The political economy of Irish television broadcasting policy 1997 - 2007

This dissertation is an analysis of the political economy of the Republic of Ireland's television broadcasting policy in the period between 1997 and 2007. It is primarily concerned with Irish policy approaches to the introduction of digital terrestrial television (DTT) and the restructuring of public service broadcasting (PSB). Whereas policy addressing these two policy areas had been articulated in the late 1980s, it was not until the period under review that significant policy endeavours took place. The research is primarily concerned with identifying the articulation of state/market relations as manifested in policy making and assessing the relative effectiveness/success of such policy changes relative to specific policy aims in communications and media and the larger strategies and activities of the Irish state

Ireland, Broadcasting and the Spectrum Wars

This paper offers an overview and evaluation of Ireland’s changing media landscape through the prism of the recent policy contestation surrounding the future use of the UHF spectrum and it’s implications for the medium of television broadcasting. The article brings into focus current policy and governance developments and their interplay with market and technological change and how they are shaping a small open European state’s adaptation to the increasingly complex national/global hybrid media ecosystem. It examines the contexts surrounding the competition for spectrum resources and its implications for the role of free to air broadcasting and mobile broadband technologies in the future delivery of media and communication services. It takes a political economy and institutionalist perspective to evaluate the extent to which the evolution of the Irish institutional framework regarding broadcasting and broadband development and the allocation of spectrum frequencies is shaped by broader political economic and political/institutional dynamics and what this means for broadcasting within the evolving digital media ecology

Cross-National Comparative Analysis of Community Radio Funding Schemes

Community radio programming is distinguished by its production, its content and its purposes. It is made by the community, for the community and is primarily about the community. This report is a comparative assessment of the programme production support scheme available to the community radio sector in Ireland and those deployed in a number of comparative national settings. The research project provides a description of Irish and International (Austria, Canada, Denmark, France and New Zealand) models for supporting programme production by community radio broadcasters. It also evaluates how different aspects of the various models contribute to the capacities and sustainability of the sector. The key motivation of the research is to assess how programme production schemes contribute to the development of the community radio sector in comparative jurisdictions and whether the developmental aspects of those schemes are potentially transferable to the Irish scheme

DCs at the center of help: Origins and evolution of the three-cell-type hypothesis

Last year was the 10th anniversary of Ralph Steinman\u27s Nobel Prize awarded for his discovery of dendritic cells (DCs), while next year brings the 50th anniversary of that discovery. Current models of anti-viral and anti-tumor immunity rest solidly on Steinman\u27s discovery of DCs, but also rely on two seemingly unrelated phenomena, also reported in the mid-1970s: the discoveries of help for cytolytic T cell responses by Cantor and Boyse in 1974 and cross-priming by Bevan in 1976. Decades of subsequent work, controversy, and conceptual changes have gradually merged these three discoveries into current models of cell-mediated immunity against viruses and tumors

World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson: Reflections on the Road Ahead

During its past several terms the Supreme Court of the United States has, after a long period of inactivity, engaged in a reexamination of the constitutional limitations on state court jurisdiction. Last term, in World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, this reexamination reached a new plateau. Woodson significantly elucidated the constitutional policy considerations underlying this area. Yet, as so often occurs in constitutional litigation, the resolution of old doubts has also brought into sharper focus other yet unresolved issues. This article has two purposes. First, it will assess the significance of Woodson in the overall doctrinal development of jurisdictional standards. Second, it will suggest several areas in which Woodson may provide an important conceptual stepping stone for further doctrinal growth