podcast, Mark Pennington, the Director at the Study of Governance and Society here at King College London, interviews Professor Terry Flew. This episode is titled "‘Too much’ and ‘too little’ content moderation", and discusses the question of content moderation on digital platforms as a case study in Foucauldian approaches to governmentality.

The Guest

Terry Flew is Professor of Digital Communication and Culture at the University of Sydney. He is the author of 16 books (seven edited), 71 book chapters, 118 refereed journal articles, and 20 reports and research monographs. His books include The Creative Industries, Culture and Policy (SAGE, 2012), Global Creative Industries (Polity, 2013), Media Economics (Palgrave, 2015), Understanding Global Media (Palgrave, 2018), Regulating Platforms (Polity, 2021), and Digital Platform Regulation: Global Perspectives on Internet Governance (Springer, 2022).

He was President of the International Communications Association (ICA) from 2019 to 2020 and is currently an Executive Board member of the ICA. He was elected an ICA Fellow in 2019. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities (FAHA), elected in 2019. He has advised companies including Facebook/Meta, Cisco Systems and the Special Broadcasting Service, and government agencies in Australia and internationally, including the Australian Communication and Media Authority and the Singapore Broadcasting Authority.

He has held visiting professor roles at City University, London and George Washington University, and is currently a Distinguished Professor with Communications University of China. He currently holds two Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery grants, on Trust and Distrust in News Media, and Valuing News: Aligning Interpersonal, Institutional and Societal Perspectives, and heads the International Digital Policy Observatory, funded by the ARC in partnership with the Australian Information Industries Association.