The Meeting of Two Cultures: Public Broadcasting on the Threshold of the Digital Age

Provides a summary of discussions held in November 2007 on "Public Broadcasting: The Digital Challenge" among representatives of foundations, public broadcasting corporations and academia. Includes essays on visions for the future of public media

Disaster warning system: Satellite feasibility and comparison with terrestrial systems. Volume 2: Final report

For abstract, see Vol. 1

Innovative Tokyo

This paper compares and contrasts Tokyo's innovation structure with the industrial districts model and the international hub model in the literature on urban and regional development. The Tokyo model embraces and yet transcends both industrial districts and international hub models. The paper details key elements making up the Tokyo model-organizational knowledge creation, integral and co-location systems of corporate R&D and new product development, test markets, industrial districts and clusters, participative consumer culture, continuous learning from abroad, local government policies, the national system of innovation, and the historical genesis of Tokyo in Japan's political economy. The paper finds that the Tokyo model of innovation will continue to evolve with the changing external environment, but fundamentally retains its main characteristics. The lessons from the Tokyo model is that openness, a diversified industrial base, the continuing development of new industries, and an emphasis on innovation, all contribute to the dynamism of a major metropolitan region.Labor Policies,Environmental Economics&Policies,Public Health Promotion,ICT Policy and Strategies,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,ICT Policy and Strategies,Environmental Economics&Policies,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Innovation

The ABC: an overview

This paper presents an overview of Australia\u27s principal public broadcaster, the ABC, with reference to its origins, current composition and functions and its vision for a viable future within a changing media environment. The paper also makes reference to some of the controversies which have been integral to long-running discussion about the ABC - allegations of bias, political appointments to the broadcaster and the perennial question of funding adequacy. Executive summary This paper presents a brief overall picture of Australia’s principal public service broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).It describes the origins and development of the ABC and looks at its current structure, general operational policies and functions. The paper also discusses a number of important issues which are often raised in discussions of public broadcasting in general, and in particular, in relation to the ABC. One of the most significant of these is the issue of how the ABC is funded. The paper provides a brief background to the current funding situation, noting the debate surrounding the adequacy of funding and what may be future funding outcomes. Discussion of this issue is supplemented by detailed funding tables presented in Appendix C. These tables show funding trends and provide information actual dollars and dollar adjusted to 2012–13 prices. The ABC has regularly been the subject of criticism from a number of quarters; there have been frequent allegations of bias in reporting, inappropriate programming, political appointments to the ABC Board and mismanagement of funds. Recently the ABC has been accused also of neglecting its Charter obligations by withdrawing local services and outsourcing production. The debates surrounding these and other similar issues are also considered in the paper. Arguments supporting and criticising the broadcaster are noted throughout. While no attempt is made to draw definitive conclusions about the future of the ABC, it is noted that the broadcaster continues to be admired and supported by a significant number of Australians who see it as a constant source of quality information and entertainment

Television and Terrorism: Professionalism Not Quite the Answer

Terrorism and the Media: Legal Responses, Symposiu

INTELLIGENTE TRANSPORT SYSTEMEN ITS EN VERKEERSVEILIGHEID

This report discusses Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). This generic term is used for a broad range of information-, control- and electronic technology that can be integrated in the road infrastructure and the vehicles themselves, saving lives, time and money bymonitoring and managing traffic flows, reducing conges-tion, avoiding accidents, etc. Because this report was written in the scope of the Policy Research Centre Mobility & Public Works, track Traffic Safety, it focuses on ITS systems from the traffic safety point of view. Within the whole range of ITS systems, two categories can be distinguished: autonomous and cooperative systems. Autonomous systems are all forms of ITS which operate by itself, and do not depend on the cooperation with other vehicles or supporting infrastructure. Example applications are blind spot detection using radar, electronic stability control, dynamic traffic management using variable road signs, emergency call, etc. Cooperative systems are ITS systems based on communication and cooperation, both between vehicles as between vehicles and infrastructure. Example applications are alerting vehicles approaching a traffic jam, exchanging data regarding hazardous road conditions, extended electronic brake light, etc. In some cases, autonomous systems can evolve to autonomous cooperative systems. ISA (Intelligent Speed Adaptation) is an example of this: the dynamic aspect as well as communication with infrastructure (eg Traffic lights, Variable Message Sign (VMS)...) can provide additional road safety. This is the clear link between the two parts of this report. The many ITS applications are an indicator of the high expectations from the government, the academic world and the industry regarding the possibilities made possible by both categories of ITS systems. Therefore, the comprehensive discussion of both of them is the core of this report. The first part of the report covering the autonomous systems treats two aspects: 1. Overview of European projects related to mobility and in particular to road safety 2. Overview for guidelines for the evaluation of ITS projects. Out of the wide range of diverse (autonomous) ITS applications a selection is made; this selection is focused on E Safety Forum and PreVENT. Especially the PreVent research project is interesting because ITS-applications have led to a number of concrete demonstration vehicles that showed - in protected and unprotected surroundings- that these ITS-applications are already technically useful or could be developed into useful products. The component “guidelines for the evaluation of ITS projects” outlines that the government has to have specific evaluation tools if the government has the ambition of using ITS-applications for road safety. Two projects -guidelines for the evaluation of ITS projects- are examined; a third evaluation method is only mentioned because this description shows that a specific targeting of the government can be desirable : 1. TRACE describes the guidelines for the evaluation of ITS projects which are useful for the evaluation of specific ITS-applications. 2. FITS contains Finnish guidelines for the evaluation of ITS project; FIS is an adaptation of methods used for evaluation of transport projects. 3. The third evaluation method for the evaluation of ITS projects is developed in an ongoing European research project, eImpact. eImpact is important because, a specific consultation of stake holders shows that the social importance of some techniques is underestimated. These preliminary results show that an appropriate guiding role for the government could be important. In the second part of this document the cooperative systems are discussed in depth. These systems enable a large number of applications with an important social relevance, both on the level of the environment, mobility and traffic safety. Cooperative systems make it possible to warn drivers in time to avoid collisions (e.g. when approaching the tail of a traffic jam, or when a ghost driver is detected). Hazardous road conditions can be automatically communicated to other drivers (e.g. after the detection of black ice or an oil trail by the ESP). Navigation systems can receive detailed real-time up-dates about the current traffic situation and can take this into account when calculating their routes. When a traffic distortion occurs, traffic centers can immediately take action and can actively influence the way that the traffic will be diverted. Drivers can be notified well in advance about approaching emergency vehicles, and can be directed to yield way in a uniform manner. This is just a small selection from the large number of applications that are made possible because of cooperative ITS systems, but it is very obvious that these systems can make a significant positive contribution to traffic safety. In literature it is estimated that the decrease of accidents with injuries of fatalities will be between 20% and 50% . It is not suprising that ITS systems receive a lot of attention for the moment. On an international level, a number of standards are being established regarding this topic. The International Telecommunications Uniont (ITU), Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), International Organization for Standardization (ISO), Association of Radio Industries and Business (ARIB) and European committee for standardization (CEN) are currently defining standards that describe different aspects of ITS systems. One of the names that is mostly mentioned in literature is the ISO TC204/WG16 Communications Architecture for Land Mobile environment (CALM) standard. It describes a framework that enables transparent (both for the application and the user) continuous communication through different communication media. Besides the innumerable standardization activities, there is a great number of active research projects. On European level, the most important are the i2010 Intelligent Car Initiative, the eSafety Forum, and the COMeSafety, the CVIS, the SAFESPOT, the COOPERS and the SEVECOM project. The i2010 Intelligent Car Initiative is an European initiative with the goal to halve the number of traffic casualties by 2010. The eSafety Forum is an initiative of the European Commission, industry and other stakeholders and targets the acceleration of development and deployment of safety-related ITS systems. The COMeSafety project supports the eSafety Forum on the field of vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication. In the CVIS project, attention is given to both technical and non-technical issues, with the main goal to develop the first free and open reference implementation of the CALM architecture. The SAFEST project investigates which data is important for safety applications, and with which algorithmsthis data can be extracted from vehicles and infrastructure. The COOPERS project mainly targets communication between vehicles and dedicated roadside infrastructure. Finally, the SEVECOM project researches security and privacy issues. Besides the European projects, research is also conducted in the United States of America (CICAS and VII projects) and in Japan (AHSRA, VICS, Smartway, internetITS). Besides standardization bodies and governmental organizations, also the industry has a considerable interest in ITS systems. In the scope of their ITS activities, a number of companies are united in national and international organizations. On an international level, the best known names are the Car 2 Car Communication Consortium, and Ertico. The C2C CC unites the large European car manufacturers, and focuses on the development of an open standard for vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications based on the already well established IEEE 802.11 WLAN standard. Ertico is an European multi-sector, public/private partnership with the intended purpose of the development and introduction of ITS systems. On a national level, FlandersDrive and The Telematics Cluster / ITS Belgium are the best known organizations. Despite the worldwide activities regarding (cooperative) ITS systems, there still is no consensus about the wireless technology to be used in such systems. This can be put down to the fact that a large number of suitable technologies exist or are under development. Each technology has its specific advantages and disadvantages, but no single technology is the ideal solution for every ITS application. However, the different candidates can be classified in three distinct categories. The first group contains solutions for Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC), such as the WAVE technology. The second group is made up of several cellular communication networks providing coverage over wide areas. Examples are GPRS (data communication using the GSM network), UMTS (faster then GPRS), WiMAX (even faster then UMTS) and MBWA (similar to WiMAX). The third group consists of digital data broadcast technologies such as RDS (via the current FM radio transmissions, slow), DAB and DMB (via current digital radio transmissions, quicker) and DVB-H (via future digital television transmissions for mobiledevices, quickest). The previous makes it clear that ITS systems are a hot topic right now, and they receive a lot of attention from the academic world, the standardization bodies and the industry. Therefore, it seems like that it is just a matter of time before ITS systems will find their way into the daily live. Due to the large number of suitable technologies for the implementation of cooperative ITS systems, it is very hard to define which role the government has to play in these developments, and which are the next steps to take. These issues were addressed in reports produced by the i2010 Intelligent Car Initiative and the CVIS project. Their state of the art overview revealed that until now, no country has successfully deployed a fully operational ITS system yet. Seven EU countries are the furthest and are already in the deployment phase: Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Finland, Spain and France. These countries are trailed by eight countries which are in the promotion phase: Denmark, Greece, Italy, Austria, Belgium,Norway, the Czech Republic and Poland. Finally, the last ten countries find themselves in the start-up phase: Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Hungary, Portugal, Switzerland, Ireland and Luxembourg. These European reports produced by the i2010 Intelligent Car Initiative and the CVIS project have defined a few policy recommendations which are very relevant for the Belgian and Flemish government. The most important recommendations for the Flemish government are: • Support awareness: research revealed that civilians consider ITS applications useful, but they are not really willing to pay for this technology. Therefore, it is important to convince the general public of the usefulness and the importance of ITS systems. • Fill the gaps: Belgium is situated in the promotion phase. This means that it should focus at identifying the missing stakeholders, and coordinating national and regional ITS activities. Here it is important that the research activities are coordinated in a national and international context to allow transfer of knowledge from one study to the next, as well as the results to be comparable. • Develop a vision: in the scope of ITS systems policies have to be defined regarding a large number of issues. For instance there is the question if ITS users should be educated, meaning that the use of ITS systems should be the subject of the drivers license exam. How will the regulations be for the technical inspection of vehicles equipped with ITS technology? Will ITS systems be deployed on a voluntary base, or will they e.g. be obliged in every new car? Will the services be offered by private companies, by the public authorities, or by a combination of them? Which technology will be used to implement ITS systems? These are just a few of the many questions where the government will have to develop a point of view for. • Policy coordination: ITS systems are a policy subject on an international, national and regional level. It is very important that these policy organizations can collaborate in a coordinated manner. • Iterative approach to policy development: developing policies for this complex matter is not a simple task. This asks for an iterative approach, where policy decisions are continuously refined and adjusted

Exploring the effects of digital disruption on radio revenues among urban radio stations in Kenya

This study sought to investigate the effects of digital disruption on radio revenues among urban radio stations in Kenya. The specific objectives of the study were: (i) to explore the trends in radio revenues in a competitive media environment in Kenya; (ii) to examine how radio revenues have been affected by digital disruption; and (iii) to establish new revenue generation strategies adopted by radio stations in Kenya today. The study adopted qualitative approach and employed exploratory research design. Four radio stations in the country were the sample size; Capital FM, Radio Citizen, KBC Radio and Spice FM, where editors, station managers and business managers were interviewed. The sample size also included interviews from media research firms including Media Council of Kenya, Kenya Audience Research Foundation, WPP Group and TIFA Research. Furthermore, there was documents review, where previous studies published by PricewaterhouseCoopers, Media Council of Kenya, Deloitte, Geopoll, Communications Authority, Ipsos and Kenya Audience Research Foundation were reviewed. The research was guided by Strategic Management theory and Media Economics theory. The study used interview guides and document review guide as the data generation tool. This study found out that the audience share has reduced due to a number of factors including digital platforms which provide the information and entertainment that radio and media in general does. These digital platforms have taken away considerable media advertising even as the business environment is very competitive. Despite these, new radio stations are still being opened signifying potential for radio as a business and public interest medium. The findings reveal that some of the trends in radio revenues are decline in revenues, devolution, digital migration and decline in mass market approach by advertisers. Digital disruption has impacted on radio revenues in that there is decline in listenership on broadcasting waves as people access the same information online, the rise of the influencer who are taking away advertisements that were earlier tapped by radio and media in general and move towards embracing digital advertisements only as stations seek to diversify revenue streams. The new revenue generation strategies include increasing direct online marketing through engaging with advertisers and advertising agencies, creating digital assets in diverse platforms where audiences are and learning their trends, establishing media agencies to reduce need for creative work being done by outside companies, banner ads on the radio stations’ website, call center and research for brands, and government. The study recommended maximizing of digital platforms through content and good distribution to tap into internet advertising, providing quality content consistency and content that is differentiated from other platforms, diversifying revenue sources, institutions of higher learning teaching broadcast should consider a unit in revenue generation and the Media Council of Kenya that is running media viability project should consider training media on how to maximize on revenue sources including government advertising

High definition systems in Japan

The successful implementation of a strategy to produce high-definition systems within the Japanese economy will favorably affect the fundamental competitiveness of Japan relative to the rest of the world. The development of an infrastructure necessary to support high-definition products and systems in that country involves major commitments of engineering resources, plants and equipment, educational programs and funding. The results of these efforts appear to affect virtually every aspect of the Japanese industrial complex. The results of assessments of the current progress of Japan toward the development of high-definition products and systems are presented. The assessments are based on the findings of a panel of U.S. experts made up of individuals from U.S. academia and industry, and derived from a study of the Japanese literature combined with visits to the primary relevant industrial laboratories and development agencies in Japan. Specific coverage includes an evaluation of progress in R&D for high-definition television (HDTV) displays that are evolving in Japan; high-definition standards and equipment development; Japanese intentions for the use of HDTV; economic evaluation of Japan's public policy initiatives in support of high-definition systems; management analysis of Japan's strategy of leverage with respect to high-definition products and systems