An enjoyable web page

I can't keep myself from posting a link to one commercial web site. Couldn't literally pull myself out of it.

It's a very well done page of a marketing company that delivers digital media consulting to businesses and organizations. The page shows all the fascinating abilities of modern internet technology for entertaining presentation of information and advertisement on the web. Their sophisticated use of videos is especially impressing. But only if you have a good internet connection and don't have to restart your browser every 5 minutes...

TPRC annual conference on communications, information, and Internet policy and its online resources

I guess one of the best ways not only to study the history of any academic discipline but also to follow its current tendencies and development is to monitor the conferences. At least it seems true for communications. And at least for somebody who is still out of the real academic life, like me.

Thus, last week my continuous internet searching brought a solid fruit. A blog about law, technology, and society (medisonian.net) brought me to a home page of Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (an annual conference on communications, information, and Internet policy) and its wonderful archives with programs for the last 13 conferences (beginning with the 1994) and free PDF format papers for the last 5 (from 2002) (can be found on the archive-search page).

The nearest, 36th research conference is taking place on the 26th through 28th September 2008 at George Mason University School of Law in Arlington, Virginia and has the following themes announced:

1. Network Competition, Policy and Management
2. Next Generation and all-IP Networks: Policy, Regulatory, Architectural and Societal Issues
3. Spectrum Management and Wireless Futures: Anywhere, Anytime Communications and its Implications
4. Societal Issues: Universality and Affordable Access; ICTs for Development and Growth
5. The Transformation and Future of Media in an Age of User- and Community-Produced Creativity
6. The Transformation and Future of Intellectual Property and Digital Rights
7. Privacy, Security, Identity and Trust
8. Internet Governance and Institutional Strategies for Information Policy

Who knows, maybe I'll be able to use the Student Paper Contest opportunity next year when I'm going to have a full time student status... I'd be so happy to try to write something that meets its standarts, let alone to attend the conference to see what this kind of conferences looks like in an American reality...

Meanwhile, I'm thankful to the organizers of the conference for the opportunity to explore its informative web page and study its plentiful content, and have a subject to write about on my blog today and an event to add to the calender I put at the bottom of this blog page :)

Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs Insists Internet Is a Mass Media

It seems like Internet has really grown in influence in the Russian political life. It can be seen from the exsessive attention it gets from the Russian authorities lately.

Right after the blogger who had been critisizing the Russian militia was determined guilty of “inciting hatred and enmity” but was sentenced only to a suspended prison, the Minister of Internal Affairs, a soviet KGB successor, came out with an legislative initiative to qualify Intenet as a mass media, subject to the mass media law.

As the Russian national newspaper "Kommersant" reports, Nurgaliev had called all Russian security agencies "to be more insistent in their work with deputies pertaining to the question of legislative recognition of Internet as a mass information media with all legislative consequences for all holders of subversive sites".

Today's Russian media low has already proved its effectiveness for allowing the authorities to close quickly and quitely any media outlet accused in the "extremist activity". During eight years of Putin Presidency almost every independent traditional media outlet was put under the governmental controll - financially or administratively- or closed.

The message evoked neither a wide public response nor an adequate reaction of the small in number in Russia but highly appricieted in the Westrn countries Russian opposition. No surprize. A while ago there were some other initiatives of Russian officials pertaining to the Internet. Among them a mandatory registration off all Internet users, and an obligation for all Internet providers to block any web site found guilty in destribution of extremist materials at first prosecutor's call. And as the Russian history shows and everybody in Russia has well learnt, a resistance to a lesser evil often results in an evil much greater.

A lawsuit against a nonconformist blogger is likely to bury another chance for Russia's communication improvement

Internet communication could be an excelent solution of russian everlasting great communication problem.

Russia is the country with the most extended territory in the world with one of the worst developed road and post infrastructure. Its information system is highly centralized; the main mean of nationwide political communication - television - is broadcasted from Russia's capital Moscow and controlled in its finances and contents by the government. Imoprtant national newpapers, though more free that TV, are also produced exclusively in Moscow and can never be delivered to all remote corners of the country in an acceptable time.

The Internet seemed to open new opportunities for the country. Good or bad, but telephone wires reach every small Russian town. Internet delivery business is still out of the government controll and is one of the most competitive spheres of economy. Information and opinions that are easily watched by the government in traditional media seemed to find its refuge in "ru-net" - Russian Internet.

But a lawsuit against an average blogger from an average Russian city Syktyvkar (1500 km away from Moscow) showed that things are not going to be that easy. There, where the central power looses its ability for total control, local authorities are ready to help.

Savva Teryentyev, a young livejournal.com user terentyev was sentenced to one year of suspended prison for making a harsh comment on a post of another user about russian militia and its lawlessness. The court found him guilty of “inciting hatred and enmity”.

No doubt it was just a touchstone of a ruling clique who in the person of Russia's ex-president and todays prime minister Vladimir Putin had already long been talking about necessity for Internet environment to be controled in order to prevent the dessemination of extremism.

Taking into account the history of a consecutive authoritarian destruction of freedom of speech in russian tradional media and the indifference of general public to the question of information freedom, the test promisses to be successful. And that means that just another try to establish a common free communication field in Russia is going to fail.

Never out ot the coverage

Here is an idea I found interesting and worth writing about while reading a post about communication in a blog of one guy who seems to be so cool that I'm afraid has no need in bloggers like me to be cited by :-).

The idea was that the new means of communication like cell phones with abilities to send and receive text messages, voice mails, emails, and notifications about missed calls instantly during 24 hours a day make it really difficult to hide from people you don't want to communicate with at the moment. You just can't say you weren't aware they were trying to contact you. Any serious delay to answer or call back may cause a justified discontent of the "caller".

I myself recently "enjoyed" this gift of technology with my mother who always suspects me in reluctance to "find time for your only mother", and who during one weekend was trying to connect me by cell phone, sms and email.

It seems to me this feature of new technologies is changing our communication environment and habits dramatically. It changes our expectations for other people's avaliability, and requires more sophisticated communication strategies than just not to pick up the phone. It learns us to solve problems in a real time mode since any try to delay it by just ignoring any person's inquiries make chances for a good problem settlement worse...