Digital public service infrastructures for culture: is a non-commercial mandate possible? The dotPublic case study

About

This talk explores whether it is possible to imagine and develop genuinely non-commercial digital public infrastructures for culture in increasingly platformized media environments. Today, cultural production and circulation are largely dependent on corporate platforms whose business models rely on data extraction, algorithmic visibility and market-driven forms of sustainability. Within this context, independent audio creators and small production companies face growing difficulties in maintaining cultural autonomy, economic viability and public visibility outside commercial ecosystems.

Drawing on debates around Digital Public Infrastructures (DPI), Digital Public Spaces (DPS) and Public Service Media (PSM), the talk revisits how public service mandates might be extended beyond content provision towards the infrastructures of the internet itself. Particular attention will be paid to dotPublic, a project proposing a new “public service layer of the internet” guided by civic values, trust, permanence and accountability rather than commercial imperatives.

By examining emerging public and non-commercial infrastructural initiatives, the session will reflect on the possibility of building digital environments that support culture as a public good rather than as a purely market commodity. The talk contributes to ongoing discussions on internet governance, cultural policy and the future of public service in digital societies.

 

Ignacio Gallego is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. He is a member of the Audiovisual Diversity Research Group where he coordinates the line on Production, distribution and consumption of sound-musical content. He completed his doctoral thesis on Podcasting as a means of distribution of sound content in 2010. Gallego co-directs the Master in Music Industry and Sound Studies at UC3M, directs the contents of the Estación Podcast festival and is co-chair of the MARS (Music, Audio, Radio & Sound) Working Group of the IAMCR.

He is currently Visiting Research Fellow at the OII and he is researching on the impact and transformation of digital infrastructures on the distribution of and access to music, podcasts and other audio content.

Tony Ageh is Executive Director of dotPublic, a research and civic infrastructure project developing enforceable standards and a new top-level domain for public-serving institutions, anchored at Trinity College Dublin, where he is also Adjunct Assistant Professor.

He has held senior leadership roles across media, libraries, and digital innovation in the United Kingdom and the United States. At the BBC he led the team that created BBC iPlayer and later served as Controller of Archive Development, where he oversaw the corporation’s archive strategy. He has also held senior creative and digital leadership roles at the Guardian and Observer newspapers. He subsequently served as Chief Digital Officer at the New York Public Library, where he led major programmes in digitisation, access, and public engagement.

His work focuses on the intersection of public institutions, technology, and access to knowledge. Through dotPublic, he is developing a model for trusted, publicly governed digital infrastructure, working with partners across academia, civil society, and the cultural sector. He co-leads the dotPublic research programme at Trinity College Dublin’s ADAPT Centre with Professor Dave Lewis.