Utterly wonderful BBC Radio 4 documentary where philosophy Professor Kwame Anthony Appiah investigates Obama's academic career before his election to the US Senate in 2004. From 1992 to 2004 Obama held down a distinguished post at the University of Chicago as a professor of constitutional law.
He examines the intellectual ideas which influenced him during his
time as a student at Harvard and later as a law professor at the
University of Chicago, and considers what effect they might have on his
policy-making as president.
First heard this while driving back from my grandparents after new year and could well be an early contender for my radio programme of the year.
This is a fantasic episode of The Moral Maze that asks "can you ever have too much democracy?" From the judges on Strictly Come Dancing to congestion charge campaigners in Manchester, there are those people who might say yes.
Have
the expectations of the TV phone-in vote generation gone too far? Is
representative democracy being undermined by continued government
consultation exercises? Or do we need to vote on more contentious
issues to encourage people to engage with the political process?
So,
democracy - is it the worst form of government except all those others
that have been tried from time to time, or does it substitute election
by the incompetent many, for appointment by the corrupt few? What is
clear is that democracy is not an unambiguous virtue.
The panel
of Claire Fox, Clifford Longley, Michael Portillo, Kenan Malik and
chaired by Michael Buerk cross examine Matthew Parris, Richard Wilson,
Stephen Wilson and excellent Professor Steven Coleman.
Portillo,
takes the line we'd expect from such an experienced politician. He's
generally in favour of the current democratic model. He asserts his trust in the
public concluding that in general elections, even those he's lost, they
tend to get the answer right.
Portillo stands in contrast to both
Parris and Longley who believe in government for the people and of the
people but not necessarily always by the people. Parris sees the virtue of general elections in there providing a mechanism for removing
leadership without the use of force and that on the whole the 'proletariat' will reach
the correct conclusion. Governments disliked consistently and
long enough by the majority of the people will fall. However, Parris feels strongly that individuals and the pubic
shouldn't be entrusted with decision making on single issues like
whether or not to join Europe or go to war. They're in the car but they can't drive it. A few years back he wrote an excellent feature for the Times on just this subject.
Richard Wilson, Director of Involve, takes
a more moderate stance arguing that we need to tweak the processes and
the tools to better engage and inform the voting public. Opinion poll politics is
dangerous suggesting our leaders lack the confidence to lead.
The
absolute highlight of the programme is Professor Stephen Coleman,
Professor of Political Communication at Leeds University. His research
backs up what any reasonable person intrinsically knows; people who
vote in reality TV programmes are just as likely to vote in elections.
The anxiety caused is more interesting than the activity itself.
Coleman
chides Parris asserting that democracy is no frivolous debate. He
builds on Wilson's argument questioning if there is scope, within this
major transitional period of democracy, to
rethink the way we do things. Are interactive
technologies capable of being used to make democracy more meaningful to
people bringing them closer into it rather more.
He goes on to question that if the media are
cable of eroding social trust are they not equally capable of enhancing
social trust? His arguments are compelling and reinforce my personal belief that that we should
move away of the grand vision of democracy and look in more detail at
it's component parts. How can technology help bring fairness,
tolerance and having an equal share of voice are questions worth pursuing.
The more I dig
around some of these 4ip themes the more I see people are seeing
citizenship as something constrained and limited when compared to media
and other areas of their lives. Hence my enthusiasm for what the Obama seems to be up to in the US. Just as TV and Radio became tools of
democracy networked, participatory technologies provide us with a rare
opportunity to engage the public in political opinions and political
parties.
But democracy is precious and delicate. We need to think carefully and prepare thoroughly.
Virgin's last redesign launched in September 2006. In December 2006 they launched their VIP section. By the beginning of October they will have had to change the site to fully reflect the new name and branding.
Absolute offers listen live streams in an amazing variety of formats: Windows Media Player (20k, 132k and 192k), iTunes: (32k and 128k), AAC+ ( 32k only), MP3 (32k and 128k) Ogg Vorbis: (~16k and ~160k) and Real Player: (8k-32k, 128k).
Absolute encourages listeners to use it's bespoke media player wherever possible. The player is in a pop-up encouraging users to continue listening after they have navigated away from Absolute's site. The media player is multi-purpose being designed for on demand as well as live listening, audio and video. It offers track information, click to buy, information on the show and ways of contacting the DJ on air.
Absolute have three music fulfilment partners at present. Amazon does physical product with iTunes and 7Digital providing DTO services.
Oddly Virgin doesn't offer all it's shows on-demand as the BBC does. It offers a selection of 8 podcasts which can be streamed live as well as downloaded.
Virgin offer two other live streams; a classic rock stream and Xtreme for breaking tracks. These services are online only and as far as I can tell jukebox services with ads and voice tracking. They keep playlists on last.fm but the URL change associated with rebranding seems to have broken the updates.
Two DJs have blogs. Christian O'Connell's seems the most updated. Sarah Champion has a blog but I can only find a single post. They appear to be using a bespoke blogging platform with their own commenting system.
As with all commercial radio stations competitions play an essential part in pushing listeners to the website. Very often these promotions carry a sponsor (e.g. win a fantastic day out in association with Kinder). They offer a number of different templates depending on the advertiser.
The site carries news feeds from Sky (headlines, sport, entertainment).
Two banner ads on all other pages (a standard banner and MPU at 728x96 and 336x286 respectfully)
Floating MPU on some page
Sponsorship on certain high traffic areas. For example breakfast is sponsored by Sky with bespoke placement in the header. The media player is sponsored by UPS. They get banner placement and a full video ad before the media player loads.
Promotions which are mainly delivered through competitions
Following on from the last post thought it might be useful to consider E4's traffic against the radio the stations previously considered and some new ones.
Fig 1: Daily reach over six months for XFM, Smooth, Capital, Magic and E4
Fig 2. Daily reach over six months for XFM, Classic, Virgin / Absolute and E4
Fig 3. Daily reach for Virgin / Absolute compared to E4 over 12 months
This weekend, my drive to Henley and the reoccurrence of insomnia saw me catch-up with some listening. Churned through morass of podcasts and audio books including episodes of Front Row, Now Show, Media Talk, Guardian Technology, Harvard Business Review, The Command Line, The New Yorker, The Economist and The New Scientist. Many hours of great listening but it was the Sony Award winning drama Q & A that really caught and held my attention.
From the producers of A Suitable Boy, Fatherland, and The Handmaid's Tale and based on the best-selling novel by Indian diplomat Vikas Swarup, the production was recorded on location on the streets of Mumbai with an Indian cast.
Ram Mohammad Thomas, an orphaned, uneducated street kid from Mumbai, wins a billion rupees on a live TV quiz show. But as Ram explains "the brain is not an organ the poor are authorised to use". His account is an extraordinary adventure through every strata of modern-day India, from orphanages to brothels, gangsters to beggar-masters, into the homes of Bollywood's rich and famous, a well meaning, but ineffective British Missionary, and a seedy Australian diplomat.
A heart-moving story, woven around an inventive format, constantly punctuated by soundscape of an India metropolis. Worth staying up all night for.
1) This American life, Chicago Public Radio (Personal Journals) 2) Stuff you should know, HowStuffWorks.com (TV, Film Support) 3) Best of You Tube, Plankton Production (Comedy) 4) NPR: Wait Wait... Don’t Tell Me!, National Public Radio (Games & Hobbies) 5) MSNBC Countdown, MSNBC (News & Politics) 6) NPR: Fresh Air Podcast, NPR (Society & Culture) 7) Comedy Central: Stand-up, Comedy Central (Comedy) 8) American Idol on iTunes, Apple Inc (Music) 9) Oprah’s Spirit Channel, Oprah Winfrey (Spirituality) 10) NPR: Car Talk Podcast, Tom & Ray Mahliozzi (Automotive)
1) Hamish & Andy, Hamish & Andy (Comedy) 2) Flight of the Conchords, HBO (Comedy) 3) Summer Heights High, ABC TV (Category TV & Film) 4) Good News Week, Network Ten (Comedy) 5) Best of You Tube, Plankton Production (Comedy) 6) Sterphen Fry’s Podgrams, Stephen Fry (Comedy) 7) The Ricky Gervais Podcast, Ricky Gervais (Comedy) 8) Happy Tree Friends, Mondo Media Video (Comedy) 9) TripleJ: New Music Podcast, Triple J (Music) 10) ABC's: The war on everything, Saltzer & Goodman (Comedy)
Discovering new international podcasts is tricky and browsing between territories on iTunes is cumbersome. If you know what you're looking for iTunes search works across multiple territories. However, iTunes does a surprisingly bad job of curating for personal tastes and recommendation. Considering, Apple has information on every podcast I've ever downloaded or subscribed to the lack of personalisation is surprising and probably a result of iTunes being a small part of a giant organisation.
Over half of the most popular podcasts in English fall into the comedy category. With the exception of the Best of You Tube they're all produced by traditional media companies or established talent.
Plankton Production's Best of You Tube is the only podcast to appear in the top ten in all four English speaking territories. Stuff You Should Know from How Stuff Works appears in the US, UK and Canada but not in Australia.
The US podcast chart has the least number of international entries. The Best of YouTube, produced in Spain, is the only podcast from outside of the US. Unsurprisingly, Canada has the largest number of international podcasts with only two of the ten produced locally.
Well established talent like Ricky and Stephen Fry seem better able to market their content to an international audience. Gervasis appears in Canada, Australia and the UK.
Daniel Heaf is a creative technologist. Previously he was Interactive Editor for the award-winning BBC Radio 1 and 1Xtra and an investor at 4iP, Channel 4's £50M digital innovation fund. He's now back at the BBC at the corporation's commercial arm BBC Worldwide as the Digital Director. He lives in North London with his wife and two children.
