Media futures: A review essay on'The Future of Reputation','TV Futures', and'The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It'

In his 1987 book, The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at MIT, Stewart Brand provides an insight into the visions of the future of the media in the 1970s and 1980s. 1 He notes that Nicolas Negroponte made a compelling case for the foundation of a media laboratory at MIT with diagrams detailing the convergence of three sectors of the media—the broadcast and motion picture industry; the print and publishing industry; and the computer industry. Stewart Brand commented: ‘If Negroponte was right and communications technologies really are converging, you would look for signs that technological homogenisation was dissolving old boundaries out of existence, and you would expect an explosion of new media where those boundaries used to be’. Two decades later, technology developers, media analysts and lawyers have become excited about the latest phase of media convergence. In 2006, the faddish Time Magazine heralded the arrival of various Web 2.0 social networking services: You can learn more about how Americans live just by looking at the backgrounds of YouTube videos—those rumpled bedrooms and toy‐strewn basement rec rooms—than you could from 1,000 hours of network television. And we didn’t just watch, we also worked. Like crazy. We made Facebook profiles and Second Life avatars and reviewed books at Amazon and recorded podcasts. We blogged about our candidates losing and wrote songs about getting dumped. We camcordered bombing runs and built open‐source software. America loves its solitary geniuses—its Einsteins, its Edisons, its Jobses—but those lonely dreamers may have to learn to play with others. Car companies are running open design contests. Reuters is carrying blog postings alongside its regular news feed. Microsoft is working overtime to fend off user‐created Linux. We’re looking at an explosion of productivity and innovation, and it’s just getting started, as millions of minds that would otherwise have drowned in obscurity get backhauled into the global intellectual economy. The magazine announced that Time’s Person of the Year was ‘You’, the everyman and everywoman consumer ‘for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game’. This review essay considers three recent books, which have explored the legal dimensions of new media. In contrast to the unbridled exuberance of Time Magazine, this series of legal works displays an anxious trepidation about the legal ramifications associated with the rise of social networking services. In his tour de force, The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet, Daniel Solove considers the implications of social networking services, such as Facebook and YouTube, for the legal protection of reputation under privacy law and defamation law. Andrew Kenyon’s edited collection, TV Futures: Digital Television Policy in Australia, explores the intersection between media law and copyright law in the regulation of digital television and Internet videos. In The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It, Jonathan Zittrain explores the impact of ‘generative’ technologies and ‘tethered applications’—considering everything from the Apple Mac and the iPhone to the One Laptop per Child programme.

Reality bites: When copyright law and reality cooking meet, only the lawyers win

There’s nothing new about this recipe for success: toss in high-stress scenarios, flavour generously with competitive chefs, and garnish with a panel of celebrity judges. With all major broadcasters in the country now dishing up some form of reality cooking programme, Australians could be forgiven for having lost any expectation of original TV material. But that didn’t stop Channel Seven from taking Channel Nine to court last week, arguing its copyright in My Kitchen Rules had been infringed with Nine’s latest prime-time effort, The Hotplate. After the first few episodes went to air, Seven asked for an injunction to stop Nine from broadcasting any more episodes of the reality show. So let’s look at some common confusions about copyright law and how it relates to reality television. Because in this context, copyright infringement isn’t about shows sharing major similarities, or about protecting ideas, but rather the expression of these ideas in the final product. Still, stretching copyright law to protect the “vibe” of a work isn’t good for artists, TV producers or viewers: copyright was designed to nurture creativity, not stifle it.

Sports anti-siphoning laws and the controversy of sports broadcasting: A case study of Pakistan

Controversies between private and public broadcasters over the broadcasting of live sports, especially cricket, during important sports events have emerged as a serious legal issue in Pakistan. Controversy between Geo Super and Pakistan Television over live telecast of the ICC Cricket World Cup is a typical example of such controversies. An aggressive legal battle, during a most important cricketing event, not only hampered the enjoyment of cricket viewers across the country but also gave Pakistan a bad name across the globe. This article discusses in detail this controversy and highlights lacunas in the existing sports broadcasting regime of Pakistan. There are no clear and well defined sports broadcasting laws in Pakistan. The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) rules are of general nature. Secondly, PEMRA rules are not comprehensive and explicit enough to provide clear guidelines about sports broadcasting. This may be a possible reason why sports broadcasting controversies reach the highest court in Pakistan, the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Despite these ugly battles between broadcasters, the government of Pakistan has never given due importance to this issue and no efforts have been made at any level to come up with legislation on sports broadcasting to avoid such controversies or to resolve them amicably in the light of well-defined laws on this subject. The purpose of this article is to draw the attention of the concerned authorities towards this important issue because in future more such controversies may be expected in the absence of a sports broadcasting regime in the country.

Social Media Audience Metrics as a New Form of TV Audience Measurement

Digital media have contributed to significant disruptions in the business of audience measurement. Television broadcasters have long relied on simple and authoritative measures of who is watching what. The demand for ratings data, as a common currency in transactions involving advertising and program content, will likely remain, but accompanying measurements of audience engagement with media content would also be of value. Today's media environment increasingly includes social media and second-screen use, providing a data trail that affords an opportunity to measure engagement. If the limitations of using social media to indicate audience engagement can be overcome, social media use may allow for quantitative and qualitative measures of engagement. Raw social media data must be contextualized, and it is suggested that tools used by sports analysts be incorporated to do so. Inspired by baseball's Sabremetrics, the authors propose Telemetrics in an attempt to separate actual performance from contextual factors. Telemetrics facilitates measuring audience activity in a manner controlling for factors such as time slot, network, and so forth. It potentially allows both descriptive and predictive measures of engagement.

Drag på parnassen. Två sextiotalsstudier. : Del I: Medelklass med mänskligt ansikte. Medelklassradikalism i fyra romaner av Christer Kihlman, Jarl Sjöblom, Marianne Alopaeus och Ulla-Lena Lundberg. Del II: Modernistdebatten. Sak, person och fält i en finlandssvensk litteraturdebatt år 1965.

The objective of my dissertation Pull (or Draught, or Moves) at the Parnassus , is to provide a deeper understanding of Nordic Middle Class radicalism of the 1960 s as featured in Finland-Swedish literature. My approach is cultural materialist in a broad sense; social class is regarded a crucial aspect of the contents and contexts of the novels and literary discussions explored. In the first volume, Middle Class With A Human Face , novels by Christer Kihlman, Jarl Sjöblom, Marianne Alopaeus, and Ulla-Lena Lundberg, respectively, are read from the points of view of place, emotion, and power. The term "cryptotope" is used to designate the hidden places found to play an important role in all of these four narratives. Also, the "chronotope of the provincial small town", described by Mikhail Bakhtin in 1938, is exemplified in Kihlman s satirical novel, as is the chronotope of of war (Algeria, Vietnam) in those of Alopaeus and Lundberg s. All the four novels signal changes in the way general "scripts of emotions", e.g. jealousy, are handled and described. The power relations in the novels are also read, with reference to Michel Foucault. As the protagonists in two of them work as journalists, a critical discussion about media and Bourgeois hegemony is found; the term "repressive legitimation" is created to grasp these patterns of manipulation. The Modernist Debate , part II of the study, concerns a literary discussion between mainly Finland-Swedish authors and critics. Essayist Johannes Salminen (40) provided much of the fuel for the debate in 1963, questioning the relevance to contemporary life of the Finland-Swedish modernist tradition of the 1910 s and 1920 s. In 1965, a group of younger authors and critics, including poet Claes Andersson (28), followed up this critique in a debate taking place mainly in the newspaper Vasabladet. Poets Rabbe Enckell (62), Bo Carpelan (39) and others defended a timeless poetry. This debate is contextualized and the changing literary field is analyzed using concepts provided by sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. In the thesis, the historical moment of Middle Class radicalism with a human face is regarded a temporary luxury that new social groups could afford themselves, as long as they were knocking over the statues and symbols of the Old Bourgeoisie. This is not to say that all components of the Sixties strategy have lost their power. Some of them have survived and even grown, others remain latent in the gene bank of utopias, waiting for new moments of change.

Relevance of prior experience in MHP based interactive TV services

Despite its rising success, interactive TV (iTV) has found very little attention in the field of HCI. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to investigate the usability of iTV services. It presents the results of a usability test and discusses the implications for further developments. The results show, that prior knowledge of Internet and mobile phones supports the usability of iTV services regarding navigation and text input, while the lack of it leads to great difficulties. Difficult tasks, such as writing a text message, had a success rate of only 20%, while guided tours proofed to be more usable with a success rate of 70%.

Domestic violence on #qanda: The “Man” question in live Twitter discussion on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Q&A

Domestic violence is currently undergoing a period of heightened visibility in Australia. This article uses social media to analyze public discussions about this violence with respect to a specific theoretical frame, which Adrian Howe has called the “Man” question: where and how are men visible or invisible in narratives about their violence against women? The article presents a qualitative study of the Twitter conversation surrounding a special episode of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's television program Q&A, themed around family violence, which aired in February 2015. We found that the place of men in this conversation was contested. Some tweets privileged men's voices and concerns, as did the organization and production of the program. However, feminist voices were also highly visible via presenting facts, legitimating survivor voices, and recuperating anti-feminist memes to challenge hegemonic patriarchal discourses on men's violence against women. La violence conjugale connait actuellement une visibilité accrue en Australie. Les auteures du présent article utilisent les réseaux sociaux pour analyser les débats publics sur cette violence selon un cadre théorique précis, qu'Adrian Howe a appelé la question de « l'homme » : où et comment les hommes sont-ils visibles ou invisibles dans les récits de leur violence envers les femmes? L'article présente une étude qualitative d'une conversation sur Twitter au sujet d'un épisode axé sur la famille diffusé en février 2015 dans le cadre de l'émission Q & A, à la télévision nationale d'Australie. Nous avons remarqué que dans cette conversation la place des hommes était remise en question. Certains tweets privilégiaient les voix et les craintes des hommes, comme l'ont fait les organisateurs et les producteurs de l'émission. Cependant, il y avait une forte présence de voix féministes dans la présentation des faits, légitimant le point de vue des survivantes et relevant des éléments culturels antiféministes afin de défier les discours hégémoniques et patriarcaux sur la violence des hommes envers les femmes.

Uuden median murros Alma Mediassa, Sanoma Oy:ssä ja Yleisradiossa 1994-2004

This is a qualitative and multimethodological comparative study, which consists of two main parts: examining the development of new media and analysing and comparing the new media strategies of the three companies studied (Alma Media, Sanoma and the Finnish Broadcasting Company Yleisradio). The study includes the first large-scale review in Finnish of the development of new media, paying attention to the birth of the Internet as well as to mobile media, web TV and any other element of new media. It also concentrates on the function of electronic distribution channels before the age of the Internet, e.g. cable text and videotext. Answers about how the three traditional Finnish media houses began spreading their content to the Internet and wireless applications in 1994–2004 are also given. In researching the new media strategies the study pays special attention to the attitudes that the three media companies adopted towards the Internet and other forms of new media in their strategies during the years in question. By analysing and comparing, e.g., the companies’ strategies and their investments, the study ascertains whether the companies had a joint functional model in adopting new media or acted totally on their own without taking too much notice of the media field overall. The study makes extensive use of previously published material. The researcher has also interviewed almost twenty people who were involved in getting the companies’ new media functions under way. The methods for the interviews were dialogue and snowball sampling. The researcher has created a classification in which he divides the business strategies into four different categories: active strategy, careful strategy, permissive strategy, and passive strategy. In comparing and analysing the companies the researcher has used the classification devised by Allan Afuah & Christopher L. Tucci. The seven element classification consists of dominant managerial logic, competency trap, fear of cannibalisation and loss of revenue, channel conflict, political power, co-opetitor power and emotional attachment. In analysing the company strategies the researcher has also noted the classifications of convergence made by Everette E. Dennis and Graham Murdock as well as the aspects formulated by Sylvia Chan-Olmsted and Louisa Ha concerning the success of the companies in adopting the Internet into their functions. Based on all these classifications and by further developing them the researcher analyses and compares the success of the new media strategies of the three Finnish companies. The outcome of the study is a conclusion as to what kind of strategies the companies have carried out their new media functions and how they have succeeded in it.

Teille on syntynyt Vapahtaja : Joulun kirkollinen sanoma, jouluperinteet ja perheyhteisö Yleisradion TV-jumalanpalvelusten joulusaarnoissa 1985 - 2009

Yleisradion jouluaamuna lähettämä TV-jumalanpalvelus kerää vuosittain enemmän katsojia kuin kaikissa Suomen kirkoissa yhteensä käy ihmisiä samana aamuna. TV:n joulusaarnalla onkin merkitystä siihen, miten ihmiset mieltävät kirkon sanoman joulusta. Tämän tutkimuksen tarkoituksena oli tarkastella TV-jumalanpalveluksen joulusaarnan muutosta vuosien 1985 ja 2009 välisenä aikana sekä toteutuksen että sisällön näkökulmasta. Pääasiallisena tutkimuskohteena oli sisällön muutos (1) kirkollisen sanoman, (2) jouluperinteen ja -tunnelman sekä (3) perheyhteisön kuvausten suhteen. Teemat valittiin aiempien saarnatutkimusten sekä kolmen joulusaarnan alustavan analyysin perusteella. Tutkimusaineiston muodostivat kaikki Kirkon tiedotuskeskuksen arkistosta löytyneet joulusaarnat, joissa oli sekä kuva että ääni. Aineisto koostui 20 saarnasta, jotka litteroitiin ja analysoitiin. Lisäksi nauhoitettiin kaksi taustahaastattelua. Tutkimusmetodina käytettiin kvalitatiivista metodia, teoriaohjaavaa sisällönanalyysiä, jonka tulokset luokiteltiin ja kvantifioitiin. Sisällönanalyysin tuloksia havainnollistettiin taulukoiden ja graafisten kuvioiden avulla. Muutoksen havaitsemisen apuna käytettiin summamuuttujia neljän tarkastelujakson osalta, vuosilta 1985-1991, 1992-1996, 2000-2004 ja 2005-2009. Saarnojen toteutuksen suhteen todettiin, että joulusaarnat lyhentyivät hieman tutkimusjakson aikana. Saarnan kuvitus muuttui vuodesta 2003 lähtien niukemmaksi, jotta katsojat voisivat keskittyä paremmin saarnan sisältöön. Saarnaajien oheisviestintä oli vähäistä, ja useimmiten saarnaajilla oli vain yksi ilme ja erittäin vähän eleitä. Kertomusten käyttö lisääntyi saarnoissa selvästi, ja vuosina 2005-2009 sekä jouluevankeliumia että muita raamatunkohtia havainnollistettiin kertomusten avulla aiempaa enemmän. Yleisin saarnoissa lainattu raamatunkohta oli enkelien julistus ”Teille on syntynyt Vapahtaja” . Jeesukseen viittaavat nimitykset muuttuivat tutkimusjakson aikana mielenkiintoisella tavalla. Nimike Jeesus oli yleisin nimike vuodesta 1985 vuoteen 2004. Sen jälkeen yleisimmäksi nimikkeeksi nousi lapsi, ja joulusaarnoissa käytettiin runsaasti myös muita yleiskieleen kuuluvia nimikkeitä, jotka tiivistettiin muotoon avuton lapsi/vastasyntynyt. Perinteisiä kristillisiä nimikkeitä, kuten Herra, Kristus ja seimen lapsi, ei käytetty vuosina 2005-2009 lainkaan. Tämä herätti kysymyksen siitä, onko joulun sanoma maallistunut. Oletus ei saanut tukea kirkolliseen sanomaan liittyvien teemojen tarkastelusta. Vaikka syyllisyyden kuvaukset vähentyivät, rakkauden merkitys korostui tutkimusjakson loppua kohden, ja myös elämän tarkoitukseen liittyvät asiat mainittiin 2000-luvulla useammin kuin aiemmin. Erityisesti inkarnaation Jumalan ihmiseksi tulemisen kuvaukset lisääntyivät, joten joulun kirkollinen ydinsanoma oli entistä selkeämmin esillä. Jouluperinteen kuvausten suhteen ei havaittu muutosta vuosikymmenten aikana. Tunnelmaa kuvattiin tutkimusjakson alussa rauhan ja ihmeen käsittein, mutta lopussa valo korostui. Perheyhteisön kuvaukset olivat hyvin esillä, sillä lapset mainittiin joka toisessa ja perhe joka kolmannessa saarnassa. Lapset mainittiin vuosikymmenten kuluessa entistä useammin, ja myös yksinäisyyden kuvaukset lisääntyivät. Seurakunta mainittiin joulusaarnoissa hyvin harvoin, mikä sai pohtimaan seurakunnan roolia yhteisöllisyyden kannalta. Tutkimuksen johtopäätöksenä todettiin, että suomalaisen nyky-yhteiskunnan maallistumiskehitys ei näy TV:n joulusaarnoissa 1985-2009.

An efficient pricing based protocol for broadcasting in wireless ad hoc networks

In many applications of wireless ad hoc networks, wireless nodes are owned by rational and intelligent users. In this paper, we call nodes selfish if they are owned by independent users and their only objective is to maximize their individual goals. In such situations, it may not be possible to use the existing protocols for wireless ad hoc networks as these protocols assume that nodes follow the prescribed protocol without deviation. Stimulating cooperation among these nodes is an interesting and challenging problem. Providing incentives and pricing the transactions are well known approaches to stimulate cooperation. In this paper, we present a game theoretic framework for truthful broadcast protocol and strategy proof pricing mechanism called Immediate Predecessor Node Pricing Mechanism (IPNPM). The phrase strategy proof here means that truth revelation of cost is a weakly dominant-strategy (in game theoretic terms) for each node. In order to steer our mechanism-design approach towards practical implementation, we compute the payments to nodes using a distributed algorithm. We also propose a new protocol for broadcast in wireless ad hoc network with selfish nodes based on IPNPM. The features of the proposed broadcast protocol are reliability and a significantly reduced number of packet forwards compared to the number of network nodes, which in turn leads to less system-wide power consumption to broadcast a single packet. Our simulation results show the efficacy of the proposed broadcast protocol.

Uhrihaastatteluista poliitikkojen kovisteluun : Tutkimus Jokelan ja Kauhajoen koulusurmien tv-uutisoinnin kerrontatavoista

Medialla on valta päättää, miten väkivallasta kerrotaan, ja miten kriisit esitetään. Median kerrontatavoilla on suuri vaikutus siihen, miten katastrofi näyttäytyy tavalliselle kansalaiselle. Keskityn tutkielmassani siihen, millaisia kerrontatapoja Jokelan ja Kauhajoen koulusurmien tv-uutisointiin on rakennettu. Selvitän, mitä eroja ja yhtäläisyyksiä uutiskerronnassa oli kahden koulusurmatapauksen välillä sekä eri tv-kanavien välillä. Tarkastelen myös, mitkä toimijat korostuvat uutisten eri kerrontatavoissa. Laadullisen tutkimusotteen piirissä metodologinen tutkimustapani on representaatioanalyysi. Tutkielman lähtökohtana on malli katastrofiuutisoinnin kerrontatavoista. Gert Z. Nordström (1996) on kehittänyt mallin alun perin kuva-analyysiä varten. Myöhemmin sitä on sovellettu mediatekstien analyysiin (Huhtala jaa Hakala 2007). Tässä tutkielmassa sovellan mallia audiovisuaalisen kerronnan analyysiin. Tutkimusaineistoni koostuu television uutislähetyksistä seitsemän päivän ajalta sekä Jokelan että Kauhajoen tapahtumien jälkeen neljällä valtakunnallisella tv-kanavalla. Analyysimallin mukaisesti koulusurmat esitetään televisiossa käyttäen eeppistä, dramaattista, lyyristä ja didaktista kerrontatapaa. Lisäksi kyseessä olleesta tv-aineistosta nousi viides kerronnan luokka, kriittinen kerronta. Eeppisellä kerronnalla tarkoitetaan tyypillistä raportoivaa ja referoivaa uutiskerrontaa. Dramaattista kerrontaa käytetään raportoitaessa suoraan tapahtumapaikalta. Lyyrinen kerronta kuvaa tunteita. Didaktisessa kerronnassa pohditaan, mitä tapahtuneesta voi oppia. Kriittisen kerronnan keinoin vaaditaan vastuunottoa tapahtuneesta. Tv-uutisten kerrontatavoissa näyttäisi korostuvan eeppisen kerronnan määrä. Kauhajoen ja Jokelan uutiskerronnat kuitenkin erosivat toisistaan niin, että eeppinen kerronta lisääntyi entisestään Kauhajoen uutisoinnissa. Myös kriittinen kerronta korostui Kauhajoen uutisoinnissa. Jokelan uutisoinnissa esiintyi puolestaan enemmän dramaattista, lyyristä ja didaktista kerrontaa. MTV3-kanavalla käytettiin muita kanavia vähemmän eeppistä kerrontaa. Didaktista kerrontaa esiintyi MTV3:lla muita kanavia reilusti enemmän molempien koulusurmatapausten yhteydessä. Lisäksi MTV3-kanavalla esiintyi eniten kriittistä kerrontaa Kauhajoen uutisoinnissa. YLEn ja Nelosen kerrontatapojen esiintyminen oli lähes samankaltaista sekä Jokelan että Kauhajoen uutisoinnissa. Jokelan uutisoinnissa Nelonen käytti kuitenkin merkittävästi enemmän dramaattista kerrontaa YLEen verrattuna. Jokelan uutisoinnissa toimijoina korostuivat ampuja, ja uhrit, kun taas Kauhajoella päätoimijoita olivat poliisi ja poliitikot. Jokelan tv-uutisoinnissa sekä uhrit että ampuja olivat kolmen keskeisimmän toimijan joukossa useassa kerrontatavan luokassa. Kauhajoen uutisoinnissa puolestaan uhrit eivät olleet missään kerrontatavan luokassa kolmen keskeisimmän toimijan joukossa, ja ampujakin vain yhdessä luokassa. Eeppisen ja kriittisen kerrontatavan korostuminen sekä poliitikkojen keskeisyys toimijoina Kauhajoen tv-uutisoinnissa kertoo siitä, että Jokelaan nähden Kauhajoen koulusurmien uutisointi oli selvästi yhteiskuntakeskeisempää. Jokelan uutisointi painottui enemmän yksittäisen tapahtuman traagisuuteen sekä henkilökohtaloihin.

Fuzzy Clustering Based Ad Recommendation for TV Programs

Advertisements(Ads) are the main revenue earner for Television (TV) broadcasters. As TV reaches a large audience, it acts as the best media for advertisements of products and services. With the emergence of digital TV, it is important for the broadcasters to provide an intelligent service according to the various dimensions like program features, ad features, viewers’ interest and sponsors’ preference. We present an automatic ad recommendation algorithm that selects a set of ads by considering these dimensions and semantically match them with programs. Features of the ad video are captured interms of annotations and they are grouped into number of predefined semantic categories by using a categorization technique. Fuzzy categorical data clustering technique is applied on categorized data for selecting better suited ads for a particular program. Since the same ad can be recommended for more than one program depending upon multiple parameters, fuzzy clustering acts as the best suited method for ad recommendation. The relative fuzzy score called “degree of membership” calculated for each ad indicates the membership of a particular ad to different program clusters. Subjective evaluation of the algorithm is done by 10 different people and rated with a high success score.