The Carsey-Wolf Center at the University of California-Santa Barbara will begin a two-day conference to discuss “Dirty Sexy Policy” this Thursday, February 20, to be held at the Pollock Theater on the UCSB campus. There is no cost to attend.

The Dirty Sexy Policy Conference, which is organized by UCSB profs and associates Constance Penley, Jennifer Holt and Karen Petruska, will bring together prominent scholars, attorneys, activists, regulators and journalists to explore current challenges to media policy. Participants on three panels will engage in a lively discussion and debate through a moderated Q&A to explore content regulation of obscenity and indecency, structural regulation of broadband technologies, and the broader stakes that policy critics share. Keynote speakers will be Des Freedman, Goldsmiths University, London, and Nicholas Johnson, former FCC Commissioner and Visiting Faculty, University of Iowa College of Law.

Johnson’s address, which will open the conference at 5 p.m. Thursday evening, is titled “Communications Evolution, Revolution, and the Role of the Academy,” and will be followed by a public reception beginning at 6:30.

Friday morning’s session will open with Freedman’s address on the topic of “Media Policy Fetishism,” and the first panel, on “Obscenity and Indecency,” will be moderated by Prof. Constance Penley, will begin at 11:15 and last approximately 90 minutes. Participants in that panel will include Free Speech Coalition CEO Diane Duke and Board Chair Jeffrey Douglas, AVN Media Network journalist Mark Kernes, USSC Sociology Prof. Daniel Linz, Cynthis Chris of CUNY’s College of Staten Island, and Peter Alilunas of the University of Michigan. Biographies of the panelists can be found here.

That afternoon, beginning at 2:30, will be a pair of panels, the first titled “The Politics of Infrastructure,” moderated by Prof. Jennifer Holt, and will feature six academics from various universities in the U.S. and Canada. That will be followed by “Content and Conduits,” moderated by Karen Petruska, and in addition to four academics from around the country, Reason magazine editor Jacob Sullum and Xbiz reporter Stephen Yagielowicz will join in the discussion.

Guests of the conference will be staying at the Hotel Oceana, which is offering a special rate for those who identify themselves as conference attendees. Participants may arrive by plane at the Santa Barbara airport, which fields several flights per day from LAX.

AVN