The DEA gets the balance between copyright enforcement and innovation wrong. The use of peer-to-peer technology should be encouraged to promote innovative applications. Focusing on efforts to suppress the use of technological advances and toprotect out-of-date business models will stifle innovation in this industry.Providing user-friendly, hassle-free solutions to enable users to download music legally at a reasonable price, is a much more effective strategy for enforcing copyright than a heavy-handed legislative and regulatory regime. Decline in the sales of physical copies of recorded music cannot be attributed solely to file-sharing, but should be explained by a combination of factors such as changing patterns in music consumption, decreasing disposable household incomes for leisure products and increasing sales of digital content through online platforms.

Many American cities were designed with the automobile in mind, a prioritization that has often led to congestion and pollution. How then, can we move away from our reliance on the car in our cities? In new research which examines transport policies in Boulder, Colorado over a twenty year period, researchers at the University of Colorado found that when the city government increased the ‘supply’ of infrastructure for bikes, pedestrians and other forms of sustainable transit, single-occupancy auto-use fell by nearly 10 percent. Lead author, Alejandro Henao, argues that other cities can learn from Boulder’s focus on developing policies and infrastructure that expand the number and capacity of sustainable transportation choices.

The creative industries are innovating to adapt to a changing digital culture and evidence does not support claims about overall patterns of revenue reduction due to individual copyright infringement. The experiences of other countries that have implemented punitive measures against individual online copyright infringers indicate that the approach does not have the impacts claimed by some in the creative industries. A review of the UK Digital Economy Act 2010 is needed based on independent analysis of the social, cultural and political impacts of punitive copyright infringement measures against citizens, and the overall experience of the creative industries.

This paper is aimed at anyone who is interested in the role of media as an influence on power and policy. It especially about the role of news journalism, NGOs and other activists who use communication for change. It looks at the context for those actors and their actions. It asks how much the Internet and social networks are changing advocacy. It takes an ethical and political rather than technological or theoretical approach. It ask whether the ‘public sphere’ needs to be redefined. If that is the case, I argue, then we need to think again about journalism, advocacy communications and the relationship between mediation and social, political or economic change. I would identify three overlapping, interrelated media dynamics that might add up to the need for a new notion of the public sphere: the disruption of communication power; the rise of networked journalism; the dual forces for online socialisation and corporatisation. This is not only a theoretical concern. From these dynamics flow all the other arguments about what kind of media we want or need, and what effect it will have on our ability to communicate particular kinds of issues or information. Unless we understand the strategic context of these changes we will continue to make the kind of tactical blunders that Kony2012...

Peoples who at some stage in their history migrated from an original homeland and settled in a European country – that is, diasporic groups – is estimated to be between ten and 30 million across a total population in the European Union (EU) of about 380 million. In addition to that millions of members of the older diasporas – for instance, Jewish, Roma, Armenians – have been integral components of the European past and present. Almost five million out of the world’s 20 million refugees are hosted in Europe for longer or shorter periods. Cultural diversity has always characterised Europe, but growing potential for mobility and communication has led to new forms of inclusion and exclusion in transnational communities and multicultural societies. The quantitative and qualitative elements of cultural diversity give rise to important and timely questions for the Europe of the 21st century. Does diversity threaten unity? How do cultural expressions of difference relate to questions of exclusion and inclusion? Can European culture(s) be inclusive? These questions are points of departure for this project, which has been structured along two main theoretical and methodological axes. On the one hand, it attempts to create a cross-European mapping of cultural diversity and on the other hand...

This article suggests that it is timely to revitalise studies in the tradition of the political economy of media and communications in order to develop a critical and comprehensive analysis of the social and economic dynamics of the production and consumption of new media. Specifically, a coupling of research on mediated communication and on highly situated communities of practice with some strands of research in political economy could shed new light on the way changing power relationships are informing the development and application of new media products and services. There are precedents for this approach in studies of the older media and signs of a greater receptivity to such an approach in some studies of Internet developments and the open source software movement.

Progress in digital skills has stalled. Despite growing broadband adoption and a range of media literacy initiatives, the evidence shows little improvement in adult or children’s levels of knowledge over the past few years. This is especially the case for the crucial dimensions of critical and participatory literacy. Yet citizens and consumers must rely on their digital skills as never before. Rapid transformations in the digital media landscape have put increasing pressure on individuals to navigate highly complex technologies, risking digital exclusion, consumer detriment, low participation and growing inequality. Government support has been cut just when it is most needed. Industry support is also vital, but needs a national effort to maximise visibility and coordination. Carefully targeting the promotion and resourcing of media literacy for those most in need could make a real difference. The effective promotion of digital skills and media literacy across the population should be a priority for the upcoming Communications White Paper.

Progress in digital skills has stalled, the evidence shows. This is especially the case for the crucial dimensions of critical and participatory literacy. Yet citizens and consumers must rely on digital skills more than ever before. Rapid transformations in the digital media landscape are putting ever more pressure on individuals to navigate complex technologies, risking digital exclusion, consumer detriment and inequality among citizens. Government support has been cut just when it is most needed. Industry support also is vital. Carefully targeting the promotion and resourcing of media literacy for those most in need could make a real difference.

Communications consumers in the UK do not switch provider enough, and when they do they sometimes do so irrationally. As the government conducts a welcome review of the landscape of consumer representation in the UK, they should be aware that there is an ongoing, permanent need for consumer representation that is specific to the communications sector. The government’s proposals, by shifting consumer advocacy to the Citizen’s Advice Bureau, are likely to result in an increase in costs to the public purse. Within the current model Ofcom and its consumer panel receive almost half their funding from the private sector. If the body is moved to Citizens Advice, the proportion met by public funding will be higher. The fast changing, technical complexity of the communications sector makes a consumer representative particularly important. Consumer advocacy in communications will be most efficient if it is within Ofcom, but has much more effective operational independence from it.

So far, digital divide research and policy was primarily engaged with access to computers and the Internet. The results of having access to these digital media were neglected. This article focuses on the tangible outcomes of online access and activity. There have been few attempts to measure such outcomes. With respect to digital inclusion, the most interesting question is who actually benefits from being online. This article answers this question by the results of a representative survey of the Dutch population in 2013. Internet outcomes and benefits are framed in concepts of participation in several domains of society: economic, social, educational, political and institutional. The results show that the same social categories having more access to the Internet also have more outcomes or benefits from Internet use: people with high education and income and young people. Outcomes in fact are the essence or stake of the digital divide. This study shows that some categories of the Dutch population benefit substantially more than others by using the Internet in finding a job, lower prices of products and services, better opportunities of education, a political party to vote for, new friends, a partner in dating and other outcomes.

This paper surveys the theoretical and empirical literature on the relationship between the spatial distribution of economic activity and transportation costs. We develop a multi-region model of economic geography that we use to understand the general equilibrium implications of transportation infrastructure improvements within and between locations for wages, population, trade and industry composition. Guided by the predictions of this model, we review the empirical literature on the effects of transportation infrastructure improvements on economic development, paying particular attention to the use of exogenous sources of variation in the construction of transportation infrastructure. We examine evidence from different spatial scales, between and within cities. We outline a variety of areas for further research, including distinguishing reallocation from growth and dynamics.

Communicative interchanges play a foundational role in establishing the social. This being said, communicative behavior can also lead to stalemates and conflict in which demands of recognition outweigh the prospect of hearing or saying anything beyond what is thought to be known. This article foregrounds a dimension of communication often neglected by approaches prioritizing mass communications and new media technologies, namely the psychical and intersubjective aspects of communicative exchange. More directly, this article introduces and develops a Lacanian psychoanalytic theory of two interlinked registers of communicative behavior. The first of these is the imaginary: the domain of one-to-one intersubjectivity and behavior that serves the ego and functions to consolidate the images subjects use to substantiate themselves. The second—far more disturbing and unpredictable—is the symbolic. It links the subject to a trans-subjective order of truth, it provides them with a set of sociosymbolic coordinates, and it ties them into a variety of roles and social contracts. In an elaboration of these two registers, illustrated by brief reference to Nixon's admission of guilt in his interviews with David Frost, I pay particular attention to both the potentially transformative symbolic aspect of communicative behaviors and the ever-present prospect that such relations will ossify into imaginary impasses of mis-knowing (méconnaissance) and aggressive rivalry.

We study the impact of colonial investments in modern transportation in- frastructure on agriculture and development in Ghana. Two railway lines were built between 1901 and 1923 to connect the coast to mining areas and the large hinterland city of Kumasi. This unintendedly opened vast expanses of tropical forest to cocoa cultivation, allowing Ghana to become the world's largest producer. Using data at a very fine spatial level, we find a strong effect of railroad connectivity on cocoa production in 1927, generating rents in the order of 4.5% of GDP. We show that the economic boom in cocoa-producing areas was associated with demographic growth and urbanization. We find no effect for lines that were not built yet, and lines that were planned but never built. Lastly, railway construction had a persistent impact: railway districts are more developed today despite a complete displacement of rail by other means of transport

How large are the benefits of transportation infrastructure projects, and what explains these benefits? To shed new light on these questions, I collect archival data from colonial India and use it to estimate the impact of India's vast railroad network. Guided by six predictions from a general equilibrium trade model, I find that railroads: (1) decreased trade costs and interregional price gaps; (2) increased interregional and international trade; (3) eliminated the responsiveness of local prices to local productivity shocks (but increased the transmission of these shocks between regions); (4) increased the level of real income (but harmed neighboring regions without railroad access); (5) decreased the volatility of real income; and (6), a sufficient statistic for the effect of railroads on welfare in the model accounts for virtually all of the observed reduced-form impact of railroads on real income. I find similar results from an instrumental variable specification, no spurious effects from over 40,000 km of lines that were approved but never built, and tight bounds on the estimated impact of railroads. These results suggest that transportation infrastructure projects can improve welfare significantly, and do so because they allow regions to exploit gains from trade.

In the U.S. today, driving is easy, accessible, relatively affordable, and convenient. But Americans’ reliance on the car has huge impacts on CO2 emissions and encourages unsustainable urban sprawl. Camille Kamga writes that making better and more efficient cars is not the answer to these problems; he argues that more, better, faster rail services are needed. These kinds of investments will take advantage of emerging trends away from driving and car ownership and will help to decarbonize America’s transportation.

In this thesis I address oversights in the socio-cultural understanding of the brand by demonstrating the failings of three prevailing views. First, the brand is commonly captured through two dimensions: the functional and the symbolic. This conception results from an oscillation between two distinct worldviews: the material and the communicative. Second, the brand is conceptualized as the direct result of the motives of individuals, who are not reflexive of broader socio-cultural formations. Third, the brand is portrayed as a commercial entity that is coupled with a single ideology for competitive advantage. However, the multi-dimensional brand is neither essentially economic nor culturally one dimensional. Using Niklas Luhmann’s social systems theory, I observe communications media and the brand as self-reproductive social systems. Merging his methodology of functional analysis with Michel Foucault’s archaeology, I analyze the relevant academic literature and subject an actual brand to empirical examination. Herein I show how communication technologies and media make up ‘the communications system’, through which the society is not simply communicated but is created. Like all social phenomena...

International meetings such as the G8 Summit have evolved from the sequestered gatherings of the economic elite to full-scale political media events. Using the 2005 Gleneagles G8 Summit as a case study, and focusing on one specific ‘autonomous’ activist network – Dissent! – this thesis investigates how the process of mediation is articulated in activists’ practices in preparing and enacting acts of contention. Dominant approaches to such events in the field of media and communications are often text-centred, focussing on the media’s framing of protest, overlooking the actions against and interactions with the media at such sites. This oversight is significant given that contemporary political struggle occurs on the ground, as well as with and through the media. The theoretical framework applies past media/movement scholarship to emerging discourses on mediation which view media – its content, producers, users, technologies, culture and rituals – as an ongoing and reflexive process, actualised through analysing activists’ media-oriented practices (Couldry, 2004, Silverstone, 2005). The methodological approach follows Burawoy’s (1998) “extended method” drawing on a year of participant observation and 32 in-depth interviews. Analysis is undertaken on an activist...

This thesis investigates the degree to which our everyday conceptions of 'place' have changed in contemporary society, especially in relation to the use of information and communications technologies (ICTs). The empirical evidence is a case study of 20 low-income families who live in Santiago, Chile. These families had just moved to a new social housing estate from the shantytowns and/or situations of extreme overcrowding. The first section of the thesis examines how their conceptions of 'place' have changed as a result of the move. On the one hand, it is difficult for them to perceive the housing estate as a 'place' with the same characteristics as their former home environments (close social networks, common history, etc.) due to a difficult and still incomplete adaptation. On the other hand, their social exclusion, especially demonstrated in terms of their limited spatial mobility, means that their everyday life still unfolds in a limited and relatively static number of places. In these circumstances they develop a minimal concept of place based not on an emotional attachment to a space, but rather on particular practices located in certain time and space. This concept of place is labelled here as 'localities of practices'. The second part of the thesis examines how these 'localities of practices' are becoming increasingly 'mediated...

This thesis investigates the role of media and information communication technology (ICT) in Japanese society, exploring how, in their various ways of engaging with the media in everyday life, Japanese audiences reflexively 'create' and 'recreate' their sense of self and the social groups to which they belong. Changes in everyday life, linked to the proliferation of media forms and coupled with the communications revolution, underscore the complex relationships between people's lives and the media. The primary aim of this thesis is to analyse the complex and diverse ways in which audiences engage with media in the context of domestic social change and globalisation. I provide an integrated framework for understanding the complexity and dynamism of individuals, social groups, and cultures, replacing the concept of 'audience activity' with 'audience engagement', and the paradigm of the active audience with the paradigms of everyday life and complexity. Further, this analysis of the Japanese audience can serve as a modest step towards the de-Westernisation of media studies. In the process, key Japanese emic concepts are employed, adapting them in ways that reject as myth the homogeneity of the Japanese, in order to highlight culturally specific ways of constructing se]f and other. Methodologically...

The thesis sets forth a model relating political contention to technological development. The selective realisation of a technical potentiality is shown to have been determined by conflict and negotiation among shifting alliances of state and private-industrial entities, each attempting to impose its requirements upon an emergent technology and thereby to dictate the precise form and pace of technical development. The 'course of communications satellite development is examined during the technology's formative period from 1961 to 1975--as the product of struggles over technological control. Negotiation centered upon control, and contending modes of technical development were promoted and opposed on the basis of their perceived consequences upon the distribution of effective control over the technology. The initial mode of satellite development lasted from 1961 to 1971 and is characterised as pre-emptive underdevelopment; urgency and haste were combined with tight constraints on the qualitative breadth allowed to technological articulation. Pre-emptive underdevelopment derived from an uneasy political accommodation struck among constituencies dominant during this phases the U.S. government, American communications carrier industry and a Western European intergovernmental bloc. The reigning compromise was directed toward expediting satellite development sufficiently to forestall rival deployments without endangering existing and anticipated interests in both satellite and competitive technologies. Technical development beneath a minimum level risked undermining the regime of control by leaving open the possibility of rival satellite systems; but development beyond a maximum level would have harmed the outstanding industrial and political interests in whose defence control was sought...