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    Ofcom releases 2014 report on media use and attitudes of children and parents

Ofcom releases 2014 report on media use and attitudes of children and parents

On 9 October Ofcom published its 2014 Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes report with evidence on media use, attitudes and understanding among children and young people from ages 3-4 and 5-15. The report also includes findings on parents’ views about children’s media use and the ways parent’s seek to supervise such media use.

According to the report, there has been a significant increase in use of tablet computers by children of all ages. Numbers of TVs and games consoles in the bedroom are declining, while smartphone ownership remains steady.

Under the Communications Act of 2003, Ofcom has the responsibility to research and promote media literacy to promote opportunities to participate, protect consumers from harm, and to contribute to and implement public policy as defined by Parliament.

 

By |October 9th, 2014|0 Comments|
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    Juncker’s EU Commission named: two key digital roles announced

Juncker’s EU Commission named: two key digital roles announced

Today, European Commission President-elect, Jean-Claude Juncker, announced the key players in his commission, including some of those responsible for looking after the digital agenda: former Estonian prime minister, Andrus Ansip, and current energy commissioner, German politician Günther Oettinger.
The Commission will need to be approved by European Parliament and then formally appointed by the European Council. Pending confirmation, Ansip will become the Commission vice-president overseeing the “Digital Single Market” and Oettinger  will take over “Digital Economy and Society”, managing issues like net neutrality. The outgoing Commission had just one “Digital Agenda” role, led by the Dutch Neelie Kroes, a Commission vice president.

Ansip will oversee technological issues from spectrum allocation and competition law to data protection and furthering the single-market and its importance for economic development and tech firms, allowing more regulatory and commercial certainty across the member states. Oettinger will lead the move toward connected homes, reforming the e-Privacy Directive, and modernising copyright rules.
 

By |September 10th, 2014|0 Comments|
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Rona Fairhead poised to be BBC Trust chairwoman

On 31 August the UK’s Department of Media Culture and Sport (DCMS) announced Rona Fairhead CBE as their preferred candidate for Chair of the BBC Trust. We can expect her hearing in Parliament soon and likely sign off from the Queen. If appointed, she will have to lead the Trust through the BBC Charter renewal process that must be completed by the end of 2016. 
Fairhead is a former Chairman and CEO of the Financial Times Group, and former non-executive director of the Economist Group.She was a also a non-executive member of the board of the Cabinet Office, but stood down due to her selection as the preferred candidate for the BBC Trust Chairman.
Fairhead will appear before the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee for pre-appointment scrutiny on September 9 at 10:30AM.

By |September 2nd, 2014|0 Comments|
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    DCMS: Media ownership and plurality consultation report out now

DCMS: Media ownership and plurality consultation report out now

Yesterday, the Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) and The Rt Hon Sajid Javid MP published a Report on the Government response to the House of Lords Select Committee on Communications Report into Media Plurality. Yesterday’s report outlines the Government’s response to both the July 2013 consultation on media ownership and plurality, and the House of Lords Select Committee on Communications report and recommendations on media plurality. This report is part of the initiative to make it “easier for the media and creative industries to grow, while protecting the interests of citizens”.

After the consideration of Lord Justice Leveson’s recommendations in July 2013, the Government sought consultation on how to best measure media plurality, including:

The types of media a measurement framework should cover;
The genres it should cover;
The types of organisation and services to which it should apply;
The inclusion of the BBC;
The audience with which it should be concerned.

The Government received 140 unique responses from various individuals and organisations, and 2,018 responses to a campaign run by Avaaz, expressing the view that media ownership is too concentrated. The report summarises respondents’ views in a chart, as well as the Government’s conclusion.

With this report finished, the Government will now commission Ofcom to inform and help develop a suitable set of indicators to conduct the first ever baseline market assessment of media plurality in the UK.

By |August 8th, 2014|0 Comments|
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    New consultation on prescribed persons: annual reporting requirements on whistleblowing

New consultation on prescribed persons: annual reporting requirements on whistleblowing

The Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) launched a new consultation seeking views on how the Government implements their recently added reporting requirement: a power in the Small Business Enterprise and Employment Bill to enable the Secretary of State to require persons prescribed under section 43F of the Employment Rights Act 1996 to report annually on whistleblowing issues. The conclusions of this consultation will influence secondary legislation developed under the new power in the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill.

Since 1998, there has been a number of high profile issues like the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust scandal, the financial collapse, and the Snowden leaks, focussing the spotlight on whistleblowing. In initial exploratory work and public discussions held in the UK, BIS found through a call for evidence that the confidentiality duty that binds prescribed persons and lack of legal obligation to investigate a disclosure means whistleblowers do not always have confidence that their reports are investigated.

To address this, the Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) is introducing this new power to enable the Secretary of State to make
regulations to require prescribed persons to report annually on whistleblowing issues. The reporting requirement is meant to ensure more systematic processes in the way public interest disclosures are handled and provide reassurance to whistle-blowers that action is being taken.

By |August 5th, 2014|0 Comments|
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    House of Lords: ‘Current laws sufficient to cover social media offences’

House of Lords: ‘Current laws sufficient to cover social media offences’

In a report published today, the House of Lords Communications Committee said there are already laws in place to prosecute criminal offences committed over social media, including the Communications Act 2003 and the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. The House of Lords concluded that in conjunction with the Guidelines for applying these laws to online offences, published by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), these laws are sufficient for prosecuting these crimes. 

The Committee is calling for further clarity from the DPP to determine when an indecent communication is subject to prosecution under existing law. It is also encouraging website operators to speed up requests for identification of users to help law enforcement agencies. Finally, the Committee is also seeking better statistics on offences committed online and offline, in addition to the number of offences that are actually reported.

Lord Best, Chairman of the Committee said:

Cyber bullying, revenge porn, trolling and virtual mobbing are new phrases in our media vocabulary, but they generally describe behaviour that is already criminal. Although anonymity has a valuable place when using social media – enabling human rights workers and journalists working in conflict areas to communicate with the outside world, for example – its negative effects when used as a shield for offenders to hide behind should be addressed.

We need to be careful: we need to balance people’s right to freedom of expression with implementing the criminal law, whether the offences are committed online or off-line. It’s a complex subject, but we feel that legislation as it currently exists is generally fit for purpose and doing the job, even though it was drafted before the social media were first invented.

By |July 29th, 2014|0 Comments|
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UK Government Response: Whistleblowing Framework

The UK Government has just released its response to The Call for Evidence on the Whistleblowing Framework. The intention of the Call For Evidence was to investigate and seek out specific areas within the existing framework that might have needed amending following changes in the labor market since the 1998 legislation. This was part of the Government’s larger initiative towards building a more flexible, efficient and fair labour market.
The response promises to provide more information and support for whistleblowers. It includes a number of reforms including:

Regulators obligated to publish reported whistleblowing concerns
Expansion of the scope of protection for whistleblowers (now including student nurses)
Improved guidance from the Government for businesses seeking good practice and whistleblowers

By |June 26th, 2014|1 Comment|
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    Ofcom study reveals how broadband coverage varies between UK cities

Ofcom study reveals how broadband coverage varies between UK cities

Ofcom research released today examined 11 UK cities, and found wide variations in broadband  take-up and coverage.  Some people living in urban areas are still putting up with very low broadband speeds. Lower broadband availability and speeds are often associated with rural areas, but the the new study aimed to ascertain whether cities had similar problems.
The results showed fast broadband coverage does in fact vary between urban areas. Derry/Londonderry in Northern Ireland  is the best performing city for superfast broadband availability at 99%, while people in Cardiff and Inverness were twice as likely to be on a slower connection than those in London or Birmingham. Almost everyone in Northern Ireland’s largest cities had access to superfast broadband, in Glasgow one-in-three people did not.
Many factors may influence the take-up and coverage of faster broadband, including the cost of deployment, the quality of historic infrastructure and local planning rules. Future Ofcom work will study socio-economic and demographic factors which affect take-up to understand the characteristics of consumers in cities most or least likely to adopt communications services and  these findings will be published later in the year, including an assessment of any possible policy implications.

By |June 17th, 2014|0 Comments|
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    Is Brazil ready to be a digital rights leader: new report on digital freedom of expression in Brazil

Is Brazil ready to be a digital rights leader: new report on digital freedom of expression in Brazil

In a report published this week Index on Censorship concludes that if Brazil wants to take a role as an influential digital rights leaders it will depend on key decisions made towards improving their freedom of expression record in the the coming months.

The report, “Brazil: A new global internet referee?” examines challenges and threats to online freedom of expression in Brazil and its increasing role in internet governance debates. Despite growing connectivity and access to the Internet, Brazil has made international headlines for trying to regulate and censor content and for issuing high levels of takedown demands.

According to Melody Patry, Index’s Senior Advocacy Officer and author of the report, “digital technologies have provided new opportunities for freedom of expression in the country, but have also come with new attempts to regulate content and strong inequalities between those with and without access to the internet. Old problems like violence against journalists, media concentration and the influence of local political leaders over judges and other public agents persist.”

Brazil’s new Marco Civil bill signed into law on 23 April 2014 included a firm commitment to net neutrality and online freedom of expression and stricter privacy standards to fight surveillance, but it remains to be seen whether Brazil can live up to these commitments.  The report also looks at how Brazil can address significant inequality in digital access.

By |June 11th, 2014|0 Comments|
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Internet Governance

Internet governance is an extremely complex and pressing issue. Complex because it is multi-layered, comprising technical standards, access issues and content questions, because different media with traditionally different regulatory systems all converge on the Internet, and because of the web’s borderless nature. It becomes ever more important as more people get online, in the developing as well as Western world, and the more integral a part of their lives the Internet becomes. As well as being an incredible resource in terms of access to information, and an unprecedented platform for free expression, the Internet is also essential to many industries.

The revelations in the Snowden leaks about NSA surveillance of governments and citizens around the world have led to increased concern about the US role in internet governance.

1.      Background

Who should govern the Internet, and how, is a highly contested issue.

An ‘independent’ cyberspace?

In his 1996 ‘Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace,’ John Perry Barlow, one of the founding members of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, beseeched the “Governments of the Industrial World” to “leave us alone”.

His sentiment might sound somewhat naively idealistic, but it sums up the some of the main issues well: “Ours [cyberspace] is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live… Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are all based on matter, and there is no matter here. Our identities have no bodies, so, unlike you, we cannot obtain order by physical coercion. We believe that from ethics, enlightened self-interest, and the commonweal, our governance will emerge.”

Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace: https://projects.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html

Code is Law

Lawrence Lessig put forward the idea in his 1999 book Code, and Other […]

By |April 10th, 2014|0 Comments|
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