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The Karnataka Legislature, on the last day of its budget session on Tuesday, formed a joint legislature committee to "study" the impact, the adverse impact and ways to control the quality of reportage by both print and electronic media.

The committee was found necessary, after nearly four hours of discussions in the Assembly last week where MLAs from all parties complained to the Speaker about how they were "misrepresented" by the media and wanted to put an end to this.

The debate included speeches and comments from MLAs who have been facing the heat from the public after visuals of their deeds (or misdeeds, as the case may be) went viral on mainstream and social media over the past month. It's another matter that this debate preceded the debates on budget, drought, water scarcity or the salaries of anganwadi workers - all issues that had been matters of major debate outside the Assembly, among the common men.

"I have been repeatedly portrayed as a Rowdy MLA," screamed Tumkur Rural MLA Suresh Gowda, whose images caught slapping a toll booth manager on CCTV just two weeks before had been given much time on regional and national channels.

Another BJP MLA, Bharamagouda Kage, who had been arrested (after CCTV footage emerged) for allegedly assaulting a Congress worker in his constituency in Belagavi, said, "Channels have run shows after shows, for days together, repeatedly asking 'Where is Kage, where is Kage,' despite my assuring them that I am here, that I have not run away anywhere."

Incidentally, Kage and his family members were picked up from a resort in Maharashtra after being on the run for nearly ten days, while facing attempt to murder charges. Gowda, Kage and a few other MLAs thus did not take too kindly with the way they were "portrayed as guilty" before the public, they complained to the Speaker.

The legislature committee, formed rather hastily as its terms and reference is yet to be finalised, will be headed by Minister K R Ramesh Kumar, will have among its honourable participants, such members as Gowda, Kage, and B R Yavagal, the MLA who had faced flak three years back for leading a House panel on a "study trip" to Australia. The Congress' Chief Whip Ashok Pathan is also a member, while three members are yet to be nominated from the Legislative Council.

The committee is likely to give its recommendations in three months. Incidentally, the media was also blamed for being irresponsible four years back and more controls along the lines of Lok Sabha TV were sought -- that was when members had raised concerns about how channels had zoomed in on images of three Ministers in the (then) Sadananda Gowda cabinet watching porn.

While Speaker K B Koliwad signed up ten MLAs to the committee on Tuesday, one Minister questioned the need for such a committee. Higher Education Minister Basavaraj Rayareddi wrote a strongly-worded four-page letter that freedom of the press is the life-line of a democracy.

"If the MLAs had issues, the Speaker could always call editors for a meeting, explain to them what the concerns are -- maybe sensationalism. But why do we need to form a committee like this, it's against the principles of democracy," Rayareddi told News18.

Quoting specific Constitutional provisions that bat for freedom of the press, Rayareddi has asked the Speaker to either convene a meeting or hold a seminar with editors of all news channels, so that they could together come up with guidelines that ensure the highest standards of journalism.

"I don't say that the pain, helplessness and anguish expressed by the MLAs during the debate was wrong. I have often felt disappointed when I see news that is inaccurate and sensationalised... but I hope you take this advice proactively, to uphold both the values of journalism and the honour of this House," he said in his letter.

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Karnataka Legislature Forms Committee to Control Media - News18

Details Latest News 29 March 2017

Virgin Media has signed a managed services deal with Netcracker as it looks to overhaul its BSS.

Financial terms of the multiyear deal were not disclosed.

The NEC-owned vendor said it would create new opportunities for Virgin to deliver customised services for its business customers and improve scalability in terms of meeting increasingly complex customer demands.

It has also promised to reduce opex.

The deal builds on a longstanding relationship between the two companies, according to a statement.

It comes as Virgins rivals have been hit by a string of billing-related fines from the UK regulator.

BT-owned Plusnet was handed a 880,000 fine last week for continuing to charge a group of customers after they had cancelled their contract.

In January, EE got a 2.7 million fine for overcharging tens of thousands of customers in 2014 and 2015.

Last year, Vodafone was fined almost 5 million for serious and sustained breaches of consumer protection rules.

Operators in the UK could be forced to automatically compensate customers for delays to repairs and other services under new proposals put forward by Ofcom.

Robin Laliberte, General Manager of EMEA at Netcracker, said: Service providers are constantly evolving to meet new customer needs, which create complexities that can be mitigated through the use of managed services.

Last week, Telefnicas enterprise arm tapped Netcracker to supply an end-to-end BSS/OSS stack.

Including its operations in Ireland, revenues at Virgin Media grew 2.6 percent to 4.8 billion last year.

Read more from the original source:
Virgin Media hands control of revenue management to Netcracker - European Communications (press release) (registration)

The Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) qualified a Peruvian bill that seeks to control who can hold executive positions in media outlets a tool for direct censorship of the press.

Article 2 of the bill, Law to protect the informational freedoms and rights of the people, proposes that any person who is sentenced, or who is being investigated by the Public Ministry for corruption offenses against the State is disqualified from occupying any managerial position in a media outlet.

They would also be prevented, under this bill, from holding positions as presidents or board members, shareholders, general managers or attorneys.

This initiative is alarming, which becomes a legal instrument for an authoritarian government to accuse, name and prosecute a journalist or the editor of a media outlet with the intention of moving aside and silencing him or her, said IAPA President Matt Sanders.

Roberto Rock, president of the IAPAs Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, also said that the bill sets out as the objective to guarantee the right to impartial, truthful, plural and timely information, which was the same proposal used by Presidents Hugo Chvez and Nicols Maduro of Venezuela and Rafael Correa of Ecuador to adopt communication laws with clauses aimed at creating a strategy of legal and legitimate censorship.

This legislative proposal was presented on March 7 by two congressmen of the Fujimorista party Fuerza Popular, rsula Letona and Alejandra Aramayo.

Sanders and Rock said they hoped that the Peruvian Congress would not take up the bill on the grounds that approving it would be returning to dark times in Peru, where press freedom was "hijacked by the Alberto Fujimori government.

In Peru, voices against the Fuerza Popular bill were not long in coming. The president of the Peruvian Press Council (CPP for its initials in Spanish), Bernardo Roca Rey, said that it is inadmissible that a newspaper director could be disabled with only one lawsuit, newspaper La Repblica published.

"You can not imagine that there are people who support this type of censorship of the press. But history shows that the majority of countries that are heading toward the dictatorship of ideas hinder freedom of expression. In Peru, we need a large and broad press freedom," Roca Rey said.

Augusto lvarez Rodrich, the former president of the newspaper Peru.21 and current president of the Press and Society Institute (IPYS) of Peru, told La Repblica that this bill is "one more monstrosity invented by the Fujimorismo to limit freedom of expression."

He added: "Fuerza Popular is creating conditions to bring judgments to media executives and have them manipulated, which has been the fujimorista custom."

Likewise, Claudio Paolillo, former president of IAPAs Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, told newspaper El Comercio that the project represents a direct attack on freedom of expression (...) It is an old story that politicians in Latin America have applied to determine what is objective and truthful, he said.

For Gonzalo Zegarra, former president of CPP, this is the ideal rule that Alberto Fujimoris former presidential adviser, Vladimiro Montesinos, would have wanted. He controlled the Judiciary during the decade Fujimori was in power in order to neutralize the media, he told El Comercio.

One of the authors of the bill, rsula Letona, told El Comercio that what is wanted with this law is to protect the right to information.

Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski signed the Declaration of Chapultepec on May 3 before an international delegation of IAPA, in celebration of World Press Freedom Day.

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IAPA rejects Peruvian bill that aims to control management positions in media outlets - Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas (blog)

Xbox One is getting an update starting today, echoing some of the major changes coming to Windows in its forthcoming Creators Update. The big new additions include streaming via Microsofts own Twitch competitor Beam, as well as a brand new Xbox user experience made up of a new design for Guide, improvements to Home and more.

The new features are designed around encouraging gamers to stream more often, providing easier access to those aspects of the UI. The overhaul can be seen as a push for Beam in this way, which it acquired last year. Beam is a Twitch competitor designed around offering more ways for audiences to interact with streamers, and Microsoft clearly sees it as a way to bringthe popularity of game streaming back within its own domain. It highlights that the new Beam integration means you dont have to download or activate any additional software or accounts Beam is fully native in Xbox.

Other big new features include the new Home design, which is designed for improved performance, and which puts content related to the games youre currently playing front and center. This is part of the ongoing evolution of the platform back to being primarily a gaming device, though at the Xbox Ones outset it was positioned more as a media hub for all types of content.

The Guide is also reconfigured, providing quick access to media controls and your most used content in a menu you can access via the Xbox button on your controller. Theres also improved multitasking, including in-game Achievement tracking via an overlaid UI element. Cortana will also be available on top of whatever else youre doing, so you dont need to jump entirely out of the action to control music, set reminders and do more via voice controls.

Beam broadcast and the new Beam viewing app, which is rolling out to all users, are again a big focal point here. Other additions like new accessibility features, screen time limits for parents of younger kids and Blu-ray bitstream passthrough for native audio decoding on home theatre setups are also nice additions. however.

The nice thing about consoles and their long shelf life is the extremely iterative approach their makers take to their core software. The centrality of Beam to this new Xbox experience seems like it could be more of a distraction for a large number of users, but otherwise these changes feel like a clear win.

The rest is here:
Xbox One gets Beam streaming, a new guide and more starting today - TechCrunch

OPINION Local messages require a high level of interest before ever becoming national news stories by Carly Mulvihill | Mar 27 2017 | 13 hours ago | Updated 14 hours ago

Last week, The Cavalier Dailys Editorial Board argued in favor of social media as a way to make causes visible for social activism. The board asserted that social media expediently disseminates information and effectively unites people for a single cause. This argument is valid, but the board greatly overestimates the impact of social media as a singular tool for change. Though it is a tool that can bring citizens together, it is not an omnipresent way to automatically start a social movement. Additionally, the board championed social media as a way to turn local news into global news. By presenting an overly broad argument about the effects of social media on activist movements, the board undercut the complexity of activist movements and overestimated the ability of the average person to make change using social media.

The assertion that social media can turn local news into global stories, while valid, is grossly overestimated. Social media websites can reach large groups of people particularly when posts are actively spread but they can also be a wasteland where interesting news and important issues are hidden amongst memes and cat videos. Social media is also rendered ineffective without active users sharing posts from person to person. Though the platforms represent a way for citizens to assert their beliefs and advertise for events, movements can be stunted before they get off the ground if they do not inspire immediate interest from users. One of the biggest misconceptions about social media platforms is that they reach all users around the world and are the easiest way to unite all citizens for social movements.

The board uses recent social protests in the Charlottesville community as evidence of social medias influence, but they ignore the relatively small scope of that success. Given the connections between University students and Charlottesville residents including news organizations, social media platforms and social groups social media platforms do not represent the sole method of organizing. Additionally, though this example demonstrates the positive effects of social media on protesting and activism, the success is contained in a very small area. The organizing power in a small community is certainly commendable but, on a national or international scale, social media is not always as effective as the board asserts.

Social media sites have been given credit for much of the success of the Arab Spring revolutions in the Middle East but, in truth, few of the citizens of these countries had access to social media platforms. In Western countries, there is often an assumption that social media sites are as widely available around the world as they are in the United States and Europe, but in countries with repressive governmental structures, social media platforms are frequently either banned or out of reach to citizens financially. In an interview with protesters years after the Tahrir Square demonstrations in Egypt, most cited community groups and mosques as major organizing vehicles for the demonstrations, rather than social media sites. Average citizens did not have the connections to social media which Americans believe they did.

Additionally, social media activism has given rise to the hashtag activism movement, which falls prey to many of the same issues plaguing generic social media activism. Hashtags do represent a uniting factor and a method through which people can communicate with others who have similar interests, but as some activists have noted, nothing is accomplished with just a hashtag. The hashtag must be powerful enough to mobilize large groups of people and, without other resources, it can be difficult to make change. The influence of social media relies heavily on the existence of outside organizational factors, which are ignored by the board. Change does not come with a single keystroke.

Based on the Editorial Boards argument, it seems any college student could start a social movement through the use of social media. Ultimately, though, social media platforms have little reach without preexisting networks of motivated people who want to make change. Especially in countries where repressive governments control media systems, social media lacks the impact which Western leaders assert it has. Furthermore, without a high initial level of interest, local messages can never become international news stories. Social media platforms represent a tool for people to create change but the change is highly overestimated. Though these platforms are a simple way to transmit messages, the ability to reach large, diverse audiences is limited and many more tools are needed to create a successful social movement.

Carly Mulvihill is the Senior Associate Opinion Editor for The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at c.mulvihill@cavalierdaily.com.

Read more from the original source:
MULVIHILL: The reality of social media activism - University of Virginia The Cavalier Daily