Social media and universities
Social Media: When Should the University Intervene? An interesting article from Australia currently available free of charge from the Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management. Topics covered in the piece include are staff over-sensitive to criticism and can student websites be regulated. See other full-text reports on education issues this week. Selfie culture: see […]
SMS and science communication
CENTAL is coordinating a project focusing on how text messaging can be used in scientific communication. The website includes a bibliography (mainly relating to SMS in Switzerland) and publications. There are also details of another project What’s up Switzerland which researches mobile research communications via WhatsApp.
Twitter and government bodies
CIA launch Twitter account. Their first post was ‘we can neither confirm or deny that this is our first tweet.’ See the response from WikiLeaks… Gov twit has a useful directory of US government Twitter accounts. For UK tweet minister has lists of MPs
Campaign for Media Pluralism
UK Coalition for Media Pluralism launches online campaign video Here is a petition calling for greater media diversity, increased competition. The online film is available via YouTube . They also have materials on Facebook and a Twitter account. On this topic, the Media Power and Pluralism project has academic postings, event listings and research papers which examine […]
Electronic Maps to Assist Public Science
Emaps Project A project funded by the EU which commenced in 2011. It aims to use social media and mapping technology to communicate scientific information more effectively to members of the public. The partners include: Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques (Sciences Po); University of Amsterdam; University of Dortmund and The Young Foundation. The website has technical information […]
Radio Times Archive
Radio Times Archive Free access to all pre war editions from 1936-1938. These are fascinating for social historians as they include all the original TV listings. The site also has a history of the publication. From the week commencing Nov 13th 1936 some highlights of coverage are: Inn Signs Through The Ages; London Characters – GYPSY PETULENGRO Interviewed by […]
UK Government’s Tweets
National Archives to capture tweets and social media created by the UK government Their website has a direct link to the Twitter archive and a YouTube archive According to the official press release the following rules have been applied. Where tweets contain a link to web content that is included in the UK Government Web Archive users can expect […]
Social Media and Sexism
This week a report published by Demos discussed the extent of misogyny on Twitter. You can read the full text on the website. Some interesting key findings include: of over 100,000 Tweets mentioning ‘rape’ between 26th December 2013 and 9th February 2014, more than 1 in 10 appeared to be threatening in nature. A high proportion […]
The Public Voice of Women
The Public Voice of Women Read the transcript or listen to the podcast of the London Review of Books lecture by academic Mary Beard delivered in March 2014. It considers the suppression of women’s voices in western cultural history. For a consideration of women’s voices in journalism and the media look at the Expert Women campaign from Broadcast. The […]
Are Students addicted to their Mobile Phones?
Read this interesting exploratory paper. Hooked on Smartphones: An Exploratory Study on Smartphone Overuse among College Students by Uichin Lee et al.

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