LEGISLATION
Little Progress Expected On High-Tech Legislation (Cyber)
INTERNET
Computers In The Classrooms: Lessons Learned (WP)
Harvard Web Site Helps Evaluate Risks of Cancer (WP)
E-COMMERCE
Online Spending That Makes Cents (USA)
E-Commerce Backers Are Targeting Latin America, But It's A Tough
Sell (WSJ)
ADVERTISING
Radical Chic: Benetton Takes On The Death Penalty (WP)
LEGISLATION
LITTLE PROGRESS EXPECTED ON HIGH-TECH LEGISLATION
Issue: Legislation
Congress returns this week to a host of high-tech related issues. But in
this election year, high-tech and Internet bills may get more talk than
action. Digital signatures, privacy, Internet taxes, visas for skilled
foreign workers and efforts to bridge the digital divide will likely
dominate the high-tech debate. Because of deadlock within a congressionally
appointed panel charged with making recommendations on taxation of
e-commerce, Congress is expect to extend the moratorium on new Internet
taxes that is set to expire next year. These is also speculation as to
whether Congress will pass any new laws to protect consumer privacy online.
"We are going into an election year, and privacy resonates with the public,"
said Deirdre Mulligan, a privacy advocate with the Center for Democracy and
Technology; "I think we will see many more bills [and] much more discussion
of privacy."
[SOURCE: CyberTimes, AUTHOR: Jeri Clausing]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/01/cyber/capital/25capital.html)
E-COMMERCE
ONLINE SPENDING THAT MAKES CENTS
Schools around the nation are discovering that the Internet offers some
fundraising alternatives to selling candy bars and magazine subscriptions.
Since this fall, at least a dozen Web sites that allow online shoppers to
have a portion of their bill sent to the school of their choice have
launched. ''Schools are certainly trying it out around the country, but I
don't think most have seen big results,'' says Tim Sullivan, publisher of
PTO Today magazine. Others, however, are a bit more hopeful. ''I don't
expect it to be big bucks the first time, but I see it as something that's
going to grow,'' said Michael Roland, a Broward County, Fla., school
administrator who registered 60 middle and high schools in his district with
a fundraising site.
Because the field is so new and there's little oversight, Sullivan advises
shoppers to ''Go with the established vendors.''
[SOURCE: USAToday (3D), AUTHOR: Karen Thomas]
(http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20000125/1872180s.htm)
E-COMMERCE BACKERS ARE TARGETING LATIN AMERICA, BUT IT'S A TOUGH SELL
Issue: E-Commerce/International
Latin America is heralded as the next frontier for e-commerce. But along the
road to e-commerce success in countries such as Mexico stand several
obstacles - including antiquated back-office computer systems, inefficient
distribution networks and a relatively small Internet-savvy population
-which must be overcome along the way. Additionally, there are concerns,
that Latin Americans who are online will flock to better-funded U.S. sites.
According to the Boston Consulting Group, Latin Americans spent more at
U.S.-based Web sites in 1999 than at homegrown ones.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (A1), AUTHOR: Andrea Petersen]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB948756761972224880.htm)
INTERNET
COMPUTERS IN THE CLASSROOMS: LESSONS LEARNED
Issue: Edtech
While Intel and Microsoft announced last week their large donation to help
assist teachers in gaining computer proficiency, some remember the example
of the 1970's company Control Data Corporation. Control Data Corp., headed
by founder William Norris, launched a $900 million computer-based education
system called Plato. William's idea was to meld the worlds of for-profit
business with philanthropic goals. While Plato, which turned out 12,000
hours of instructional software, proved popular with the government and
businesses, it wasn't embraced by public school teachers. Some teachers were
worried that the technology would cost them their jobs. But Plato might have
just been ahead of its time, with computers being alien to the classroom 20
years ago. Microsoft and Intel's donation was based in part on the
realization of the unstoppable march of technological progress. "We need
qualified and well-trained teachers in every classroom, and technology can
help those teachers and their students", Secretary of Education Richard
Riley said in conjunction with the Intel-Microsoft announcement.
[SOURCE: Washington Post (A17), AUTHOR: Kent Allen]
(http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-01/25/062l-012500-idx.html)
HARVARD WEB SITE HELPS EVALUATE RISKS OF CANCER
Issue: Health
The Harvard School of Public Health has a Web site that calculates an
individual's risk in getting one of the four leading types of cancer -
breast, colon, lung and prostate - via an online questionnaire. Known as
"Your Cancer Risk," the Web site evaluates the online questionnaire's
answers immediately and then provides a risk assessment based on the latest
scientific evidence. The Web site is run by Harvard's Center for Cancer
Prevention and was largely funded by Canyon Ranch Health Resorts.
[SOURCE: Washington Post (Health page 5), AUTHOR: Sally Squires]
(http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-01/25/019l-012500-idx.html)
ADVERTISING
RADICAL CHIC: BENETTON TAKES ON THE DEATH PENALTY
Issue: Advertising
The company Benetton is starting a yearlong $20 million global ad campaign
that will sympathetically portray American murderers awaiting execution,
conveying what's on their minds. Benetton's US Director of Communications,
Mark Major, in trying to explain the advertising, said, "Once again, it's
very hard for people to see what we're doing and understand that it's not
advertising, that it's a way to get people to think." The ads will be on
billboards and in magazines such as Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair and the New
Yorker. The billboards and posters for the campaign have started appearing
across the country this month, sometimes not far from the communities where
the inmates killed or where they are imprisoned. Bob Garfield, a columnist
at Advertising Age, was repulsed by the campaign, "There is no brand - not a
single one - that has the right to increase sales on the backs, on the
misery, on the fates of condemned men and women, much less their slaughtered
victims."
[SOURCE: Washington Post (C1), AUTHOR: Hank Stuever]
(http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-01/25/120l-012500-idx.html)
--------------------------------------------------------------
(c)Benton Foundation 2000. Redistribution of this email publication -- both
internally and externally -- is encouraged if it includes this message.
--------------------------------------------------------------
The Benton Foundation's Communications Policy and Practice (CPP)
(www.benton.org/cpphome.html) Communications-related Headline
Service is posted Monday through Friday. The Headlines are highlights
of news articles summarized by staff at the Benton Foundation. They
describe articles of interest to the work of the Foundation -- primarily
those covering long term trends and developments in communications,
technology, journalism, public service media, regulation and philanthropy.
While the summaries are factually accurate, their often informal tone does
not represent the tone of the original articles. Headlines are compiled by
Kevin Taglang (kevint( at )benton.org), Rachel Anderson (rachel( at )benton.org),
Jamal Le Blanc (jamal( at )benton.org), and Stephanie Ingersoll
(stephanie( at )benton.org) -- we welcome your comments.
The Benton Foundation works to realize the social benefits made possible
by the public interest use of communications. Bridging the worlds of
philanthropy, public policy, and community action, Benton seeks to shape
the emerging communications environment and to demonstrate the value of
communications for solving social problems. Through demonstration
projects, media production and publishing, research, conferences, and
grantmaking, Benton probes relationships between the public, corporate,
and nonprofit sectors to address the critical questions for democracy in
the information age. Other projects at Benton include:
Connect for Kids (www.connectforkids.org)
Open Studio: The Arts Online (www.openstudio.org/)
Destination Democracy (www.destinationdemocracy.org/)
Sound Partners for Community Health (www.soundpartners.org/)