The Original Sims

Paul Moore spoke at the first event to be held by the Northern Ireland Media Literacy Network last Thursday.

The Network was established following the Ofcom/University of Ulster conference Media Literacy for the 21st Century held last month. Unfortunately that event I missed, but last Thursday’s event was seriously interesting.

On the horizon is the UK Government’s Digital Britain report.  Paul outlined where the thinking for the report developed;

• The Byron Review tackling the (unlikely) idea of regulating the Internet.
• Will Hutton’s Staying Ahead for the Work Foundation
• The DCMS Creative Britain

It is thought that the Creative Industries in Northern Ireland are worth £214 million per year.  Now, I’m no economist, but I’m pretty sure that there has never been a full detailed audited piece of research into the value of Creative Industries in Northern Ireland.  I suspect that £214 million is a guess. There is a strategy  which defines the sectors and subsectors:

• Design related industries o Architecture, Craft, Design, Fashion, Antiques
• Expressive industries: Music, Performing Arts, Visual Arts,
• Media and information industries: Advertising, Film, Multimedia & Games Publishing, Software, Television & Radio.

Only £214 million?  Surely not.

Still – the initial meeting was inspiring. And I have a whole bunch off books to add to my reading list.
Digital Shock – Herve Fischer
Groundswell – Li and Bernoff
Creative Industries – John Huntley
But there was one particular piece that Paul talked about – but that’s for the next post.

Paul Smyth from Public Achievement introduced me to Bush Radio. This South African radio station operates in Cape Town and is known as “The Mother of Community Radio in Africa”.

The founder Zane Ibrahim was in Belfast today to discuss what community radio means to him and how he has developed Bush Radio. It’s mission statement says “Bush Radio’s mission is to ensure that communities who have been denied access to resources, take part in producing ethical, creative and responsible radio that encourages them to communicate with each other, to take part in decisions that affect their lives, and to celebrate their own cultures. Through such radio, communities will affirm their own dignity and identity, and promote social responsibility and critical thinking.”

It’s unlike any community radio station I’ve encountered before; the emphasis is “community” not “radio” and while it is known worldwide, it is completely rooted in its own community (within a population of 2.5 million people). “Everyone is a trainee” even if they have been working alongside Zane for 15 years. Everyone multi-tasks and the youngest volunteer is 6 years old.

Zane had been on the run as a refugee in Canada during the Apartheid years in South Africa. He returned from exile in Canada in March 1996 to assist in the reconstruction and development of the country after Apartheid. And he chose radio as the forum to build that reconstruction. It was only an hour of conversation but it was a fascinating insight into how a radio station can mobilise a community for good and how it has been imitated in many other countries.

This is not the sort of radio station that you work for your own ego – you can’t work there unless you are undertaking an educational course at the same time. I’ll be looking more deeply into the work of Bush Radio over the next few months and hoping to learn how some of their experiences can be applied to Northern Ireland.

The Digital Circle has been building up to its official launch and first elections for the Steering Group.  I’ve been part of this group for almost two years and I really welcome the move to be as open and as democratic as possible.  I truely believe that DC has an important role to play in Northern Ireland’s business and in particularly helping to develop the digital content industry here.

I know this blog reaches people who are involved in content creation both who might not be across the DC developments.  Have a look at the site and if you think you qualify for (free) membership, then register here:

http://www.digitalcircle.org/2008/11/05/digital-circle-membership-online-forms/

Invited to the EGSA (Educational Guidance Service for Adults) bi-annual staff meeting today I was asked to give a talk on the importance of Media Literacy.  This is a term that has not been in common usage for very long and has become popular with the rise of Web/Internet and the expansion of professional, amateur, citizen media production.

I think it’s important for two main reasons; first we need to know the agendas of those professional organisations that bring us News and Information every day, and we need to know how we can use the media (especially Web) to distribute our own information and news.

One of the points that was raised by someone of my generation was that all the words and terminology is difficult to follow sometimes.  Words like Blog, Wiki, Podcast are new and everything moves so fast, it’s hard to keep up.  I agree, but you need to take hold and learn about these things.

There was some discussion about Digital Natives (young people who have grown up with digital technology) and Digital Immigrants (older people who need to learn about it now).  But I argue that there needs to be a third in that terminology; something like “Digital Conquistadors” people who invade the language and ideas behind digital technology and use it for their own needs.

We older users of digital media need to be even more aggressive and not just as consumers but as utilisers and for others who cannot do it for themselves, as enablers.

Story Finders and Audience

Sometimes you just need to slap people on the back and let them know they’ve done a great job.  When BBC NI set up the Story Finders project I had one simple idea.  It was to get one or two people trained up to help provide stories for community websites like YPAM - part of the group of sites for which I was Editor.  With support from BBC (NI and Nations and Regions), Department of Finance and Personnel, BT and NICVA there were enough funds to set up six Story Finders’ centres around Northern Ireland.

BBC NI Controller Peter Johnston, PFP Director Bill McCluggage and Basil Davidson’s back

Each of the groups were given kit (PC or laptop, digital stills and video cameras, audio recorder) and training to help them explore the stories - often oral history - of their locality.  Evelyn Ellison is the co-ordinator and mre recently Cathy Moorehead has been assisting.

Cathy Moorehead trying to get the damn thing to work

So on Thursday 19th people from five of the centres came together to show and tell.  it was my last formal event before leaving the BBC.  I’m very proud of the work they have all done and grateful for their enthusiasm.

Starting today, I’m doing some voluntary work for the Digital Content Industries Group in Northern Ireland.  The Facilitator’s job has been advertised and until we make an appointment, I’m doing some of the donkey work which is great.  Shortly we will be re-named Digital Circle and launch the web site.  It’s more a manifesto published online rather than a full interactive web site.  But once we get going properly, I can see fantastic potential.

The best thing about it being voluntary is that when the sun comes out, I can escape to the garden in good conscience!

Ofcom has today published extensive qualitative and quantitative research into adult and young children’s use of social networking sites and their attitudes towards them.
The research reveals just how quickly social networking sites have become parts of Britons’ lives and suggests typical profiles of social networkers.
The full news release can be found here: http://www.ofcom.org.uk/media/news/2008/04/nr_20080402 and the research here: http://preview.tinyurl.com/3cmwvr

One of the projects that I manage, BBC NI’s Story Finders won the Rich Media award at the MyGroupNI Celebration Event held yesterday at the Baby Grand in Belfast. 

main confratulations go to Evelyn Ellison and Cathy Moorhead who are very excited to be chosen to receive the award, from 3,500 community sites which are involved in the MyGroupNI digital initiative.  Details of award winners should appear on their website very shortly - www.mygroupni.com.

Northern Ireland Digital Inclusion Board, has been working for four years trying to find ways to make digital technology more available to everyone.  It’s a mighty challenge.  The thresholds many people have to cross are significant; Cost - this kit is not cheap, neither are Connections.  And if you haven’t grown up with the technology, the Confidence to use it is another factor.

I’ve been on the Board since its inception and it is a privilege to work with so many committed and bright people who have the common goal of bringing digital technology to ordinary people in Northern Ireland regardless of age or background.

At a conference in Reuters last year I discovered that people from poor and emerging nations of the world use mobile phones differently to the way we do.  The mobile is for them the PC to us.  Then in an Ofcom review I discovered that we in Northern Ireland use our mobiles differently to the rest of the UK.  We have more "pay as you go", we text more.

But the challenges faced by people here are as nothing to people in developing countries.  This from the Economist:

Internet access depends on equipment: PCs and mobile handsets that can send data, and routers and data-centres to receive and direct it. For the actual access points, poor countries are already teeming with (admittedly congested) mobile networks. Lots of small internet service providers (ISPs) ply their wares in poor countries, but they are basically reselling bandwidth from larger operators. To get online, they must hook onto the global internet backbone (that is, connect to Europe, America or a well-wired Asian country like China, Japan or Singapore—somewhere to rout the traffic globally).

That is where the problem lies. For developing countries, this is difficult and costly. They lack—and therefore must build—optical-fibre lines. Using satellites is unrealistic: there is not enough capacity; the delay times are too long and it is even more expensive than land-based connections (around four times more expensive in the case of Nepal, for example).

A recent OECD report called “Global Opportunities for Internet Access Development,” considers this problem. It blames national telecom-firms with monopolies over the “international gateways” for inflating access costs. It explains the necessity of building out internet exchange points so ISPs can swap traffic nationally or regionally. And it notes that most of the world’s undersea cable capacity is now owned by India and China, not Western countries—this, too, few might have imagined a decade ago.

But the report ignores the bitterest point: the cost and difficulty of laying lines to far-flung places where people have little money means that it is hard to see a commercial venture doing so, or a viable market being created.

The buzz at the end of the evening was fantastic as several dozen hung back for a drink.  The climax was a 45 minute speech/talk/conversation with Doug Richard.  After the final Q&A with the other speakers Tom Loosemore, Emma Somerville and PR Smyth there was a palpable enthusiasm. 

My job was mainly to keep the show rolling as MC and chief time keeper.  This was probably the biggest gathering of people involved in digital media in Northern Ireland.  We are certin it will not be the last.

Next steps - following the publication of the Invest Northern Ireland Digital Content Strategy and the formation of the Digital Industries Group