Berkeley China Internet Project

The Berkeley China Internet Project of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism is a good project for students of Chinese Media to keep an eye on. It's stated goals are ambitious:

"To explore interactive digital media and communication technologies in order to advance the world's understanding of China, and to promote the knowledge, culture and social practices of those technologies which will facilitate China's democratic transition, sustainable development and peaceful emergence in the global community." (website)

The activities of BCIP are centered around the development of a participatory media website, China Digital Times, a collaborative news website covering China’s social and political issues. It aggregates up-to-the-minute news and analysis about China from around the Web, in addition to providing independent reporting, translations from Chinese cyberspace, and perspectives from around the world.

BCIP focuses on two other initiatives, China Digital Pulse, which publishes on, among other subjects, the rise of participatory media in Chinese cyberspace and its effects on politics, and politics, and China Digital Future which offers "classes, forecasting exercises and a virtual community focusing on the interplay of participatory media, collective action and China's democratic transition." (website)

Journal article feature on disaster communication

The lead article in the latest issue of International Journal of Strategic Communication (Volume 2, Issue 2 2008) is a timely one, though not timely enough given recent disaster in Myanmar. The article, Disaster Communication: Lessons from Indonesia, authored by Elizabeth K. Dougall, J. Suzanne Horsley, and Chadd McLisky, is available online from the homepage.

Abstract
This article explores public disaster communication in the context of five separate disasters in Indonesia, including acts of terrorism in Bali and Jakarta and the 2004 tsunami. The concept of high reliability organizations (HRO), which explains how highly complex organizations function in unpredictable and dangerous circumstances, is applied here to explore how one public relations firm under contract to several Indonesian government departments handled these complex disaster communication challenges in partnership with its clients. Propositions about the role of HRO characteristics in permitting or preventing effective disaster communication are advanced.

Washington Post political ads database

Not too long ago the resource environment was very unfriendly to anyone trying to study political ad campaigns. Not anymore. Still another addition to the ad campaign research landscape is brought to us by The Washington Post which hosts a free database of "political advertisements funded by campaigns, parties, committees, and independent advocacy groups." So far the coverage is restricted to the last three years with most of the ads tied to specific presidential, House, Senate, or gubernatorial races throughout the country.

It's a clean and usefully indexed database. Ads are accessible by year, type of race, candidate/organization, state, party, issue (corruption, crime, war, environment, gay marriage, etc.), character ("real people," blue collar workers, children, elderly, teachers, shoppers, students, Santa Claus, etc.), cue ( Capitol building, flag, September 11, icebergs, ocean, prison, dead bodies, cowboy hats, etc. ), media (radio, TV, web), music (patriot, somber, upbeat, ominous), narrator, and type (attack, biographical, emotional, humorous, endorsement, etc.).

Introducing Silobreaker

Silobreaker is a unique news aggregator that pulls content on global issues, science, technology and business from approximately 10,000 news, blog, research and multimedia sources. Using relational analysis and visualization tools, it is a free service for anyone interested in tracking topics, people, companies, places, or key words in web news sources. The service was designed with journalists, researchers, marketing and industry analysts in mind. Besides using Silobreaker for your own research topics, you may just want to check into certain sections of the site such as Media Attention Trends which currently showcases coverage (in the last week) of the democratic and republican candidates, narcotics, bird flu by country, acts of terrorism: Iraq vs. Afghanistan, and game consoles. Or you can make up your own topic. Many Silo users also subscribe to the Silobreaker.blog

Future of Reputation

In the Future of Reputation (Yale, 2007) Daniel Solove, an authority on information privacy law, looks at gossip in all its nternet manifestations--issues of publicity, shame, and how we can protect our own reputations. Solove believes that "long-standing notions of privacy need review" and that "unless we establish a balance between privacy and free speech, we may discover that the freedom of the Internet makes us less free."
--publisher's website

But why do I give this book its own blog post, besides the fact that it's very well-reviewed? Because it's available in fulltext online for free (as well as from Yale University Press, Amazon, etc.). The work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial 3.0 United States license.

Wikinews

Wikinews, a wiki modelled on the successful collaboration template of Wikipedi, is a free online news site that "you can write." Since 2004, this citizen news site, now in over 20 languages, encourages its citizens to write their own articles and edit or expand any existing article they want. I find this amusing, from the About section of the site: "Please note that if you have been involved in an event that you want Wikinews to report on, it may be more appropriate for you to request an interview with the Wikinews community. Requesting an interview is like holding a press conference." You'll find two kinds of articles at the site, original reports and synthesis articles that collect news from other sources (citing them, of course). The overseers at Wikinews claim to have a "neutral news policy" which you can read more about at the site. If true, it would be a first in the history of journalism, a worthy news story in and of itself! The graph above illustrates the growth of English Wikinews (red line) compared to the 7 largest language versions of Wikinews (German and Polish come in second and third).

International Radio and Television Broadcasts

In the March issue of College and Research Libraries News, librarian John Barnett has put together a useful annotated list of international broadcasts available on he Web. Global Voices, Global Visions: International Radio and Television Broadcasts Via the Web names 16 useful sites you can check out on your own, if not the article itself available electronically from the main page:

RadioStationWorld: Your Global Radio Station Directory
http://radiostationworld.com

World Radio Network (WRN)
http://www.wrn.org

ABC Radio Australia
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au

BBC World Service
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice

Channel Africa
http://www.channelafrica.org

China Radio International (CRI)
http://english.cri.cn

Deutshe Welle (DW)
http://www.dw-world.com

IRIB World Service
http://english.irib.ir

Israel Broadcasting Authority
http://www.iba.org.il http://www.israelradio.org
NHK World Radio Japan Online
http://nhk.or.jp/english

Radio Canada International/CBC Radio One
http://www.rcinet.ca http://www.cbc.ca/radio

Radio France Internationale/Radio France (RFI)
http://www.rfi.fr http://www.radiofrance.fr

Radio Netherlands
http://www.rnw.nl

RTVE: Radio Televisión Española
http://www.rtve.es

United Nations Radio
http://radio.un.org

Vatican Radio
http://www.vaticanradio.org

Voice of Russia
http://www.vor.ru

Society for Cinema and Media Studies Statement on Fair Use

The latest issue of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies' Cinema Journal carries a detailed explanation/interpretation of the Library of Congress' exemption allowing film and media studies professors to create digital clips from legally-obtained DVDs housed in college and university libraries. These may be used in the classroom or on electronic courseware sites as long as such activity is restricted to matriculaters and measures are taken to thwart copying and downloading of the material. The Society for Cinema and Media Studies’ Statement of Best Practices for Fair Use in Teaching for Film and Media Educators makes for a good reference for practitioners and librarians alike. The exemption lasts until Oct. 29, 2009, at which point it may be renewed.