Television is changing ho established corporations’ approach new demands by Internet-serviced audiences. Trailblazing deals in the TV industry that signal profound change among viewers could set a precedent for written media. At the very least, the deals should provide inspiration.
Yesterday’s full-blast launch to U.S. TV audiences of Hulu.com, the YouTube competitor service scrambled together by NBC and Fox, LionsGate and Sony Pictures Television, underpins this. The new site allows American viewers to watch TV shows, including advertising, online for free. Hulu.com already is wildly popular because it allows people to watch shows in their own time, rather than being determined by an agenda set by the tv stations.
In a counter move, YouTube has opened its API to developers so that it will be able to compete through being more widely embedded in other sites. It has also improved its own site. Users now are advised not to download shows for which they don’t have the modem speed, for instance.
Joost.com, a similar service set up by Skype inventors which aims to reach international audiences, also launched a new package yesterday. According to its creators all went better than expected.
I am not going to write an entire post about the TV industry, but want to point out the major difference between written media and TV entertainment; written media can also repackage and release its content but it will always remain slightly limited by the clock for news coverage. After all, news is real; it needs to happen before the dissemination process can begin. The platforms that dish out the news are already visited by people who designate their own time to the consumption of the news.
The prime lesson to be learned perhaps is in the packaging. Throwing stuff from competing institutions together to make an extra valuable tool for targeted advertising appears to be a workable concept. Aggregation logic in the news media runs on totally different numbers, but it always has done, so there’s little to worry over when you see that two major tv stations are having to cluster together to stay competitive.
The international community has strongly condemned the Chinese clampdown on Tibet protesters. Reports indicate that between 30 to over 100 people have been killed in the protests. The actor Richard Gere has called for a boycott of the Olympics.
The Tibet protest has led to the killing of up to an estimated 100 people thus far and international outcry has been voiced from various quarters.
Barack Obama, the Democratic Presidential candidate issued a strong condemnation, saying "This is the year of the Beijing Olympics. It represents an opportunity for China to show the world what it has accomplished in the last several decades. Those accomplishments have been extraordinary and China's people have a right to be proud of them, but the events in Tibet these last few days unfortunately show a different face of China."
Richard Gere, the Hollywood actor, urged for a boycott of the Games saying this would draw attention to the Tibetan cause.
The India residing Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who is known for his wish to see a 'cultural autonomy' rather than outright independence for Tibet, confirmed that between 30 to over 100 people had been killed. He said he felt "deep concern" and urged China to deal with the "resentment of the Tibetan people through dialogue". He called on the Tibetans not to use violence; "I also urge my fellow Tibetans not to resort to violence."
The protests which started in the Tibetal capital Lhasa, spread to various other cities, including in India, Nepal, Australia and China itself. Apart from in Lhasa, where shops were set on fire and dozens of people were killed, Indian police also took harsh action and the protests turned violent.
The UK leader Gordon Brown also expressed his concern saying "We are very concerned about what is happening in Tibet. We have asked for more information about what is going on and we will keep this matter under review."
Last Friday the Nepalese authorities, faced with up to 500 people staging a peaceful sit in outside the UN building in the capital, gave in to Chinese diplomatic pressure to close the south side of Everest for a week in May, while the Chinese Olympic torch team is on the mountain. Reason? Protesters might cause a PR embarrassment.
Tibetan monks in China from the Labrang monastery went on a march together with hundreds of Tibetans. The march turned into a riot and government buildings were attacked and windows of the police headquarters were broken. The protest ended when the police fired tear gas.
In Sydney, protesters scaled a wall surrounding China's consulate and removed the Chinese national flag and tried to replace it with a Tibetan flag. Four people were arrested when police used pepper spray to disperse the crowd after a plain clothes officer had been attacked.
Tibet's government-in-exile urged the United Nations to intervene to end what it called "urgent human rights violations" by China in the region.
We are currently witnessing a hype of idealism online. Social networks and crowdsourcing initiatives seem to thrive on and propel unprecedented amounts of karma. How are governments fitting in?
This is the prime issue to address if you want to find out whether the increased idealism is actually resulting in higher levels of democracy. e-Government sites offer good measurement tools. You might find cool devices from the corporate sector too, but these tend to inform you of one thing only; brands and their impact. The latter is increasingly being seen as an important democratic indicator and perhaps this is a good development. After all, if our choices increasingly reflect decisions that we're taking, being part of entire production/manufacturing processes, our notion of democratic input is accordingly spreading from the realm of politics only to the realm of production too.
Brand measurement per se is not my cup of tea; I have no desire to find out what the hell the latest crisp brand is doing on my kitchen shelf. I am an avid crowdsource platform participant, but I ain't that convinced that my attitudes are changing to the level of crisp awareness... There is a dynamics involved in crowdsourcing which incites consumer choice and which is tilting the balance toward consumer decisions. That dynamics takes activity away from the producers, so it's pointless trying to capitalize on the type of democracy consumers are ontologizing. Completely different issues are important in democratic input in the production spheres.
Government initiatives at (e-)democracy for the time being make a lot more sense because they are that much more open to suggestions from the ground. Plus whenever you search for studies, you get more diverse, sensical, headlines. 'Does promoting community participation in governance help build social capital?', is such a headline.
The study behind it, carried out in the UK on behalf of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, draws on a rigorous review of academic evidence and original research. The researchers, a team from Demos, went to two deprived neighbourhoods in the UK (- Ely and Careau in Cardiff, and Benchill in Wythenshawe, Manchester) trying to find out the answer to this question.
In doing so, the researchers temporarily place the government at the total opposite end of the spectrum as the corporate sector. By picking a virtually impossible field (less than 1% of the population in these areas have healthy government links), the outcome is likely as predictable as the measurement studies of corporate sector driven researchers are. However, the government sponsored studies are as direly needed as corporations' efforts are wasteful and annoying.
The logic of modern life is at best ironic. The Rowntree study found the neighborhoods to be tiny microcosms of a world where the rich get richer. The key factor influencing the low level of participation in governance turned out to be that those already well-connected tended to get better connected.
The researchers devised ideas to improve the situation, building on the notion that there's growing evidence that some social networks enable citizens to work together to tackle problems for themselves. The project was a test of the limits of 'social capital'.
They focused on a concept known as 'linking social capital'. The theory is that involving people in the governance of services, government/community members' relationships are built.
During the fieldwork, researchers identified six core influences, which worked in interrelated pairs, grouped under the umbrella terms inequity, exclusivity and dependency.
Inequity Preferential attachment: The networks surrounding participation tended to have a few nodes only. The rich get richer: Participation confers benefits which do not necessarily 'trickle down' to non-participants. Individuals who gain 'linking social capital' through participation in governance increase their likelihood of continuing to gain more linking social capital.
Exclusivity Closure: The value of linking social capital may come from preventing others from accessing it. It can suit public sector partners to work with some community representatives rather than others, and it can suit those representatives to be the community voices that public sector partners listen to in decision-making. Self-exclusion: The study found at least three reasons why people opted out of activities in which, in theory, it served their interest to be involved. Some people simply decided that governance was not for them.
Dependency Community dependency: "Those who shout loudest get somewhere," said one of the interviewees. "But who is going to ring up those people who weren't at the meeting and ask them if everything is ok?" Institutional dependency: "There is a tendency to over-use the key people", one community activist said, explaining how institutions themselves also play a key part in fostering a culture of dependency on a small community elite. "As soon as you start going to one meeting or other the vultures come in," she said. There is often a temptation to go for the quick fix of recruiting an existing community participant who is a known quantity, rather than to invest scarce time and resources in attracting new people who may not end up participating fully or who may drop out.
The project was conducted in two of the UK's poorest areas and the researchers staked a very odd sounding claim in their study; that if the government could achieve a goal of a 1% participation rate, this would build some (instead of none) social capital. It gives you an idea of the situation.
Mobilise participation by 1 per cent of citizens and something of a viral element might be spiralling into effect; "Embed this [1%] in the wider rhythms and routines of community life", the researchers suggest. They added seven ideas illustrating how the solution might work;
- Backing social entrepeneurs - Disconnecting and reconnecting (to remove the barriers) - Building trust gradually - Involving other citizens - Long-term capacity building for participation - Making participation a national priority - Refashioning the role of local councillors
Other democracy inspired initiatives such as People and Participation are online and list lots of different community projects that show an idealism of the first order. These initiatives are mostly new. The great thing is that aside from providing an impetus that works interdependently, many of the projects are likely going to be measured too.
A new genealogy site allows you to upload a picture of your kid, your (ex) spouse and your self and have them analyzed on facial features. The face analysis meter indicates who your kid resembles more. In my case, our 12 year old son resembles me 4% more. On other pictures my ex scored better, but I think that objectively speaking the 4% is just about right. There's also a celebrity morphing tool on that site.
A higher carbon footprint is negatively correlated with the outbreak of war and control for income effects, say Norwegian political scientists.
The Norwegian scientists collated historic evidence about war situation and environmental settings globally over the years 1961-1999 and found that there is no support for the regular Neomalthusan theory - the theory that says wars are caused by dwindling food sufficiency.
In an article published in the peer-reviewed journal Population and Environment, researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) say the theory that wars are mainly caused by a country’s food production failing to keep up with its population growth, is untrue. Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) said that starvation, war and early death regulates the balance between food availability and population numbers. That means that the bulk of the population would live a minimalist existence.
Malthus' theory is pretty much standardly accepted theory among political scientists and sociologists. They see climate change and over-consumption of natural resources as a modern day illustration of Malthus’ theory.
Accepting the award of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, former US Vice President Al Gore Jr. made sure to underline this once more too, saying that ”Extensive climate changes may alter and threaten the living conditions of much of mankind. They may induce large-scale migration and lead to greater competition for the earth’s resources. Such changes will place particularly heavy burdens on the world’s most vulnerable countries. There may be increased danger of violent conflicts and wars, within and between states.”
The Norwegian political scientists say their research findings suggests that there is no connection between environmental crises and armed conflict.
They studied the environmental pressures in 150 countries in the period from 1961 to 1999. "By using an internationally recognized technique for measuring a country’s environmental sustainability, the ecological footprint, the researchers were able to compare these numbers with statistics on armed conflict during the same period.
The scientists' conclusion may seem paradoxical. "[Countries] where resources are heavily exploited show a clear connection to a lack of armed conflict", they found. Or alternatively, nations troubled by war during the research period had lower exploitation rates of their natural resources. The findings give researchers solid empirical support for stating that environmental scarcity is not the reason behind violent conflict.
The scientists say that there are of course exceptions. They also studied examples of recent areas stricken by conflicts and say that it can't be denied that some of these are caused by natural resource scarcity. Darfur, Sudan, Rwanda, Haiti and Somalia are examples of this.
"I have seen with my own eyes how climate change and resource scarcity, particularly when it comes to water and grazing lands, can fuel tensions", says Jan Egeland, director of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI).
Egeland is the former UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator. He used to be responsible for refugee issues, and has seen many conflicts across the globe that surely could have been caused by environmental crises.
In his previous job, Egeland has gone on the record saying that the Darfur conflict was the result of an environmental crisis. But following this research work, he said, he's now a little more uncertain of such a causal connection.
Malthus lived well before the later technological breakthroughs, such as the Green Revolution. This has 'altered his bleak global caloric intake equation', Binningsbø said.
The researchers relied in their ecological research on techniques developed by the Global Footprint Network, which specializes in measuring a country’s resource consumption compared to its ecological capacity.
The method is widely used as a measurement technique, but has also been criticised. Researchers have argued that the method can only be applied on a global basis, in as much as countries trade with each other, and therefore aren’t necessarily solely dependent on their own natural resources.
