Two bits of bad news so far this week. Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for the information society, got us started with a warning on Monday that the digital divide in Europe is increasing. Read the speech here. She noted that the broadband penetration rate differed between the highest and lowest countries in Europe by a massive 26.5%, and that this gap was widening. Rural areas were even further behind.
This contradicted the promising research from the Economist recently showing the global divide is lessening. The solutions proposed by Reding were mainly about improving the technological infrastructure throughout Europe, but also about allowing more enablingin the industry. These are urgent calls that Knowledge Politics endorses. It may not be all that is needed, but it is a good start.
The other news came from Ofcom, whose director of market research reported a big drop in investment in children's TV. Read more here. Despite the volume of children's programming tripling since 2002 (with new digital channels launched), the total spend is down from £110, to £90m. This is actually quite shocking. (Obviously my outrage is qualified by my glee at the fact it may mean more repeats of Saved by the Bell.)
There are no doubt many factors involved but its clearly something that needs addressing. Other forms of entertainment might be attracting kids, but I'm sceptical whether we've had a overall increase in quality.
Oh well. If it was all peaches and cream, Knowledge Politics probably wouldn't exist. Here's to tragedy and despair...
RB
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment