**See my book The Closing of the Net **

My academic research is interested in how we deal with the Internet at a political level in Europe. I am interested in how communications policy is made in the UK and EU, and how the policy-making process is or is not adapting to a new media environment.  In the course of my research, I have analysed the policy-making process in the EU legislature and in certain Member States such as Britain, France and Spain. The corporate effort to shape policy forms the backdrop for all my books.

My  book The Closing of the Net  deals with the power politics and lobbying of the Internet corporations.  I have written two other books. My first book, The Copyright Enforcement Enigma: Internet Politics and the 'Telecoms Package' was published by Palgrave Macmillan. The book tells you the full story of the Telecoms Package with exclusive information on the Third Reading. I believe it is the only comprehensive academic account of the 2009 Telecoms Package and it remains relevant as the back story for today's policy dilemmas.  My second book A Copyright Masquerade: How Corporate Lobbying Threatens Online Freedoms, draws on policy developments that followed. 

My doctoral  research began by investigating European policy for the Internet and online content. In very simple terms, it concerned the content - news, pictures, TV programmes, movies, music - that we get over the Internet - or indeed, that we put there ourselves. And how companies and governments are arguing over what we are - and are not - allowed to do with it. That led me to examine the European Commission's Creative Content Online consultation, which addressed the hot debate over copyright enforcement measures known as graduated response or 3-strikes - and downloading of music and film. And from there, I discovered the copyright amendments in the Telecoms Package.

The title of my doctoral thesis was 'The Political Battle for Online Content in the European Union' which analysed the travaux preparatoire of the Telecoms Package for copyright issues. In the course of my research, I spoke to policy-makers and industry stakeholders who lobbied in Brussels. I spoke to interests on both sides of this highly polarised debate. I carried out my PhD research as a self-funded student, under the auspices of the University of Westminster.

I completed an MA with distinction in 2006, also at the University of Westminster. My Masters dissertation discussed the politics of the EU Data Retention directive (2006/24/EC). I will be drawing on this research for a chapter in my new book to be published in 2016.

Here are my research papers, published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at conferences:

Political Quarterly (2008) File-sharing, Filtering and the Spectre of the Automated Censor

American University College of Law: Where Copyright Enforcement and Net Neutrality Collide

JIPITEC - The Digital Economy Act in the dock

Internet Policy Review - The Aereo dilemma and copyright