Like the open source movement in software, an open source movements in the textbooks may be afoot. If this movement takes hold it will surely impact the textbook business, which is perhaps the only safe island in a sea of troubled publishing business.
The other question is what motivates people like Professor R. Preston McAfee to make their books available for free, when they could have earned a fair bit from it – $100,000 advance and more, according to a New York Times article (Don’t Buy That Textbook, Download It Free)
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1 minute read | 126 words
According to Time magazine, novel podcasts, unlike audiobooks “are truncated into segments and may include ambient sounds, music as well a cast of voices playing different characters.”
“Evo Terra, the co-founder of Podiobooks.com, says 45,000 episodes are downloaded each day.”
If you are in the publishing business you may want to find out more… at Podiobooks.com you can find and subscribe to audio book as well as novel podcasts.
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1 minute read | 74 words
According to Elise Nordling, “The primary function of radio is that people want company.” Assuming that to be true, what kind of company do people normally want? Who do you and I like to talk to? To listen to? To someone who speaks our own language, perhaps. To someone who understands our world, and our lives, and the joys and sorrows and challenges that go into living each day. A mirror that we look into, sometimes admiringly, sometimes critically, but a mirror nonetheless.
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4 minute read | 820 words
Marcella Nunez-Smith of Yale School of Medicine and his team spent more than 18 months studying some 173 researches conducted over the last 30 years on how media affects the lives of children – ‘…obesity, tobacco, drug and alcohol use, sexual behavior, low academic achievement and ADHD’.
Turns out that 80 percent of the research efforts show a ‘link between a negative health outcome and media hours or content’. The study says there is ‘…above average evidence to support the link between media exposure and drug use, alcohol use and low academic achievement.
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1 minute read | 140 words
The Mumbai tragedy has once again highlighted how the radio can be the most effective medium of communication in the time of crisis, be it floods, earthquakes, war, or terror strikes. With electricity supplies cut off, televisions switched off, one of the most effective way to get the message across is the radio. CR activists have been arguing for emergency radio stations in Bihar for a while now, but their plea seems to have got buried in some file – at least till the next tragedy will strike our country, as it surely must.
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1 minute read | 191 words
At the risk of being taken seriously, I look forward to the day I can hear Lalu Prasad Yadav, our right honourable Railways Minister, coming on in between some truly ribald Bollywood numbers playing on an FM channel and saying, “Humka bhote dijiye! Phir mat boliyega ki yeh rail-gaadi nikal gayee.” (Vote for us. Later don’t say that you missed the train.")
But the flip side of the goverment giving the in-principle go-ahead to political ads on FM channels could well be a hijacking of the airwaves.
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1 minute read | 102 words
An excellent opportunity for those looking seriously at how media is shaping our society, and how society is shaping media, is the Tejeshwar Singh Memorial Fellowship that will support such an endeavour by paying scholars Rs 50,000 per month for one year, plus Rs 50,000 as travel expenses. It would be interesting to see the publications that come out of this exercise.
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1 minute read | 62 words
Here’s a video link sent by Frederick Noronha through the CR-India mailing list. Sajan is the founder of the Community Radio Forum. Currently with Doordarshan, Sajan has 15 years of experience with radio. He has also been moderator and resource person for Solution Exchange, a UN ICT for Development initiative.
The video of Sajan outlining where community radio in India stands today: Can also be seen here.
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1 minute read | 67 words
The Telegraph has just run a story on the Birsa Agricultural College’s radio station that was launched in March 2008. Seems that the college is so enthusiastic about the response, they now want to set up 21 community radio stations across the 21 Krishi Vigyan Kendras in the state of Jharkhand.
The report quotes BAU director R.P. Singh Ratan who said, “The objective is to ensure that farmers in all these districts are constantly updated on agricultural procedures, the latest farming technologicies and even made aware of climate changes and pest attacks.
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1 minute read | 99 words
Is there such a thing as book or magazine publishing 2.0? Perhaps there is a need for it. A lot of smart people are trying – some smart ideas and some not so smart. Which is which? I guess only time will tell.
To begin with, things that have displayed some degree of success on the web are being applied to the traditional format: aggregation, verticals, user-generated content, social networks, popularity rankings…
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2 minute read | 256 words
A great example of community news broadcasts comes to us from a little village in Manipur, where some villagers have got together to do a daily morning broadcast of news culled from local newspapers. No radio, no license. They simply use a microphone, four loudspeakers and very crude PA system. Such is the broadcast’s popularity, that the villagers have taken to structuring their lives around the broadcast. Read more of this PANOS Relay feature here.
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1 minute read | 75 words
As products proliferate marketers will research and find the smallest niche available. First videos, then Tv programming and now 24 hour channel dedicated to babies under 3. In-womb will be next! Or is it already out there? Fortunately there are pockets of sanity – see this Associated Press Story
France’s broadcast authority has banned French channels from airing TV shows aimed at children under 3 years old, to shield them from developmental risks it says television viewing poses at that age.
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1 minute read | 153 words
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