"The less people know about important complex issues such as the economy, energy consumption and the environment, the more they want to avoid becoming well-informed, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association."

"After controlling for factors like partisanship, education, and other demographic factors, the pollsters found that Fox New viewers were 18 points less likely to know that the revolt was successful than their non-active news consuming counterparts."

"Paid-for references to products and services are now permitted for the first time in shows produced in the UK, including soaps and one-off dramas."

A guest post by James Griffioen pointing out that while there may not be big-box stores in Detroit, the city has plenty of places to get food (and not just junk, either).

Simon Winchester, quoted in the article: "Until six months ago I was clinging to the idea that printed books would likely last for ever. Since the arrival of the iPad I am now wholly convinced otherwise. The printed book is about to vanish at extraordinary speed. I have two complete OEDs, but never consult them – I use the online OED five or six times daily. The same with many of my reference books – and soon with most. Books are about to vanish; reading is about to expand as a pastime; these are inescapable realities."

The actual Ofcom report referenced in the Guardian story, for further digging into figures. For example, the Guardian didn't think this was worthy of note: "Children are likely to have a TV in their bedroom, with this being the case for half of 5-7s (49%), two-thirds of 8-11s (67%) and three-quarters of 12-15s (77%)."

"Apple: you did not invent a magical and revolutionary device so we could read books in ePub format. Think about what the iPad really is! It’s the greatest canvas for media ever invented. It’s colorful, tactile, powerful, and programmable. It can display literally any thing you can imagine; it can add sound and music; and it can feel you touching it." A call to arms.

Warren Ellis: "Buried in the OMM's web presence, once a month, is a multimedia presentation by Morley. Not just a music column, but video of the interviews he conducted in support of the month's subject or theme, music files, filmed performances, and, most unsettlingly, a Flash file that places an immense screen-filling Morley as rambling disco ringmaster."

"Today's published Commons order papers contain a question to be answered by a minister later this week. The Guardian is prevented from identifying the MP who has asked the question, what the question is, which minister might answer it, or where the question is to be found. The Guardian is also forbidden from telling its readers why the paper is prevented – for the first time in memory – from reporting parliament. Legal obstacles, which cannot be identified, involve proceedings, which cannot be mentioned, on behalf of a client who must remain secret. The only fact the Guardian can report is that the case involves the London solicitors Carter-Ruck." Time to read Hansard...

On the birth and death of the British TV manufacturing industry, with interesting digressions on the fact that we still make programmes and the future of the screen as a focal point for living rooms.

A good Nick Cohen opinion piece on the Simon Singh case, concluding with the rallying cry that "the greatest threat to freedom of speech in Britain is not the state or the security services or the press barons, but a fusty and illiberal legal system, which has become a public menace".

Utter rubbish from the Industry Trust (who?): "The proportion of illegal film and TV content distributed globally online is heading towards 90% of the total." Surely that can't be 90% of consumption; not that many people use laptops. Evidently they mean 10% of their output is so rubbish it's not even worth bootlegging. Having seen the reviews of most British film comedy, that sounds low...

Bobbie Johnson on Wired UK 2.0 (I'm probably not the first to make that joke, am I?) I took out a subscription, sight unseen, because I'm curious as to how it'll shake out (and it was priced, like US subs, cheaply enough to write it off if it doesn't work out). This makes me somewhat hopeful.

"Journalists pooh-poohed the brevity of the stories, media buyers thought it too cheap, rival executives thought it was a licence to lose money. Nobody seemed to like it, except the readers, a fact Metro quickly alerted media buyers to" Have a go at the internet for dumbing down news if you like, but Metro was doing it on paper at the same time.

A history of the song currently exercising the patience of culture vultures in the UK, as TV talent show contestants tackle it. "If Buckley was covering Cale, there's little doubt that almost all of these people were covering Buckley. And no one was really covering Cohen anymore."

"Forget design, even. As a subset of our culture, video games are clearly headed to center of the conversation, where it’s not inconceivable that one day they might shoulder aside old media mainstays like television and newspapers."

This looks nice. Of course, what would a video service be without geoblocking? This doesn't disappoint, showing big red "not outside the US" screens. Just as annoying, there's no upfront warning of it either in this post or on the archive itself.

On the Metropolitan Police's latest crime figures, showing 5-20% drops in knife and violent crime. "Some will dismiss them as nonsense, preferring to judge the state of violent crime in London on the basis of what they ... hear in the pub".

I was a bit of a fan of this back in the day. Its erratic scheduling made it a bit hard to keep watching, but it's a shame it's going. Hopefully, as has happened in the past, it'll shift channels (hell, I'd be happy if Sky News took it on).

Chris Heathcote argues that Clay Shirky's much-linked talk on "social surplus" is weirdly anti-consumption and values the Internet more highly than TV for no good reason. Can't say I entirely disagree (cf growth of web video).

Of course I've been tangentially wittering about this as I talk about personal aggregation (itself threatened by the likes of Friendfeed), but this is a good "stating the obvious" post about the death of the home page. (Sometimes you need to state the obv

EPIServer, eh? Lots of interesting nuggets in this, and that's just on a skimreading. I'm surprised the decision to paywall just gets a sidenote, though.

On BBC Two's White Season: "The BBC has made a grave error in locating the problems of Britain's poorest and most pressurised people in race rather than class." Sounds about right to me.

The catchy-image-as-art is part of the culture of ffffound as much as it is of digg (and it seems to be getting worse over time). The utter lack of text and context don't exactly help either.

Deeply depressing article on the coverage of the 2000 US election, and how the media laid into Gore and gave "the irresistable frat boy" an easy pass. Just because he'd have a drink with them.

The (soon to reopen, hopefully) museum has put what looks like its entire poster archive (certainly hundreds of them) online for browsing and purchasing (in A3/A4). Lovely.

"The Danish Broadcasting Corporation's intractable problems should be a lesson for the BBC in what not to do." An interesting companion piece to the Humprys interview, I think.

A great interview in the Independent. I agree with a great deal of what he has to say about the BBC and radio, but then maybe I would; I don't have a TV either and far prefer news online or on the radio.

Scathing putdown of Channel 4. I wish the Humphrys interview on Today last week had been so biting.

The two things that seem to have derailed new media at the BBC are the Trust (and the commercial competitors that created that atmosphere) and Ashley Highfield, overpromising and underdelivering.

On Google Book Search, intellectual property, copyright, and similar matters. Long but a good read, even if some of the material is a bit familar to geeks.

"a music video player which matches your music taste from last.fm to videos on YouTube" I've wondered if I should submit music videos I've watched to last.fm. Can't quite decide. Maybe this does that too?

If I actually had a Wii, I'd love this. How about a DS version, huh huh huh?

se71summarises: " SL is just another fad, like the last incarnation of 2D worlds". I'm amazed there's still anyone clear-minded enough to write stuff like this in the midst of Bubble 2.0, but hurrah.

The cost of free newspapers

"two self-selected castes: Those who made television and those who watched it." ... "we don’t exploit this amazing data-processing power for creativity, but for fetishistic clerical work"

"Little Atoms is a live discussion show, produced and presented by Neil Denny and Richard Sanderson. Little Atoms explores the science of politics and the politics of science"

"a 'no sticking out' solution for DS Lite consoles which also allows the use of MicroSD cards."

Just so I can say "Clerkenwell officially full of wankers"

I've only skimread this, but it seems a fair summation of the blackface (as opposed to redtop, or once-broadsheet) tabloids.

Topped by Aung San Suu Kyi, but some really dubious placings lower down, John Carr in particular.

Apparently the format is a bit wacky; looks a lot like an RDBMS dump. Ho hum.

(not new but) needed to play aacPlus on Mac OS X until iTunes gets its finger out. A really good Unix app port (unlike so many others)

Why doesn't the (much bigger) computer industry take on media, rather than the other way around?

Permanent archives and RSS are fine suggestions. Comments, trackbacks and community, though, I'm not bothered about.

Certainly the interviews weren't done in the last two weekends- it's been blooming warm

Previous link inspired by this from blackbeltjones

Includes the classic Um Bongo advert

Death comes to us all

bbj on bbci ^H bbc.co.uk (acronyms? me? never...)

And the NYT is a paper of record? Huh?

bbc.co.uk now known as, er, bbc.co.uk. Nice one

On loudspeakers and music

On loudspeakers and music

21st century radio: seconds out

Wasn't Jennings part of the video makers who did that Supergrass muppet video?

The fluffy backflipping 2 was so cute

Only took ten years to "make it happen". Still, hurrah.

Oh, so Slashdot's picked up on the iTMS thing (and called it by the wrong name, grargh grargh)