1. Monthly archive
  2. April 2016

April 2016

Libraries and Learning

Majorities of Americans think local libraries serve the educational needs of their communities and families pretty well and library users often outpace others in learning activities. But many do not know about key education services libraries provide.

A new survey by Pew Research Center shows that 76% of adults say libraries serve the learning and educational needs of their communities either “very well” (37%) or “pretty well” (39%). Further, 71% say libraries serve their own personal needs and the needs of their families “very well” or “pretty well.” As a rule, libraries’ performance in learning arenas gets better marks from women, blacks, Hispanics, those in lower-income households, and those ages 30 and older.

Library usage continues to evolve: In addition to examining the role of libraries as contributors to people’s learning, this survey also continued the Center’s benchmarking of library usage. Some 78% of adults say they have ever gone to a library, while 44% say they went to a library or bookmobile in the past 12 months.

Notable shares of Americans do not know that libraries offer learning-related programs and materials: Many do not know if their local libraries offer key learning and education resources A significant number of libraries have added education- and learning-related material, often in digital form or available on the Internet. This survey shows that a portion of adults are aware of those activities, but many do not know about them.

USTelecom Study Posits Big Potential Costs of Special Access Regulations

A study just released by USTelecom suggests that extension of Federal Communications Commission special access broadband regulations to IP delivery could cut economic output by billions, slash jobs and work against, not for, broadband buildouts. Those special access regulations require incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) to make their business broadband lines available for lease by competing telecommunication companies (CLECs) , like cable operators, at reasonably comparable rates and conditions. The study, from economist Dr Hal Singer, extrapolates data based on fibering a building in Charlotte (NC) and extrapolating to the entire country the depressing effects if the FCC extends legacy unbundling and price cap regulations on ILECs like USTelecom members Verizon. AT&T.

According to that extrapolation, expanding the special access rules could "eliminate 43,560 jobs annually over a five-year period," cut economic output by $3.4 billion over the same period, and would mean 67,300 buildings would not supplied with fiber by incumbent telecommunication companies. That is measuring the absence of fiber build-outs that will be discouraged by the FCC regulations. "If an ILEC seeks to replace its copper-based connections to a business, it now faces a fresh disincentive to invest in fiber, in that the wholesale-access requirements will extend to its Ethernet services provided over a fiber-based network," the study said. That, the study says, is "inconsistent with the FCC’s Congressional mandate to expand broadband deployment."

FBI director confident iPhone exploit can be kept under wraps

FBI Director James Comey said that he is confident the agency can protect the tool it has purchased for cracking an encrypted iPhone used by one of the shooters in San Bernardino (CA) terrorist attack. "The FBI is very good at keeping secrets,” he said. "And the people we bought this from, I know a fair amount about them, and I have a high degree of confidence that they are very good at protecting it and their motivations align with ours."

Director Comey suggested that the technique’s efficacy could be limited, noting that that it only works on a specific model of iPhone running a certain version of Apple’s iOS operating system. He also said that there are conversations “within the government” about providing information about the technique to Apple, which could allow the company to patch the vulnerability that allows the agency to access the data. “That’s an interesting conversation, because [if] we tell Apple, they’re going to fix it and then we’re back where we started from,” he said, to laughter. “But look, as silly as that may sound, we may end up there. We just haven’t decided yet." At a different point during the event, he said that authorities could also end up revealing details of the technique as part of the discovery process in a criminal case.

President Obama's Administration is having the same fight over encryption Bill Clinton's did in 1993

When it comes to mandating tech companies to help law enforcement agencies fight crime, the White House is divided territory. President Barack Obama's Administration is refusing to publicly support proposed legislation that would legally require tech companies like Apple to help law enforcement agencies access encrypted data. While President Obama himself has maybe come around to the idea of legally addressing the government's access to encrypted data, it seems his advisers are more skeptical of Congress's attempts to regulate encryption. This difference in opinion in the White House is part of a much longer political history of encryption debate. President Bill Clinton's Administration was having this same conversation in 1990s when he introduced the "Clipper Chip" initiative to give the government the power to monitor encrypted phone conversations.

"This new technology will help companies protect proprietary information, protect the privacy of personal phone conversations and prevent unauthorized release of data transmitted electronically. At the same time this technology preserves the ability of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies to intercept lawfully the phone conversations of criminals," Clinton's press secretary announced in 1993. And tech companies and civil liberties advocates have long fought back. The Clipper Chip caused what the New York Times then called the "first holy war of the information highway," which eventually led to the proposal's demise three years later.

Digital disruption is coming quickly to TV news; how can broadcasters adapt and respond?

[Commentary] Television was supposed to be different, more resilient to digital disruption than print. For a long time, it was. It no longer is. Television today faces the full gales of creative destruction and digital disruption on a scale similar to what other media industries have faced. It is still an important medium, and will be so for years to come, but television will not remain the dominant force it was in the second half of the 20th century.

The implications for journalism are potentially profound. Even as newspapers waned and digital media waxed in the 1990s and early 2000s, television remained the single most important and most widely used platform for news in many countries, and both private and public television news providers invested serious money in journalism serving international, national, and local audiences. Both the reach and the revenue will decline in the years ahead. Because the environment is changing so rapidly right now, and because no clear set of best practices has been developed, the most important thing television news providers need to do to be in a position to respond effectively is to ensure that their organizations are capable of constant adaptation and change. Standard workflows and organizational forms can be very efficient, but they are rarely good at experimentation.

[Rasmus Kleis Nielsen is director of research at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford and editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Press/Politics. Richard Sambrook is professor of journalism at Cardiff University and a senior research associate at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism]

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