Airline Security: Where are We?
The events of 9/11 unleashed a flood of security measures across all dimensions of daily life, many of them aimed at averting repeat attacks on aircraft. So you might imagine that the risks of flying have been much reduced. You’d be wrong, says Arnold Barnett, who has scrutinized the changes in air security regulations, and
So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits and the President Failed on Iraq
Greg Mitchell has found both comedy and tragedy in the shameless and near-universal complicity between the American press and the Bush Administration around the Iraq war and occupation. Mitchell’s amply documented account of the run-up to the invasion through the recent surge forms the basis of his new book, So Wro
The Great Climategate Debate
The hacking of emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit in November rocked the world of climate change science, energized global warming skeptics, and threatened to derail policy negotiations at Copenhagen. These panelists, who differ on the scientific implications of the released emails, generally ag
Denialism: Media in the Age of Disinformation
A few hundred years after the Enlightenment, western civilization is rushing back to the Dark Ages. The causes are debatable, but, argue these science journalists, the public increasingly rejects the findings of science, from climate change to evolution, and is turning away from rationality and reason in general.
“People are
The Gutenberg Parenthesis: Oral Tradition and Digital Technologies
Should we view the last 500 years or so of Western culture as a strange interlude, defined by printed page and other artifacts that once dominated the landscape but are now fading in relevance? In this forum, Thomas Pettitt makes the deliberately provocative case for a Gutenberg “Parenthesis†-- a period marked b
Discourses on Iraq and the Middle East
U.S. actions in Iraq get a thorough thrashing in this final chapter of the Reconstructing Iraq series. First, Yosef Jabareen sprints through editorial page cartoons from Arab print media, which represent the U.S. as immoral, abusive, greedy and above all, hegemonic. The drawings depict George Bush burning th
The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil
Perhaps no one comprehends the roots of depravity and cruelty better than Philip Zimbardo. He is renowned for such research as the Stanford Prison Experiment, which demonstrated how, in the right circumstances, ordinary people can swiftly become amoral monsters. Evil is not so much inherent in individuals, Zimbardo showed, but e
Creativity and Collaboration in the Digital Age
In a panel moderated by James Paradis, five former Comparative Media Studies (CMS) students discuss their personal experiences within the CMS program and the impact it has had on their understanding, interpretation, and implementation of creativity in the digital age.
Creativity may be perceived, traditionally, as
Media in Transition 6: Summary Perspectives
At the end of the three-day Media in Transition conference, panelists swap impressions and reactions, offering some notional themes for future symposia.
Mary Bryson frames her comments as “a mash-up aggregation.†The conference’s “massive disagreements and sometimes awkward silences and gaps†were beneficial, â
Technologies and Emerging Democracies: Building a Better Gatekeeper
Don’t forsake The New York Times for online media, instructs Ethan Zuckerman, because newspapers provide opportunities for learning about the world largely unavailable in the digital kingdom. Zuckerman points in particular to the “serendipity box†-- that intensely local or exotic piece that often grabs attention
The Future of Government-Citizen Engagement
As the U.S. moves toward universal broadband access, look for increased government openness, new opportunities for civic engagement, and some dangers along the way, say these panelists.
While Chris Csikszentmihalyi acknowledges the civic potential of broadband, he does not believe it will be a simple matter for geog
The Future of Digital Public Media
Public broadcasting executives and producers discuss their changing roles as digital technology transforms the news and entertainment industries, and provides individuals with powerful tools for shaping their communities. Moderator Jake Shapiro asks panelists to discuss ventures that illustrate new dimensions of public medi
Pursuing The Endless Frontier: Essays on MIT and the Role of Research Universities
At the conclusion of 14 years at the helm of the Institute, Chuck Vest discusses the challenges and opportunities involved in guiding a major research university through tumultuous times. Vest’s new book, outlined in his remarks, provides a detailed and intimate view of his MIT “adventure.†Some key chapters: At the start of hi
Student Remarks 2006 MLK Breakfast
With a mix of bitterness and hope, these two young men address the legacy of Martin Luther King. David Lowry, a Lumbee Indian, grew up in southeastern North Carolina where the great majority of the Lumbee people reside.
He speaks compellingly of his Lumbee Indian ancestry, and his need to be recognized at MIT and beyond as part
1.1 So what's it all about? iSpot is a website aimed at helping anyone identify anything in nature. Once you've registered, you can add an observation to the website and suggest an identification yourself or see if anyone else can identify it for you. You can also help others by adding an identification to an existing observation, which you may like to do as your knowledge grows. Your reputation on the site will grow as people agree with you identifications. You may also like to visit our forums which offer lively debat
Lawrence Bailey - Market Research Valedictory Lecture
Colleagues from both academia and business were present on 27 January 2011 for Lawrence Bailey's guest lecture on Market Segmentation, Qualitative Research and Conversations Across the Garden Wall.
The garden wall of the lecture's title was Lawrence's metaphor for the potential divide between the two sectors.
The lecture reflected Lawrence's career-long wish to get qualitative researchers in the commercial world to talk to their counterparts in the academic world, and vice versa. He discusse
1.2.2: The price of a loaf these days The investigation so far illustrates just how difficult it can be to make a fair comparison of prices. In this subsection, the central question is still ‘Are people getting better off?’ However, in order to make the task more straightforward, just look at the period from 1990 to 2004. How might you use the ‘price of bread’ measure as a way of investigating whether or not people got better off over this period? In particular, t
Computational Environments with Multimodal Representations of Architectural Design Knowledge
This article discusses interaction between multimodal representations of architectural design knowledge, particularly focusing on relating explicit and implicit types of information. The aim of the presented research is to develop a computational environment that combines several modes of representation, including and integrating different forms of architectural design knowledge. Development of an interactive digital-models library and ontological model of architectural design factors are discus
Virtual Maths - Basic Structures, bending moment uniformly distributed load
Interactive simulation demonstrating bending moment of uniformly distributed load
Virtual Maths Data Handling - Light Meter tool
Light Meter simulation tool