Visiting Scholars

Ben Van Rompuy is a doctoral researcher at the Institute for European Studies (IES) in Brussels and is also affiliated to SMIT, a research partner in IBBT (Studies on Media, Information and Telecommunication). Ben holds a Master's degree in Communication Sciences and in International and European Law, both from the Free University of Brussels (VUB). His research is concerned with EC antitrust control in the audiovisual and telecommunications sectors. By assessing how considerations extraneous to antitrust law (e.g. cultural diversity and pluralism, industrial policy, the specific characteristics of sport) are imported into the European Commission's Article 81 EC decision-making related to these sectors, his research explores the boundaries and limits of EC antitrust law and policy. The analysis of the interaction between the core objectives of antitrust law and non-competition considerations is put within a wider, EC/US comparative perspective. It starts from the observation that both EC and US antitrust policies are shifting from a formalistic legal model to one that increasingly relies on a more economic based analysis, according ever-greater weight to economic efficiency and consumer benefits. It is examined whether or not this evolution delimits the public interest dimension of Article 81(3) EC in a way that further reduces the scope to take non-competition considerations (that do not have an evident economic facet) into account.

Marc Raboy is Full Professor and Beaverbrook Chair in Ethics, Media and Communications in the Department of Art History and Communication Studies at McGill University. A former journalist in a wide variety of media, educated at McGill, Professor Raboy taught previously at the Université de Montréal and Laval University. He is the author or editor of sixteen books and more than one hundred journal articles or book chapters, as well as reports for such organizations as the World Bank, UNESCO, the Japan Broadcasting Corporation, the European Broadcasting Union, the Policy Research Secretariat of the Government of Canada, and the Quebec Ministry for Culture and Communication. He has been a senior research associate in the Programme on Comparative Media Law and Policy at the University of Oxford, and is a member of the international council of the International Association of Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), past president of the Canadian Communication Association, and member of several editorial boards. From 2001 to 2003 he served as expert advisor to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage for its study of Canadian broadcasting. He is also a founding member of an international advocacy campaign for Communication Rights in the Information Society. Professor Raboy has taught courses on Canadian media institutions, communication policy, cultural development, and international communication. His current research looks at media and communication governance issues in light of increasing globalization.

Becky Lentz was most recently The Ford Foundation’s first program officer for media policy and technology from 2001 to 2007. She joined the Foundation with experience in the corporate and non-profit sectors, state and city government where she developed software, designed and implemented multilingual public information campaigns and directed strategic planning, evaluation, and policy analysis projects related to information technology. During her tenure at Ford, Becky's portfolio contributed nearly $20 million to the field of media reform and justice. NYU's Values in Technology Design: Democracy, Autonomy and Justice Project was among the numerous programs she supported. She also funded research examining the role of communications and media studies scholarship in public policy formation, among numerous other topics. Additional grants supported issue advocacy on media diversity and representation, corporate influence on federal regulation, media consolidation, electronic privacy, community radio, and Internet governance. Becky was instrumental in the evolution of Ford's new international directions on issues of intellectual property and freedom of expression. Her research interests include critical perspectives on the culture of communications regulation; technology and society; the role of philanthropy in the field of information, communication, and technology (ICT) policy; theory-building that advances a human rights framework for media regulation; and civil society engagement in global governance of ICT policies. She has published in such journals as The Information Society, Telecommunications Policy, and Info on rural telecommunications and economic development, scholarship in the information policy field, and on critique of digital divide policy discourse. Becky serves on the international Advisory Boards of the Social Science Research Council’s Necessary Knowledge for a Democratic Public Sphere Program, the Civil Society Practitioners Program at the Oxford Internet Institute and the Freedom of Expression Project based in London.