Trisha Meyer is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for European Studies and an assistant professor at Vesalius College. Her main research focus is on intellectual property rights and Internet governance in the European Union. In this context, she is particularly interested in the European institutions' arduous task to reconcile values and interests among stakeholders. Trisha has a background in media and communications. At the IES, Trisha collaborates on three research projects, the Global Internet Policy Observatory (GIPO), the PARticipatory platform for sustainable ENergy management (PARENT) and eCoherence on value reconciliation in economic law. She also coordinates the Brussels study abroad programme. At Vesalius College, Trisha teaches courses on Mass Communication Theories and European Communication Policies. In 2014, Trisha defended her PhD, entitled Access and control. The political economy of online copyright enforcement in the European Union. Her research investigated policy initiatives dealing with the online enforcement of copyright in the European Union. Trisha became interested in this topic due to the difficulty to enforce copyright on the Internet. While copyright seeks to protect creative content, the Internet encourages its widespread distribution. Trisha answered the research question: how and why online copyright enforcement policies have developed in the European Union. Building on the theory of political economy of communications and the empirical analysis of her five cases, Trisha contended that the outcome of the policy initiatives is determined by an intricate interplay of ideas, discourses, interests and institutions. Policy stakeholders compete to see their ideas and interests adopted into policy. Trisha concludes that stakeholders’ views on creativity and stances on the role of copyright and the Internet in society determine how they define the policy problems, solutions and goals at hand in online copyright enforcement. Analysis of her cases also reveals that the meager outcome of the online copyright enforcement initiatives at the level of the European Union is due to the lack of common interests between the media and Internet & technology industries. Currently the Internet & technology industries have little incentive to pro-actively enforce copyright online. At the same time the cases indicate that civil society actors succeed in giving pushback on online copyright enforcement policies. In the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, they even reverse European Union plans. In her research, Trisha raises concern about the use of monitoring, blocking and filtering technology to regulate the availability of creative content. The Internet built with open, unfettered communication in mind, provides exciting opportunities for creativity, collaboration and freedom of expression. However neither technology nor policy are neutral. Careful consideration is needed on how and why we regulate access and control on the Internet. Today, Trisha continues to be fascinated by the topic of EU online copyright enforcement, but tends to work more broadly on the EU digital single market, intermediary liability and Internet governance. Theoretically, she approaches these subject areas from the perspectives of political economy of communications, value reconciliation and participatory governance. Methodologically, she is interested in process tracing, discourse analysis and multidisciplinarity in research.

Political science studies