Review of: Powered by Smart: A Prehistory of Everyday AI , Sarah Murray (2026) New York: New York University Press, 319 pp., ISBN 978-1-47983-637-6, h/bk, USD 99.00
Post-conflict media reform environments often falter due to the uncritical application of Eurocentric regulatory frameworks. In the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), an analogue-era legal framework, anchored by Journalism Law No. 35 of 2007, fails to address modern digital challenges, including platform monopolies, algorithmic curation and opaque media ownership. To tackle these structural vulnerabilities, the Kurdish Media Watchdog (CHMK) convened the 3rd round of the CHMK National Forum for Media Reform at SOAS University of London on 8–9 July 2026. This gathering produced the CHMK 10-Year Strategic Policy Roadmap (2026–2036), a decolonized masterplan for democratic media governance and structural reform. Developed alongside national and international partners, including the UK Media Reform Coalition (MRC), Goldsmiths Leverhulme Media Research Centre (GLMRC), the Journal of Digital Media & Policy ( JDMP ), the Kanga Educational Foundation (KEF) and the Vision Agency for International Development (VisionAID), the roadmap bridges empirical research with actionable policy. Submitted to KRI governing bodies and civil society, it offers a sustainable model for media sovereignty in the digital age.
Review of: Digital Decade: How the EU Shapes Digitalisation Research , Rita Gsenger and Marie-Therese Sekwenz (eds) (2025) Baden-Baden: Nomos, 524 pp., ISBN 978-3-75601-741-6, h/bk, EUR 174.00
Review of: Marketing in the Metaverse: Opportunities, Challenges, and Future Trends in Emerging Economies , Abu Bashar, Brighton Nyagadza and Mohammad Wasiq (eds) (2026) London: Palgrave MacMillan, 456 pp., ISBN 978-3-03202-365-0, e-book, EUR 149.79
Video games are among the main entry points to the Metaverse and offer a glimpse of its possible realization, thereby serving as a useful arena for discussing and anticipating policy frameworks. This article analyses three well-known and diverse metaversal games – Fortnite , Minecraft and Guild Wars 2 – at two levels. At the surface, the analysis focuses on the narratives that unfold across interaction while transmitting values and shaping the gamer’s subjectivities in forms that transcend the game arena. At a more infrastructural level, we analyse the terms of service, which coalesce from the companies’ histories and their efforts to balance economic profit and fair participation. This analysis aims to explore a series of issues contemplated in the EU Declaration of Digital Rights and Principles and identified in the previous review of grey literature produced by governmental or well-established non-governmental institutions. From a humanities perspective on Metaverse policy, this article considers metaversal games as potential participatory spaces for collectively proposing a more ethical and diverse Metaverse.
