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General News of Friday, 28 February 2014

Source: radioxyzonline.com

Prof Agyeman Badu Akosa has proposed a political season of just six months before any general election in Ghana.

He said outside the 6-month political window, the National Media Commission (NMC) and the National Communications Authority (NCA) must craft measures to control political discussions and writings in the electronic and print media.

Discussions with the National Media Commission and Communications Authority would agree on what percentage space would be allotted to politics during the off-season. Political debates on purely partisan bases would be given very low coverage. However, discussions and politically divergent views on the state of the nation address and budget presentations shall be encouraged and supported, Prof Akosa said.

The former Ghana Health Service Director General made the suggestion when he delivered the final of a three-day commemorative lecture in honour of the late J.B. Danquah.

Mr Chairman, the political season shall be declared six months to the general elections. It is only then that the national newspapers and even the private electronic and print media will be expected to give any prominence in their programming schedule to national politics, he proposed.

He said programmes of political parties before the political season is opened will be given very low coverage in the print and electronic media.

Prof Akosa therefore suggested that political parties find other ways and mechanisms of reaching their target; their rank and file in their local campaigns and dissemination of information during the off-season.

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NMC, NCA must control media coverage of politics after elections - Akosa

Published February 27, 2014

FoxNews.com

June 26, 2008 file A customer inspects a 9mm handgun at Rink's Gun and Sport in the Chicago, suburb of Lockport, Illinois

A forthcoming study is challenging claims, repeated over and over in the media, that federal restrictions effectively froze gun research over the last two decades.

The Crime Prevention Research Center study examined how a 1996 decision by Congress to strip funding for firearms research actually impacted the world of academia. To hear national media outlets tell it, the decision led to a drought in research from 1996 to 2013 -- when such funding was once again allowed. Stories from The Washington Post, NBC News, Reuters and other outlets all have claimed that Washington, with the backing of the National Rifle Association, basically banned gun studies during that period.

Far from it, the study claims. Federal funding declined, but research either remained constant or even increased, the authors wrote.

The study shows the number of firearms-related journal articles published every year, after hitting 69 in 1996, rarely dipped below 60 and even spiked to 121 last year.

The report challenges not only the media narrative but also the notion that researchers need a constant flow of federal money in order to thrive.

CPRCs study takes it as a given that researchers always want more funding, but suggests that even without federal funds, academics are spending more time on these projects. It also points to a rise in private research funding.

Federally funded gun research was originally restricted through an amendment to Centers for Disease Control funding in 1996. Lawmakers, and the NRA, at the time voiced concern the money could be used to specifically promote gun control.

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Study challenges narrative on frozen firearms research- OPINION: Don't believe media mistruths about guns

Published February 27, 2014

FoxNews.com

June 26, 2008 file A customer inspects a 9mm handgun at Rink's Gun and Sport in the Chicago, suburb of Lockport, Illinois

A forthcoming study is challenging claims, repeated over and over in the media, that federal restrictions effectively froze gun research over the last two decades.

The Crime Prevention Research Center study examined how a 1996 decision by Congress to strip funding for firearms research actually impacted the world of academia. To hear national media outlets tell it, the decision led to a drought in research from 1996 to 2013 -- when such funding was once again allowed. Stories from The Washington Post, NBC News, Reuters and other outlets all have claimed that Washington, with the backing of the National Rifle Association, basically banned gun studies during that period.

Far from it, the study claims. Federal funding declined, but research either remained constant or even increased, the authors wrote.

The study shows the number of firearms-related journal articles published every year, after hitting 69 in 1996, rarely dipped below 60 and even spiked to 121 last year.

The report challenges not only the media narrative but also the notion that researchers need a constant flow of federal money in order to thrive.

CPRCs study takes it as a given that researchers always want more funding, but suggests that even without federal funds, academics are spending more time on these projects. It also points to a rise in private research funding.

Federally funded gun research was originally restricted through an amendment to Centers for Disease Control funding in 1996. Lawmakers, and the NRA, at the time voiced concern the money could be used to specifically promote gun control.

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Study aims to shoot down media narrative on frozen firearms research

Quality control The size of the sample and other components of it need to be overhauled. SHUTTERSTOCK/SCYTHER5

Indias size complicates media measurement efforts. Sample size and constituents need to reflect the diversity better, and more advertisers need to fund it with money and knowledge

Media measurement in India is an extremely complex practice due to the sheer size of the country and the heterogeneity of her population. Regional, ethnic and linguistic differences within the same region just add to the complexity. The obvious questions that arise before embarking on research of any sort are in relation to the adequate sample size for the research, whether there should be quotas for certain demographics, where should one conduct the research, the research methodology and the cost of the research.

It is a known fact that the sample sizes, especially in the TV measurement space, are inadequate. This results in high relative errors while reporting data and makes the data useless in certain cases. If we need robust data to help us make the right business decisions, this is the first issue that needs to be tackled. While the IRS sample size in the range of 2.5 lakh, there might be a case to examine the sample sizes by demographics by pop strata at an individual state level and in case of inadequacy, these samples should be boosted.

The issue of research methodology needs to be examined in relation to the advances in technology globally in research. Media reports suggest that technology/methodology in TV measurement in India has remained more or less static for almost a decade. While TAM, I am sure, would have improved its technology over the years, experts think it did not keep pace with the market developments. IRS, for the first time, has used Dual CAPI which is a much needed enhancement in the methodology. With this development and the advanced technology claims of BARC, I think we are moving in the right direction.

The most critical factor in conducting media research in India is the funding of a survey on such a large scale. The key issue is the fact that advertisers barring a few do not even pay for any media data. Most of the funding for this kind of research comes from media owners who earn advertising revenue based on this data and media planning and buying agencies who use this data to make decisions on behalf of advertisers who are their clients. What advertisers need to realise is that it is their money that is at stake here. Agencies have nothing to lose if the data is error-prone. But advertisers have a lot to lose as bad research data can lead to bad business decisions and it is in their interest to contribute to media research in India both financially and intellectually.

While it will be speculative to pinpoint any reason for the current situation that the media measurement practice in India is currently in, I do believe that the issues mentioned can address the situation effectively, if carefully thought through.

There are a few malpractices that have been reported in the past which can have serious implications for the research findings. Some of these might be hearsay and so should be looked at as potential ways of influencing the research.

For example, publications dumping copies in certain areas/cities where the survey is likely to happen can influence readership during the field work. Or publications could contact the research agency, offering people there bribes to report false data to show them in a better light.

In the television space, it has been alleged that channels were running promotions to influence viewership in select towns which are part of the TAM sample. Another charge was that TV channels were gifting TV sets to respondents in the panel with the diktat that their channel should play the maximum on the TV set attached to the peoplemeter.

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Clearing the path to accurate data

February 26, 2014

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports Your Universe Online

Despite the availability of DVDs and other media products claiming to help babies learn to read, these goods dont actually instill reading skills in infants, according to new research appearing in the Journal of Educational Psychology.

While we cannot say with full assurance that infants at this age cannot learn printed words, our results make clear they did not learn printed words from the baby media product that was tested, senior author Susan Neuman, a professor researchers at New York Universitys Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, said Tuesday in a statement.

In order to test whether or not these media products could actually help infants develop reading skills, Neuman and colleagues from Lakehead University, the University of Toronto and the University of Michigan examined 117 babies between the ages of nine and 18 months who were randomly placed in treatment or control groups.

Those babies in the treatment group were given a baby media product such as a DVD, a set of word and picture flashcards or a flip book while the children in the control group did not. The treatment group infants used the products daily over a seven-month span as researchers conducted one home visit, four laboratory visits, and monthly assessments of language development for both the treatment and control groups.

Neumans team tested the reading skills in the laboratory by having them recognize the names and sounds of letters, as well as their vocabulary, their ability to identify words on sight, and their reading comprehension levels. A mixture of eye-tracking tasks and standardized measures were used to study outcomes at each developmental stage.

Using a state-of-the art eye-tracking technology, which follows even the slightest eye movements, the researchers were able to closely monitor how the infants distributed their attention and how they shifted their gaze from one location to another when shown specific words and phrases, the university explained.

The results of the research, which included criterion and standardized measures of emergent and early reading skills, found no noticeable difference between those babies who had been exposed to the media-based learning tools and the control group on all but one of the 14 assessments conducted.

The lone exception was the parents belief that the children were learning new words, despite evidence to the contrary. On exit interviews with the parents, Neuman said that moms and dads had great confidence that their children were learning to read and had benefited from the use of such programs. Her teams findings indicate that their faith in those educational DVDs and other vocabulary development tools is misplaced.

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New Study Confirms Instructional Media Can't Teach Babies To Read