May 2012

In its attempts to kill Verizon’s mega-spectrum deal with the cable operators, T-Mobile has opened up a new front in its lobbying war. The no. 4 U.S. operator is challenging Verizon’s claims that it is the most efficient user of mobile spectrum in the country. On May 31, T-Mobile trotted out an expert to not only refute Verizon’s claims but show that Big Red is actually the most inefficient steward of the nation’s cellular airwaves. Speaking at a T-Mobile media briefing, Illinois Institute of Technology Vice Provost and computer science research professor Dennis Roberson presented a study that accused Verizon of using flawed math when it made its efficiency calculations. He stated that once that math is corrected – surprise, surprise – T-Mobile comes out on top.

Bloggers from both the right and left sides of the political spectrum united last week in overwhelmingly condemning the House passage of an amendment intended to modernize rules surrounding the dissemination of information.

Both sides argued the bill was an overreach of government power, warning it would enable public officials and the military to disseminate propaganda to the American public. But they disagreed over who was responsible. Liberals feared the military and Republicans were trying to expand their influence while conservatives warned that President Obama would employ that power for political means. The issue received negligible coverage in the mainstream media last week, reflecting the libertarian leanings and privacy concerns that are often present in social media. For the week of May 21-25, discussion over the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act was the No. 5 topic on blogs, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. Almost all the bloggers who discussed the topic linked to the same report-a May 18 BuzzFeed article that offered details of the bill. While a much smaller part of the conversation, defenders of the bill also came from various segments of the political spectrum. Representatives of a wide range of organizations such as The Heritage Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) claimed the opposition to the act was based on misinformation and that the bill would make the workings of the U.S. government more transparent.

A study backed by the National Institutes of Health found that remote coaching supported by mobile technology and financial incentives has the potential to improve diet and activity among patients who have multiple chronic conditions. The study, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, found that patients who were provided three weeks of remote coaching supported by mobile decision technology and money did a better job of eating healthier foods and exercising. A financial incentive of $175 was contingent upon using a mobile device to self-monitor and reach behavioral targets, and during follow-up, incentives of $30 to $80 were contingent upon uploading data, according to the study.

Women wrote 20 percent of op-eds in the nation’s leading newspapers—The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal—between September 15 and December 7, 2011, according to a byline survey conducted by Taryn Yaeger of The OpEd Project, an organization that aims to diversify public debate. And women were practically absent in the debate of many hard news subjects, with their opinions accounting for 11 percent of commentaries on the economy, 13 percent on international politics, 14 percent on social action and 16 percent on security. Perhaps just as striking, women produced just over half—53 percent—of commentaries on “women’s issues.”