--- The Hurricane Isabel Edition ---
MEDIA OWNERSHIP
Commentary: The Senate Says No
Canadians Ponder Media Ownership Rules
DIGITAL DIVIDE
A Dissent on the Digital Divide
Rural Gateway to the Future
WORLD SUMMIT ON THE INFORMATION SOCIETY
Teachers from Switzerland, Tanzania, Uganda Launch World Summit Event
for Schools
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MEDIA OWNERSHIP
THE SENATE SAYS NO
[Commentary] The House Republican leadership has declared the Senate's bill
disapproving of the FCC's new media ownership rules "dead on arrival,"
promising to block a vote. Nevertheless, New York Times columnist William
Safire believes there is still hope for those resisting the concentration of
media power and insisting on the preservation of competition. This is
because the rollback of what Safire calls the "Powell abomination" will
appear in the Senate appropriations bill for the Commerce, Justice and State
Departments. Such an appropriations bill "would be hard to veto over the
issue of a regulatory review," says Senator Trent Lott (R-MS). Safire
wonders if the president would want to "bring the financing of the war on
terror to a grinding halt to rescue an appointee aching to resign." The
first Bush veto should advance a principle, not be wasted on a bow to a
"muscular Mickey Mouse," writes Safire.
SOURCE: New York Times; AUTHOR: William Safire
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/17/opinion/17SAFI.html
CANADIANS PONDER MEDIA OWNERSHIP RULES
As the media ownership debate rages in the United States, the Canadian
Parliament's Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage has issued an 870-page
report that urges Parliament to continue its ban on foreign ownership of
media and minimize cross-media ownership. The report further urges the
government and its broadcast regulator, the Canadian Radio-Television and
Telecommunications Commission, to "develop clear and firm policies to ensure
that newsroom independence is maintained" at cross-owned newspapers and
broadcast stations. Canada's media ownership landscape is considerably
different than that found in the United States. In the US, newspapers are
eager to own broadcast media, but radio and TV companies generally have no
desire to publish newspapers. In Canada, a subsidiary of the big Bell Canada
telephone company bought the Toronto-based national daily The Globe and Mail
in 2000. The same year, Israel "Izzy" Asper became an overnight newspaper
mogul when his CanWest Global Communications (Canada's second-biggest
television chain) bought some 200 papers. Canadian publishers, meanwhile,
are hoping they don't get burdened with more regulation, said Anne
Kothawala, President and CEO of the Canadian Newspaper Association.
SOURCE: Editor & Publisher; AUTHOR: Mark Fitzgerald
http://www.mediainfo.com/editorandpublisher/features_columns/article_dis...
.jsp?vnu_content_id=1980219
DIGITAL DIVIDE
A DISSENT ON THE DIGITAL DIVIDE
Contrary to the US federal government's current thinking that the digital
divide is closing, Steven P. Martin, a sociologist at the University of
Maryland, says the government needs to take a second look at the numbers. In
a February 2002 report, the National Telecommunications and Information
Administration found that the spread of Internet use among low-income
families had increased. Dr. Martin re-analyzed the data using what
statisticians call odds ratios. By his measure, the odds that a family in
the poorest bracket would use the Internet increased by a factor of 2.1 from
1998 to 2001, while the odds for a family in the most affluent group
increased by a slightly higher factor of 2.6. He predicts that it may take
two decades for the lowest-income groups to catch up to wealthier
households. Advocates of community technology programs, such as the Benton
Foundation's Norris Dickard, agree that the digital divide is not abating.
"Reduced national attention to this problem will dampen economic
productivity and opportunity in low-income and rural communities," Dickard
said.
SOURCE: New York Times; AUTHOR: Lisa Guernsey
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/18/technology/circuits/18divi.html
RURAL GATEWAY TO THE FUTURE
The HP i-community is a three-year South African partnership between
Hewlett-Packard, the Mogalakwena municipality and Limpopo province. The
principal facility contains a business resource center, e-government
gateway, a PC refurbishment center, a call center and training facilities.
The centers have trained over 1,000 locals to use computers, including all
62 municipal councilors. The training aims to foster skills in everything
from small business management to tourism. "The intention is not just to
create IT workers," says i-community's economic development head, Asma
Hassan. "The intention is to bring about social and financial development."
A year ago there was no municipal website, nor public access to the
Internet, for the area's 360,000 people; only seven out of 262 schools had
computers. The i-community has filled that void by providing 20 community
access points in schools and libraries, refurbished computers for schools,
several business resource centers and a technology support center that
trains people for computer support in clinics and schools. South African
President Thabo Mbeki praised the project as a "model" that "might be
relevant for other projects in South Africa and other countries."
SOURCE: Mail & Guardian South Africa
http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=20590
(requires free registration)
http://www.hpicommunity.org.za
WSIS
TEACHERS FROM SWITZERLAND, TANZANIA, UGANDA LAUNCH WORLD SUMMIT EVENT FOR
SCHOOLS
Educators from Uganda, Tanzania and Switzerland are launching the World
Summit Event for Schools (WSES). WSES is a three-month event organized by
European Schoolnet and the United Nations Cyberschoolbus. It offers online
activities covering the topics ranging from the universal declaration of
human rights and free speech to bridging the digital divide. "The World
Summit Event for Schools offers opportunities for schools to work together
and learn about each other using ICT," said Brigitte Parry, European
Schoolnet's networking coordinator. "This is an unprecedented project
because it tries to address the digital divide head-on." The event will
conclude with a live interaction via the Internet between pupils and a head
of state at the World Summit for the Information Society in Geneva this
December.
SOURCE: European Schoolnet; AUTHOR: Yong Chui Hsia
http://news.eun.org/eun.org2/eun/en/_News_search_news/content.cfm?ov=292...
ang=en&id_area=109
http://www.cyberschoolbus.org
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