The Click Heard Round the World

Green.tv: the first broadband TV channel on the environment

Today was the launch of Green.tv, the first "broadband TV channel" on environmental issues.  Sponsored by the UN Environment Programme and a host of other sponsors, the site will carry films from around the world produced by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), community filmmakers, public sector bodies and companies with a firm interest in protecting the environment.

On launch, Green.tv will show films from numerous environmental and other organizations, including UNEP, Friends of the Earth UK, Greenpeace International, the World Conservation Union-IUCN, Stop Climate Chaos, Barclays, Water Aid, and the European Environment Agency.

The channel will offer both streaming videos on the web, as well as video podcasts that you can download to your iPod or other portable media player.  They have their content divided into air, water, land, technology, climate change, people and species.

It's good to see a UN agency recognizing the value of utilizing information communications technologies to get out the word on their work and mission.  And kudos to the sponsors for creating a channel for insightful content on the net. I really don't have to see anymore viral videos of young people doing stupid things to themselves.

Now we'll have to see if Green.tv draws an audience.  So far, there seem to be a large number of downloads and subscriptions on the Apple iTunes Store.  Let's hope the momentum keeps going.

My new favorite blog: Re-imagineering

I am unashamedly a diehard Disney theme park fanatic, having visited all of them at least once (Walt Disneyland, Walt Disneyworld, Eurodisney and Disneyland Tokyo). I get totally immersed in the Disney magic just like I was nearly 30 years ago when I went to my first Disney theme park. For me, it's an irony-free zone.

That said, I have had my own disappointments and gripes with how the parks have evolved. Particularly I have lamented the horrible Hollywood-ization of many of the attractions (i.e. the "Rock 'n' Roller Coaster starring Aerosmith" and Michael Jackson's "Captain EO" 3D show).

Well apparently I'm not alone. "Re-imagineering" is a new blog created by several anonymous employees of the Disney theme parks giving their insider commentary on where Disney has gone wrong. It's highly addicting for a Disneyland fan and critic alike. They call themselves:

[a] forum for Pixar and Disney professionals passionate about the Disney Theme Parks to catalog past Imagineering missteps and offer tenable practical solutions in hopes that a new wave of creative management at Imagineering can restore some of the wonder and magic that's been missing from the parks for decades.

It's apparently very popular with 50-some comments to every post. I'll certainly keep it high in my bookmark list. (For some reason, they don't offer an RSS feed, which isn't very nice.) Surf over to http://imagineerebirth.blogspot.com for all of the Disney love and snarkiness you can handle.

My cat's scarf obsession deepens (video)

My cat Mole Negro continues to attack all knitwear in my closet. Is he telling me it's time to move on from wool blends? Is he acting out some psycho-drama with the scarf representing his mother abandoning him as a kitten? Or is he just nuts? Maybe if you watch this video you can tell me.

I also added some more pictures to Mole's gallery if you need more kitty cuteness.

Send us your interns and research requests!

The media and democracy project I coordinate "Necessary Knowledge for a Democratic Public Sphere" is about to launch its online "Media Research Hub."  To get folks ready, we are asking groups that are looking for graduate student interns to email us their needs for this summer.  And we also want media justice groups to get ready to apply for our small research grants that we call "research bounties."  Here's the complete message I sent out to various lists today:

‘Necessary Knowledge’ Opportunities for Advocacy Groups Working on Media Policy

We are pleased to announce the first "Necessary Knowledge for a Democratic Public Sphere” projects. NKDPS is designed to build connections between advocates and academics working on public interest media policy issues. The first round of projects will provide a number of different opportunities for you to connect with interns and researchers who can help you in your current campaigns and projects.

We need to know what you need. This email is a request for specific information about your potential need for student interns -- which we will then publicize to media and communications schools -- and to alert you about our upcoming Research Bounty program, which will enable advocacy groups to seek researchers and funding for critical research projects.

1) Do You Need Interns?

If you are interested in hosting and working with graduate student interns, please email us at MediaHub@ssrc.org with the following information:

• Name of organization, location, website, contact person
• Duration of available internship: start & end dates, hours/week needed, flexibility of hours, etc.
• Brief description of intern duties/projects: what will they be doing? what will they be working on?
• Any requirements as far as experience, skills, educational level? (specific computer skills? policy/research/advocacy expertise?)

Please specify if you can provide:

• office space (or is this for a virtual/telecommute intern?)
• a computer (or do they need their own?)
• any sort of stipend (i.e. wages/compensation, transportation, meals, work-study arrangement, or any other benefits or perks)
• arrangements to receive school/class credit

Please respond to these questions as completely and briefly as you can. We will publicize all submitted intern opportunities to a wide network of media/communications departments, professors, schools and academic associations. In future rounds, this capacity will also be integrated into the online Media Research Hub launching in early Spring.

(Of course the more interesting/exciting the work is and the availability of any stipends will increase the likelihood of getting interns!)

Send your Call for Interns to MediaHub@ssrc.org by April 10 to be including in our outreach for summer interns. 

2) Do You Need Research?

The Research Bounties program will enable advocacy groups to post online research requests related to current campaigns and organizing/activist initiatives. These requests will be vetted by a peer-review panel of activists and academics who will assign "bounties" or prizes of up to $8000 for the completion of selected projects. Projects and bounties will be published as open calls to the research community, producing both new knowledge and new researcher/advocacy collaborations.

In 2006, the Bounties will focus primarily, but not exclusively, on research related to the rewrite of the Telecommunications Act. We are interested in (1) projects with clear strategic applications to contemporary media and communications policy debates; (2) participatory research that builds capacity within advocacy groups and communities; and (3) projects that examine at under-researched issues, such as the racial and economic disparities associated with media policy andinfrastructure.

We will notify you in the coming months when the online application process is open. We will also provide more detail on the process and criteria. In the meantime, we are hoping to prime the pump by encouraging you to think about research projects relevant to your campaigns and projects—specifically those that would benefit from collaboration with academics and scholars. A clear sense of the time frame, data/analysis needed, potential costs and organizational contribution to the research (data, staff/volunteers, resources, etc.) will be important. With this information in hand it should be relatively easy for you to post a project for the bounty competition, as well as make your work visible to other possible academic collaborators.

If you have any questions about the Research Bounties, or any part of this program, please feel free to contact us (see below). We look forward to supporting your work for media policies that serve the public interest, community needs and social justice.

3) More About ‘Necessary Knowledge’

 The full range of “Necessary Knowledge for a Democratic Public Sphere” projects will include:

•  An ‘Internship Network’: to match graduate students with advocacy organizations.
• The ‘Research Bounty’ project: which will place cash prizes on advocate-defined research needs.
• A ‘Resource Database’: an online, community-editable database that will map the media and communications field: people, institutions, networks, research materials, and topics.
• The ‘Data Consortium’: which will work to improve access for non-profit and educational actors to commercially-produced datasets used in media policy.

 All of these projects and resources will be hosted on the soon-to-be-launched ‘Media Research Hub’ —http://www.mediaresearchhub.org — our online clearinghouse and community site for media, communications, and information policy.

We’ll keep you apprised of news and developments, and hope for your participation and feedback as the process gets underway. Please forward this email to anyone else in your network who might be interested.

 In the meantime, all best wishes,

The NKDPS team

Joe Karaganis (Social Science Research Council)

Aliza Dichter (CIMA)

Catherine Borgman-Arboleda (CIMA)

Philip Napoli (Fordham University)

"Necessary Knowledge for a Democratic Public Sphere," is a project of the not-for-profit Social Science Research Council in partnership with CIMA: Center for International Media Action and the  Donald McGannon Communication Research Center at Fordham University. It has been developed in collaboration with local, national and international advocates and academics and is supported by the Knowledge, Culture and Creativity program of the Ford Foundation.

Hearings today on House Bill on Pay-TV

The House Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet has scheduled a hearing today to consider the "Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement Act of 2006."

According to the Benton Foundation,  the bill would prevent regulations from slowing the entry of new competitors into the pay-TV services market. Specifically, the bill would 1) create a nationwide approval process for pay-TV services; 2) require Internet-based telephone services to offer 9-1-1 capabilities while ensuring Internet telephone providers have access to all necessary 9-1-1 infrastructure and technology; 3) clarify the FCC authority to prevent Internet service providers from blocking or degrading any content or applications delivered over the public Internet; 4) preserve municipalities’ right to collect up to a five percent fee from pay-TV providers; and 5) allow cities and towns to develop their own broadband networks.  The Benton Foundation has put together a helpful summary of the bill as well as the complete text.

The hearing is being webcast.

webconferencing < teleconferencing

So after researching pretty extensively the webconferencing offerings of all of the main providers on the market (webex, webconference.com, webdialogs, elluminate, centra, net meeting, etc), I have come to the conclusion that none of them can provide yet the kind of fidelity of a traditional teleconference. Multi-party, full duplex on all webconferencing services I have tried is sketchy and full of latency issues, even in broadband environments. 

VOIP is good and getting better every day for one-to-one uses.  But beyond that, the data coordination issues become a problem. Which I guess is why most of the webconference providers offer a traditional teleconference package as a telephony solution.

It's a bummer because SSRC was really hoping to roll out a web conferencing tool that we could use to facilitate small group meetings more effectively than a teleconference.  But we may have to wait until the tech catches up with our needs, at a cost we can afford.  If I hear right, Skype may be  unveiling something in the next few months that might be very interesting.

Until then, we're back to Ma Bell.

Common Cause exposes telecom Astroturfing

Common Cause has just released a damning portrait of a number of "astroturf" non-profits funded by telecommunications corporations to give the impression of public support for their views.  Entitled "Wolves in Sheeps Clothing" the report profiles nine fake grassroots groups that are bought and paid for by telecom companies.  These include:

• Consumers for Cable Choice
• FreedomWorks
• Progress and Freedom Foundation
• American Legislative Exchange Council
• New Millennium Research Council
• Frontiers of Freedom
• Keep It Local NJ
• Internet Innovation Alliance
• MyWireless.org

It's upsetting how much our public policy debate has been captured by corporate interests battling each other, rather than an informed discussion among citizens and the actual elected officials. Kudos to Common Cause for helping shed some light on this.

Videos of me lindy hopping

Some people have been asking about this "swing dancing" cult that I'm involved in. Sometimes called "jitterbug" or just "swing," those in the know call our dance the "lindy hop," since that's what the original dancers in Harlem in the 40s used to call it. Here are a couple of clips of me dancing lindy hop with my friends Tomo and TinyMich around August 2005 in New York.

• Rik dancing with Tomo (large-ish 58 Meg download)
  
• Rik Dancing with TinyMich (16 Meg download)
  

Both files are in yucky wmv format, I'm afraid. If you are on a Mac, you can use the free Flip4Mac plug-in to open the files in your Quicktime Player.

Thanks to Tim Shaya, a terrific dancer and flash animator for taking this footage and preparing it for me.

Freedom to Connect Conf in DC April 3-4

Just found out about the "Freedom to Connect" or F2C conference happening from April 3-4 in DC.  Sounds like it will be an important gathering of policy-makers, experts and activists on internet public policy. 

The goal of F2C:Freedom to Connect is to bring a wide range of thought leaders to Washington, DC to share experience, insight and wisdom with policy makers, and to develop a better, more complete understanding of how technology and policy might evolve together in a virtuous cycle of economic growth and freedom.

The keynote speaker is good guy FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps.

Although the F2C conference looks very exciting and important, I have to say that I find their main graphic (above) a bit off-putting. Are they trying to connect white young men in ties? Why does he look like he is about to be crucified? And what is that golden ball that looks like it's on an intercept course for his head?

Anyway, that's just sour grapes because it looks like I won't be going.

It's a secret!

My friend Ralf sent me a link to an entertaining flash animation on government secrecy called "In the Dark". Created under the direction of Matt Wuerker and sponsored by a new coalition called OpentheGovernment.org, the web movie lampoons the US government's efforts to keep necessary and vital information away from the American people.

"In the Dark" is just to get eyeballs to OpentheGovernment.org's website. Beyond this, they are focusing their efforts on empowering "Freedom of Information Act" requests, uncovering how the billions of dollars being spent on Katrina relief is being allocated, and pushing for the passage of the "Whistleblower Protection Act."

The Coalition bring together a lot of the usual suspects on privacy issues like Common Cause, OMB Watch, EPIC, and Human Rights First with some less typical allies like the American Association of Law Libraries, the Federation of American Scientists and the New Jersey Work Environment Council. I'm off to sign up now....