[cfp: democracy and communication]

Call for Papers: Canadian Journal of Communication

Special Issue: Democratizing Communication Policy in the Americas: Why It Matters

Deadline for full papers December 15, 2009; publication date Fall 2010.

Communication policy is an often important but overlooked topic ­ a blind spot - in much social policy research and public discourse. Media and telecommunications systems have become so fundamental, ubiquitous and pervasive that we often take them for granted as enablers, and nothing more, of many other freedoms, rights, and capabilities. Many do not realize the extent to which policies concerning communication resources are quite vulnerable to fluctuating corporate and government interests.

This "knowledge gap" is what this special issue of the CJC seeks to address:

how do communication policies affect economic, social justice and human rights, and what are civil society organizations in the Americas doing about this? For example, how do the supposed decline of traditional news media such as newspapers, struggles over copyright, the emergence of new ways of communicating online, questions about who owns or controls the internet, or access to the information we need, relate to social policy concerns such as sustainable development, immigration, environmental degradation, labor rights, gender equity, and other concerns across the Americas? What do any of these struggles have in common related to media, communication, and internet policies?

With these ideas in mind, we seek two types of submissions from concerned experts working either in academic or non-academic settings in the Americas:

• Policy Contexts (i.e., Enabling/Disabling Legal and Regulatory Environments): Short syntheses of the current state of play re communication policy that includes attention to the full spectrum of convergent policy issues such as broadcasting, telecommunications, information (i.e., intellectual property rights and access to information laws), and internet governance policies in each of the following regions: North America (Canada and the U.S.); Mexico and Central America; the Caribbean; Spanish-speaking Latin America; and Brazil.
  

• Civil Society Responses: Research illuminating either failed (and why) or successful (and how) civil society engagement related any of the previously listed communication and social policy areas in terms of making policy making actors, processes or institutions more transparent, representative, and accountable to public vs. corporate interests. Simply put, we seek to know why and how communication policies matter to a variety of social policy concerns and how civil society actors are working to effect communication policy change in a variety of contexts.
  

For this special issue, and given our interest in linking media and communications with social policy more generally, we are also interested primarily in research that is informed by critical theory, social justice and/or human rights frameworks and that features praxis-oriented research capturing the various challenges and/or opportunities for public-interest oriented interventions in policy making processes across the Americas.

Full-length papers (7,000-9,000 words) in English or French should be submitted electronically following the guidelines laid out on the CJC submissions website (http://www.cjc-online.ca/submissions.php). Make sure to write in all caps "COMM POLICY" in the Comments to the Editor field, and also to include it on the cover page of your article as well. Please do
not include your name on the cover page.

Comments and queries can be sent to one or both of the special issue editors:

Dr. Leslie Regan Shade, Concordia University, leslieshade@gmail.com
Dr. Becky Lentz, McGill University, becky.lentz@mcgill.ca

[take a stand against Mugabe]

Visit avaaz.org - the world in action website. Fill in your name and country and a message will be sent to the leader of your country (in the UK that's Gordon Brown). The aim is to get 100,000 messages protesting Mugabe as leader. Right now there have been 49,609 messages sent.

[gordon brown is tweeting]

Fine, so Gordon Brown/PM's aides are following 2000 people on twitter... I'm now one of them:

[wikipedia bans .gov edits]

"Isn't it interesting what you can find in Hansard when you do a little searching. All manner of amusing things, such as the fact that the Department of Health has had its outbound IP address banned by Wikipedia because of constant editing. Back in January, Ben Bradshaw admitted that between August 2005 and August 2007, people at the DoH had made almost 1500 edits, page creations and/or entries on Wikipedia. This then resulted in Wikipedia banning the DoH's address from the site according to Bradshaw a few weeks later.*

No doubt there were many disgruntled civil servants editing Patricia Hewitt's page constantly and leaving scurrilous slurs against her. The DoH is not alone in being a department to have fun with Wikipedia though. According to Gerry Sutcliffe at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, people in the department have created or amended 103 entires on Wikipedia. No doubt all the edits were necessary because of the constantly changing budget for the 2012 Olympics!**

Most of the other departments are now facing similar questions too, so time will tell if they are found to be hiding something, or perhaps just fibbing. For example, the Chancellor of the Exechequer says that because anyone with an internet connection could do it, it would cost too much to answer.... doesn't look good when the DoH manages it though."

* 5 Feb 2008 : Column 1068W Hansard** 19 Feb 2008 : Column 620W Hansard

Dizzy Thinks via digg.

From the House of Commons Debates (Answers):

"19 Feb 2008 : Column 620W

Departmental Internet
Mr. Stephen O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many Wikipedia entries have been (a) created and (b) amended (i) by (A) special advisers, (B) Ministers and (C) communications officials and (ii) from IP addresses of (1) special advisers, (2) Ministers and (3) communications officials in his Department since August 2005. [185530]

Mr. Sutcliffe: 103 Wikipedia entries have been created or amended by people in my Department. We do not hold the information as to how many of these changes were made by (A) special advisers, (B) Ministers and (C) communications officials.

All staff in the Department are required to sign an acceptable use policy before they are given access to the internet. Occasional and reasonable personal use is permitted provided it does not interfere with the performance of duties. Any activity that would bring the Department into disrepute is prohibited."

[Google eyes Canada rollout of discreet Street View]

From Reuters UK

"Google Inc is considering a Canadian launch of its Street View map feature, which offers street-level close-ups of city centers, but would blur people's faces and vehicle license plates to respect tougher Canadian privacy laws, the Web search firm said on Monday.

Canada's privacy commissioner told Google in August that the feature -- which offers a series of panoramic, 360-degree images of nine U.S. cities -- could violate Canadian laws if it were introduced without alterations.

Some of the pictures feature people who can clearly be identified, which contravenes Canadian legislation on privacy.

"We are thinking about launching it outside the United States, including Canada, and we're looking at how it would have to be different in Canada compared to its U.S. version," said Peter Fleischer, Google's global privacy counsel.

"We would launch Street View in Canada in keeping with the principles and requirements of Canadian law ... that means we know we'll have to focus on finding ways to make sure that individual's faces are not identifiable in pictures taken in Canada and that license plate numbers are not identifiable in Canada," he told Reuters in an interview.

Google had been approached by a number of Canadian cities seeking to be featured, he said."

Read the rest of the article here.

[site stats]

I've had visits from google, yahoo, microsoft and some other techy firms but yesterday was the first visit from the U.S taxman or woman:

[cctv + traffic wardens = super wardens!]

'Super wardens' go on patrol
Alan Salter
23/ 5/2007

PRIVATELY-employed `super wardens' are to go on patrol in Greater Manchester wearing head-mounted video cameras.

The 20 parking attendants, who work for NCP Services, will be the first in the country to be issued with the equipment.

Their main role is to issue parking tickets but under legislation brought in last year they will also have powers to give on-the-spot fines for anti-social behaviour.

Salford council has asked the wardens to issue penalties up to £80 for offences which include littering, flyposting and allowing dogs to foul the pavement. NCP will use the film as evidence to back up their wardens if any fine is challenged and also in the event of any attack or abuse.

In some cases the footage could be handed to police and used in court.

The first wardens fitted with the RoboCop style cameras will go on patrol in Salford from the NCP HQ in Eccles next month.



"Tony" the Traffic Warden with his CCTV headset

The use of head-mounted cameras was piloted by British Transport Police in Manchester last year and Greater Manchester Police followed suit seven months ago in Little Hulton, Salford, when two officers began using them on the beat.

Local authorities were given greater powers to tackle anti social behaviour under the 2006 Clean Neighbourhoods Act and Salford is one of the first to take advantage of the legislation.

Coun Derek Antrobus said: "We have 20 parking attendants walking around the city and we decided that they might as well look at more than just cars. One of the biggest issues on people's minds is the disrespect that some are showing to our environment. The police have not got the resources when they are chasing criminals so this makes a lot of sense.

"We will be monitoring it very carefully and hopefully the residents of Salford will notice the difference."

NCP's James Pritchard said: "Salford council is very keen to do this and we told them that we were happy for our parking attendants to get involved but they would need a better way of getting evidence.

"The cameras will give a much better standard of evidence in case of disputes or assaults on the attendants.

"We are more than happy to work with the police and pass on any evidence we gather. It can only help them to have people out on the streets with a camera all the time.

"Our attendants do a very good job but they are not police officers and they have very specific powers. It makes the job more interesting."

From the Manchester Evening News.

[cctv lip-reads]

"'Read my lips...'" used to be a figurative saying. Now the British government is considering taking it literally by adding lip reading technology to some of the four million or so surveillance cameras in order identify terrorists and criminals by watching what everyone says. Perhaps the lip-reading cameras and the shouting cameras will find something to talk about."

From Slashdot

---

A List of Big Brother-type Gadgets from infowars.net

• Talking/Shouting cameras - In an incredibly Orwellian move, loudspeakers are being fitted to surveillance cameras throughout major cities, allowing CCTV operators to bark commands at people who drop litter, act in an aggressive manner or loiter. Some of these cameras will even use the voices of children who will be recruited from schools to take part in the scheme and will be shown round CCTV operating rooms on school trips, learning how wonderful the big brother state is and how forcing people to behave in a certain way in public is the essence of a free society.



• X-Ray firing cameras - Documents leaked from the Home Office have revealed that the government is looking into using X-ray technology cameras by concealing them in lamp posts to "trap terror suspects". The cameras allow operators to see through people's clothes and look for suspicious items.



• Eavesdropping cameras - London police and councils are considering monitoring our conversations in the street using high-powered microphones attached to CCTV cameras that can pick up "aggressive tones" on the basis of 12 factors, including decibel level, pitch and the speed at which words are spoken.



• Face scanning cameras - linked into a national database software will allow cameras to scan hundreds of faces a second in crowds of people.



• Behaviour monitoring cameras - These devices are programmed to sound an alarm when they spot suspicious behaviour, such as waiting somewhere for a prolonged period of time or just walking in a suspicious way. These have already been deployed in airports and train stations.