Visual Media, Technology & Health

Thinking about Copyright Issues

2009-10-09T12:12:00.000-07:00

One of the recommended but not required books for this course is Bound by Law, a graphic novel that deals with copyright law. If you haven't read this yet, I strongly urge you to do so soon. Why? Because copyright law is central to your video projects.

In the introductory videos that people posted on the YouTube channel, a couple of people added soundtracks to their videos.   You get bonus points for creativity but the music was copyrighted. That means that someone (the songwriter, the singer, or more likely, the company that bought the rights to that music) owns that song. You cannot use it unless you pay them for the right to use it.   Period.

Have you noticed how videos sometimes disappear off of YouTube? Many times, this is because the copyright holder has requested (or, demanded) that YouTube remove the video for "copyright violation."

This also applies to images. Think that you want to add an image that you grabbed off the web to your video? Think again. Most likely, that image is copyrighted.

Now, I'm guessing most everyone has "ripped" music - that is, downloaded it without paying for it.   That's called "piracy" and, yes indeed, it's illegal.

So, on the one side, we have people who are arguing for "copyright enforcement" (no stealing!) and on the other side we have people who are saying, "but it's on the Internet and we can download it, it should be free!" (pirates!).

That's where "creative commons" comes in. This is the creation of Larry Lessig, a law professor and scholar on copyright among other things, who argues that we need a commonsense approach to copyright law. I'll talk more about creative commons in another post. For now, watch this brief talk by Lessig (19 minutes or so), about copyright:

Films at the Schomburg

2009-10-09T12:02:00.000-07:00

There are some great documentaries that you can see at the Schomburg this weekend and next:

October 10th - 1p.m. to 4p.m.
1 p.m. Scarred Justice: The Orangeburg Massacre 1968
2 p.m. Merritt College: Home of the Black Panthers

October 17th - 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
1 p.m. San Francisco State: On Strike
1:30 p.m. February One

The Schomburg Center presents new film series throughout the 2009-2010 season focusing on a wide range of themes. Screenings will be held on select Saturdays. Check wwww.schomburgcenter.org for detailed listings. Free admission. First come, first served. space is limited. Select screenings will be followed by a discussion.

Podcast on Cyber Racism

2009-10-05T12:15:00.000-07:00

The good folks at Contexts (the magazine of the American Sociological Association) asked me to an interview for their podcast series a few weeks back about my new book, Cyber Racism, and now it’s available online, here. The description from their website about the podcast:

Cyber Racism is about white supremacist groups online, and Daniels tells us how white supremacy online is important for how we think about education, free speech and multiculturalism.

This expands on one the articles assigned for tonight's class. And, there’s a little bit at the end about the blogging I do at Racism Review and the way that I see that as engaged political work. One small correction, the scholar I refer to in the piece who developed the phrase “translocal whiteness” is Les Back (I mangled his name).

Opportunities Abound ~

2009-09-29T16:44:00.000-07:00

Opportunities abound for both seeing and creating documentaries and new media projects. Here are few that have come to my attention recently:

Health Reform Video Challenge - President Obama wants you....to create a video. Seriously, he does. This is the challenge: "Create the best 30 second video you can that makes the case for passing health insurance reform in 2009." Interested? Here are the official rules. I would love to see a submission from our class.
Stranger than Fiction (STF) - STF is a documentary series at IFC Center, and it is launching its' 11th year. This is a great chance to see documentaries screened in a theater, often with filmmakers present afterward for Q&A. I hope to see you there!
Get in on the ground floor - Check the notice I posted on Blackboard about the opportunity to get in on the ground floor of work on a doc about desegregation in health care with a professor here at Hunter. Really, someone needs to do this.
Maysles Institute - The Maysles brothers are the filmmakers that brought us "Grey Gardens" (among other films), and we're fortunate that the surviving brother lives here in New York. Check out the Maysles Institute and their ongoing film series uptown, at the Maysles Cinema, 343 Malcolm X Blvd / Lenox Ave (Between 127th and 128th Streets). A treasure of an institution - not to be missed.

Public Health 2.0

2009-09-22T10:57:00.000-07:00

JRanck has provided a terrific report that offers a descriptive overview of what we might call, "Public Health 2.0" - riffing on "Web 2.0" (hat tip: @MindofAndre). This is definitely worth a few minutes of your time:

Public Health 2.0: Re-Mixing Public Health

See especially about page 12 where he mentions Social Documentary and Witness as examples of the way that visual media are being deployed in the new technological landscape.

HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean: A Deadly Cycle of Stigma and Secrecy

2009-09-20T14:30:00.000-07:00

I heard about this health-related documentary screening via my church bulletin this Sunday and thought I would pass this along:

HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean: A deadly cycle of stigma and secrecy (documentary screening) Stigma and discrimination prevent people around the world from accessing the HIV prevention, care and treatment services they need. This is particularly true in areas of the Caribbean, such as Jamaica, where anti-sodomy laws and concerns about violence put vulnerable populations at extreme risk. A panel of journalists, funders, AIDS activists and community members discuss the human impact of this discrimination, the need for coordinated multi-sectoral action, and journalism's role in bringing these issues to the broadest possible public.

Tuesday, September 22nd
4:00-5:30 pm
Reception following
CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
Room 308
219 West 40th St., NY, NY 10018
Seating limited: Please rsvp to rsvp@pulitzercenter.org

There is a panel discussion following the screening. More information here about the panelists.

Documentary "Crude" with Filmmakers Present

2009-09-15T10:33:00.000-07:00

The IFC Theater on W.4th is a good resource for independent and documentary films. They are currently screening "Crude," a new film by Joe Berlinger. Here's an excerpt from the blog linked to the film's website:

Three years in the making, this cinéma-vérité feature from acclaimed filmmaker Joe Berlinger (Brother’s Keeper, Paradise Lost, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster) is the epic story of one of the largest and most controversial environmental lawsuits on the planet. The inside story of the infamous “Amazon Chernobyl” case, Crude is a real-life high stakes legal drama, set against a backdrop of the environmental movement, global politics, celebrity activism, human rights advocacy, the media, multinational corporate power, and rapidly-disappearing indigenous cultures. Presenting a complex situation from multiple viewpoints, the film subverts the conventions of advocacy filmmaking, exploring a complicated situation from all angles while bringing an important story of environmental peril and human suffering into focus.

The landmark case takes place in the Amazon jungle of Ecuador, pitting 30,000 indigenous and colonial rainforest dwellers against the U.S. oil giant Chevron. The plaintiffs claim that Texaco – which merged with Chevron in 2001 – spent three decades systematically contaminating one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth, poisoning the water, air and land. The plaintiffs allege that the pollution has created a “death zone” in an area the size of the Rhode Island, resulting in increased rates of cancer, leukemia, birth defects, and a multiplicity of other health ailments. They further allege that the oil operations in the region contributed to the destruction of indigenous peoples and irrevocably impacted their traditional way of life. Chevron vociferously fights the claims, charging that the case is a complete fabrication, perpetrated by “environmental con men” who are seeking to line their pockets with the company’s billions.

On Wednesday (9/16) and Thursday (9/17) at 7:55pm and Sunday (9/20) at 5:40pm the filmmakers will be present at the IFC Theater for a Q&A after the film. If you've never seen a documentary screened in a theater with the filmmakers present, you should definitely make it a point to go this semester.

Taking a Look at Wiseman's, "Titicut Follies"

2009-09-15T08:47:00.000-07:00

The short health-related videos that are common today are very different from classic health-related documentaries, such as Frederick Wiseman's classic, Titicut Follies which we screened last week (9/8/09).    There is an excellent book (not assigned in the class) that I highly recommend if you'd like to read more about Wiseman's film and the controversy surrounding it: Documentary Dilemmas: Frederick Wiseman's “Titicut Follies” by Carolyn Anderson, Thomas W. Benson (Southern Illinois University Press, 1991). For now, I'm going to review some of the key points about the film - drawn mostly from Anderson and Benson's work - that we discussed in class.

Wiseman's work stands as an interesting case study in "independent documentary film making and in the legal, ethical, aesthetic, and rhetorical issues that the case has raised” (Anderson and Benson, 1991, p.4). It's also one of the earliest films that can be pointed to as a kind of social change film that the filmmaker really intended to use to bring about change in a social institution (but more about that in a moment). Before I get to that, let me review some of the background on the film and the controversy surrounding it.

Controversy: Just before the film was due to be shown at the 1967 New York Film Festival, the government of Massachusetts tried to get an injunction banning its release. The state claimed that the film violated the patients' privacy and dignity. Although Wiseman received verbal permission from all the people portrayed or the hospital superintendent (their legal guardian), Massachusetts claimed that this oral permission could not take the place of valid release forms from the inmates. It also claimed that Wiseman breached an "oral contract" giving the state government editorial control over the film. However, a New York state court allowed the film to be shown. In 1968, however, Massachusetts Superior Court judge Harry Kalus ordered the film pulled from distribution and called for all copies to be destroyed, citing the state's concerns about violations of the "patients' privacy and dignity." While "privacy and dignity" became the stated reason for stopping the film's distribution, and certainly a cause for concern, many critics of the court's decision - most notably Wiseman himself - argued that the state of Massachusetts, concerned that the film portrayed a state institution in a bad light, intervened to protect its own reputation.

Legal Limbo: Wiseman appealed to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which in 1969 allowed it to be shown only to doctors, lawyers, judges, health-care professionals, social workers, and students in these and related fields. Wiseman appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which refused to hear the case. Thus, from 1969 for the next twenty years or more, Wiseman's film existed in this rather bizarre and completely unique, legal limbo in which distribution was blocked except for the screenings for certain kinds of 'professionals.'

Distribution: In 1991, Superior Court Judge Andrew Meyer allowed the film to be released to the general public, saying that as time had passed, privacy concerns had become less important than First Amendment concerns. He also said that many of the former patients had died, so there was little risk of a violation of their dignity.[2] The state Supreme Court has ordered that "A brief explanation shall be included in the film that changes and improvements have taken place at Massachusetts Correctional Institution Bridgewater since 1966."[12] The film was shown on PBS in 1992. The film is now legally available through the distributor, Zipporah Films, Inc., for purchase or rental on VHS, DVD and 16mm film for both educational and individual license. Zipporah Films released the DVD of the film to the home market in December 2007.

Medicalization: One of the key sociological concepts that we discussed in relation to this film is that of 'medicalization,' that is taking a normal behavior and re-framing it as a medical condition (verb form: to medicalize). Medicalization is a tool of social control. Thus, those with less social power - people who are poor, not adults, not white, not male, not able-bodied - are much more vulnerable to being medicalized. And, as we read in the Rosenhan piece, once a medical label has been attached to someone it is very difficult, perhaps impossible, to resist that labeling.    In Wiseman's film, we see a powerful example of this process as "Vladimir," tries to talk his way out of Bridgewater. It is especially moving when he reflects on his own condition, saying “The reality is that I am here as a prisoner, and I am being ruined.”

Total Institutions: Known at the time as an institution for the "criminally insane," the Bridgewater State Hospital featured in the film still houses 386 inmates, although state officials say that the institution has been transformed since the days that Wiseman shot his film.   In fact, all of Wiseman's films are concerned with social institutions: hospital, police, schools, and the family in the United States.    Titicut Follies is unique in that it examines a total institution.   Developed by sociologist Ervin Goffman, a total institution is an institution where all parts of life of individuals under the institution are subordinated to and dependent upon the authorities of the organization.   Some examples of total institutions include boarding schools, concentration camps, colleges, cults, prisons, mental institutions, boot camps, monasteries, convents, nursing homes, and even cruise ships.   Wiseman's film offers a rare glimpse inside a total institution.

Bodies Under Siege: The bodies that Wiseman portrays are largely bodies under siege by the institutions in which they live. As such, these bodies - naked, emaciated, under total institutional control and completely without autonomy - become symbolic representations of each of us, as individuals, within society. The body in the film which receives the most care is the dead body of the inmate – others are assaulted. Wiseman illustrates by editing together scenes of a man being force-fed via a tube down his throat and then the relatively good care being taken with the same man's corpse after his death. (For more on the way 'bodies' can be portrayed in film, there is a nice analysis here connecting Wiseman and Riefenstahl and how each filmmaker portrays bodies: http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/50/titicut.htm).

Privacy, Dignity and Direct Cinema (cinéma vérité): Wiseman's film is an example of 'direct cinema,' or cinéma vérité. Watching a film shot in this style gives the viewer the sense of being in the room with someone and watching the action unfold in real time. And, if you are used to the quick edits and jump cuts popular in much of visual media today (such as the "Girl Effect" video I posted yesterday) then this can seem a painful to watch at first until you allow yourself to relax into the pace of the film itself.   The cinéma vérité style does raise some ethical issues, however. Here again are Anderson and Benson on this subject:

“Wiseman’s documentaries are built upon a method of film making that deliberately courts questions of invasion of privacy. To watch the films is often to feel as if we are seeing deeply into other people’s private experiences. In the Titicut Follies case, the issue of invasion of privacy became a legal issue; in all direct cinema it is an ethical and aesthetic issue.” (Anderson and Benson, 1991, p.4)

So several questions present themselves here: is it possible to make a film about peoples' suffering and not, simultaneously, violate their privacy? Is it possible to create a film that both shows peoples' suffering and respects their dignity? And, who is to decide when this has been achieved? These are difficult, perhaps unanswerable, questions but ones that we will face again and again if we create visual media that includes images of health, illness and bodies.

In an interview, Wiseman speaks to how he sees his editing style as related to the issue of the dignity of his subjects:

Q: Could you talk about your editing style? A lot of movies and television shows today use lots of fast cuts. You seem to be in a different camp.

Wiseman: “I think I have an obligation, to the people who have consented to be in the film, to make a film that is fair to their experience. The editing of my films is a long and selective process. I do feel that when I cut a sequence, I have an obligation to the people who are in it, to cut it so that it fairly represents what I felt was going on at the time, in the original event. I don't try and cut it to meet the standards of a producer or a network or a television show.

My principal obligation is to make as good a movie as I can, and try to fairly represent the complexity of what went on. That means that sometimes the films are long, it means that sometimes the scenes are long. I don't think it's fair just to cut to the most sensational part of the scene, and then cut to another sensational scene, because that means that there's absolutely no context. In each scene, I have an obligation to provide the context and, from my point of view, the result is more dramatic than when you just cut to the most sensational aspect. The so-called juicy part of the scene is more comprehensible and more powerful because the context is clear.”

The Politics of Asking Permission: When the controversy over the film first began, Wiseman was quick to point out that he asked and received permission from all of the people portrayed in the film or their legal guardian, in this case the superintendent of Bridgewater. The larger question is: is it possible to get meaningful permission from someone to be in a film if they are incapacitated or if they are institutionalized? Does the permission of a legal guardian constitute meaningful consent? What about the permission of the superintendent in charge of the institution where one is an inmate? These are typically the sorts of questions that are asked of researchers when conducting research with human subjects, but these sorts of questions are relevant for documentary filmmakers as well.

Social Change: Little changed at the Bridgewater facility where the film was made until 1987. It was then that the families of seven inmates who died in the institution sued both the hospital and the state of Massachusetts. Steven Schwartz represented one of the inmates. Schwartz’s client was “restrained for 2 ½ months and given six psychiatric drugs at vastly unsafe levels - - choked to death because he could not swallow his food.” Schwartz claimed that the state's order to block distribution of Titicut Follies was implicated in his client's death:

“There is a direct connection between the decision not to show that film publicly and my client dying 20 years later, and a whole host of other people dying in between.”

That's a remarkable claim for someone to make about a film: people died because this film was not released. While we may discount that as lawyerly-hyperbole, there may be some bit of truth to Schwartz's claim since as he went on to point out: "In the years since Mr. Wiseman made Titicut Follies, most of the nation’s big mental institutions have been closed or cut back by court orders.” In addition, “the film may have also influenced the closing of the institution featured in the film.”

However, trying to make the connection between one documentary film and broader social change - even relatively small social change, like closing one institution - can be a difficult claim to support, as Wiseman himself says in this interview:

Q: I'm interested in the idea of documentary film having some social utility. Could you speak to that?

Wiseman: “Well, it's very hard to know. It's very hard to measure. When I first started out, I had a rather naive and pretentious view that there was some kind of one-to-one connection between a film and social change. But now, while I like to think there might be a connection, I think there is no real way of knowing. People have all kinds of sources of different information, and it's totally presumptuous to assume that any documentary, or any one work of any sort, is going to be that important. Which is not to say I don't hope it has an effect, but I think if it does, it's elliptical, subterranean, circuitous and certainly not measurable.”

I would disagree only slightly with Wiseman's assessment here in that I think it is possible to measure, but I agree wholeheartedly that it's difficult. And, I think in many ways he captures something very important when he says that the effect of one film can be "elliptical, subterranean and circuitous."

Truth and Fiction: Finally, any discussion of documentaries must also include a discussion of 'truth.' The documentary is a defined as a "non-fiction" film and thus carries with it a special burden of truth-telling. However, which truth gets told is entirely up to the filmmaker who decides what to shoot, what to include and what to edit out. Wiseman is aware of this tension and is, perhaps intentionally, flip about it when he says that documentaries are fiction:

“Documentaries, like theatre pieces, novels or poems are forms of fiction,” (Philippe Pilard, “Frederick Wiseman, Chronicler of the Western World,”originally published in La Sept/Arte, from here.)

For good or for will, Wiseman is sometimes credited with being one of the originators of the contemporary genre known as "reality TV." Again, Anderson and Benson offer a bit of background on the blurring of the line between truth and fiction in Wiseman's work:

“Wiseman has sometimes referred to his films as reality fictions. The term was used by Wiseman as early as 1974 and at one level is a way of referring to the same problem John Grierson pointed to when he said that documentary film was about the ‘creative treatment of actuality.’ One works from social actuality but necessarily imposes form upon that actuality, turning it into what may be implied by the terms art or fiction. ” (Anderson and Benson, 1991, p.1)

Even as Wiseman protests that his films are "fictions" like a play or a novel or a poem, the fact is that we - as an audience - approach his work differently than if we were reading a poem or a novel or seeing a play. And, perhaps that's real distinction between truth and fiction, what we as an audience bring to each of these, and what we take away.

Girl Effect: Short Video

2009-09-14T15:58:00.000-07:00

This is a short video (2:23) about the importance of universal education for girls (hat tip: Arlen). As you probably already know, there are a lot of positive health outcomes associated with higher education for girls, and this video drives home that point nicely in a very short amount of time:

Why does this work so well? What are the elements that give this short video impact?

Fall Semester, 2009: Visual Media, Technology & Health (PH 770)

2009-09-14T15:47:00.000-07:00

I'm playing around with the title of this blog as I gear up for another semester of teaching the graduate course, "Visual Media, Technology & Health (PH 770)" at Hunter.

In the class, we see a lot of health-related documentaries, read a lot of critiques of those documentaries, and contemplate how documentaries are converging in interesting ways with new media, particularly when it comes to health and health campaigns.

Here's the course description:

Visual media – TV, documentary films, and YouTube - affect how we think about health, public health, illness and the body.

The Internet, once primarily a text-only medium, is increasingly a visual medium where people go to seek out TV shows, documentary films and shorter videos created especially for the web. And, content created specifically for television and movie theaters today typically includes a web-based component that allows interaction with audiences of various kinds. The overlap and coming together of different forms of media is what scholar Henry Jenkins as referred to as “convergence culture.” A significant portion of this visual content in this convergence culture deals with individual and public health, illness and the body.

Visual messages are increasingly the format of choice for communicating message about health. For example, when the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Institute of Drug Addiction (NIDA), wanted to get out a public health message that drug addiction is “a brain disease” they partnered with cable-television company HBO (and a dozen or so documentary filmmakers) to create the “Addiction,” (HBO, 2007). The launch of the documentary television series also included a push for viewers to log on to the companion website to access addiction services.

This course will explore a set of questions related to these new trends, including: What does this convergence culture mean for public health messaging in the 21st century? What do the particular kinds of visual images suggest about the social meanings of health, illness and the body? How are political contestations about ‘science’ and ‘truth’ engaged through visual media, particularly on the web? What are the possibilities for social transformation (or retrenchment) using Internet technology and visual images? What constitutes an ‘audience’ in the Internet age? And, how might researchers who seek to evaluate such interventions design effective evaluations?

In this course, students will watch and learn to critically evaluate health-focused documentary films through a series of related peer-reviewed articles. Students will also meet a number of people who work in the field(s) of documentary film, human rights and health that will speak about how visual media and technology influences their approach to their work. And, students will get basic hands-on experience in creating their own visual media. At the end of this course, each student will have a completed a short, health-related video and uploaded it to YouTube.

I started out the semester distributing Flip cameras to all the students and I'll create a YouTube channel for the class to upload their works in progress there. I'll post links here to that channel as it begins to be populated with content.

H1N1 Public Health Message via YouTube & Rapping Doctor

2009-09-04T07:14:00.000-07:00

This is a very short (1:00) video created by Dr. John Clarke about preventing the spread of H1N1 virus:

Dr. John Clarke's freestyle H1N1 rap video is one of 10 finalists in a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services competition for the best swine flu public service announcement. More here from NY Daily News.

And, we're back....

2009-09-04T07:09:00.000-07:00

One of the great things about blogging is you can set one down, walk away, and sometimes years later, pick it up again and just keep going.... as if nothing happened. That's pretty much what I'll be doing here. (Between 2006 and now, I blogged about a lot of this stuff at yet another blog I called Thinking at the Interface. That blog went away permanently when it got eaten by server gremlins at a now defunct host.)

After a curcuitous foray through the sacred groves of academia, I'm back at Hunter College as an Associate Professor (no longer in the liminal state that is a 'substitute' line) and delighted (really, beyond words delighted) to be back.

This semester, I'm teaching three courses that all have something to do with new media and health. One of those is a graduate course called, "Visual Media, Technology and Health," and we'll be using this blog a good deal in the course.

So, welcome ~ and welcome back!

Community Participation & Internet Use

2006-12-05T06:41:00.000-08:00

By way of my friend, David Brake (and, edited later to add: our mutual friend, Howard Rheingold), there's a new article in the journal City & Community, which looks at the question of whether Internet use isolates people from their local communities, or increases participation. Here's the full citation and the abstract:

Stern, M. J. and D. A. Dillman (2006) "Community Participation, Social Ties, and Use of the Internet", City & Community, 5 (4), pp. 409-424.

"Some argue that use of the Internet tends to pull people's interests away from their local area and weaken community ties (e.g., Kraut et al., 1998). Others argue that the Internet is frequently used to strengthen local ties, and is becoming a tool for helping communities organize to achieve local interests (Hampton and Wellman, 2003). Our results from a 2005 random sample mail survey of 1,315 households in a rural region of the Western United States suggest that increased Internet usage is positively related to nominal and active levels of community participation while at the same time supporting affective networks outside the local area. The location of these communities in a rural region of the West and their substantial distance from a larger population concentration provide the opportunity to draw implications for community development in the Information age and address theoretical concerns about the effects of information technologies on communities of place and local social capital."

For those interested in community development and social capital for improving public health, the implications seem clear that there is some reason to look to the Internet to facilitate such efforts.

Connecting Information & Urban Space

2006-12-05T05:43:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's New York Times featured a review of Steven Johnson's new book, “The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic — and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World” (Riverhead).

Johnson's also the author of several other books, including one of my favorite about technology and society, "Interface Culture," which offers a compelling analysis of the ways computer interfaces and real-world concepts (think "desktop") shape our thinking.

In his latest endeavor, Johnson blends the book and blog formats by addressing both, here's an excerpt from the Times piece, including a quote from Johnson (linked above):

In “The Ghost Map” Mr. Johnson makes an explicit connection between the subject of the book and the Internet.

“The influence of the Broad Street maps extends beyond the realm of disease,” he writes. “The Web is teeming with new forms of amateur cartography, thanks to services like Google Earth and Yahoo! Maps. Where Snow inscribed the location of pumps and cholera fatalities over the street grid, today’s mapmakers record a different kind of data: good public schools, Chinese takeout places, playgrounds, gay-friendly bars, open houses. All the local knowledge that so often remains trapped in the minds of neighborhood residents can now be translated into map form and shared with the rest of the world.”

This has real significance for those working in public health today. What might it mean to map the threats to disease, injury, and illness and make those available online for everyone?

Johnson's related website, outside.in, allows anyone to add content to geographically-specific maps. So far, he and other contributors have been mapping the kinds of things he mentions above like schools and take-out places, but there's no reason that those interested in public health, could use the map to add health-related information. Johnson's insight is to take the important work of John Snow in public health and translate it beyond public health for the Internet-era. The next step might very well be to combine John Snow's and Steven Johnson's insights and see how it these might work together to benefit public health at a time when many people are more likely to access a computer than a water pump.

Urban Technology & Health

2006-11-21T05:07:00.000-08:00

This morning NY1 reported about the work of the National Urban Technology Center, which is finding new ways to use technology to address sexual health issues among urban populations. Here's a short excerpt from the piece:

A computer-based program called "Prom Night," created by the National Urban Technology Center is being introduced in some city schools to help supplement the Department of Education's updated HIV/AIDS curriculum just revamped about a year ago.

Using a variety of animated games and scenarios, it's meant to use day-to-day situations students can relate to learn how to talk and think about the prevention of HIV and AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

“We have designed this in a way that's very hard-hitting, that deals with youth in their own culture,” says Pat Bransford of National Urban Technology Center. “We use hip hop, for example, in our animated films. We have animated characters, teenagers, like themselves, who are dealing with these issues – it gives them a chance to have more of a discussion.”

Very innovative combination of technology and urban health education!

MacArthur Foundation & Digital Media

2006-11-21T04:51:00.000-08:00

I haven't been posting here too much lately because I've been busily involved with the MacArthur Foundation series on Digital Media & Learning (DML). The foundation recently announced a new, $50 million dollar initiative to look at the ways new media influence the way young people learn. In line with that new initiative, the foundation is publishing a series of edited volumes on a variety of topics. The initiative also includes a number of online projects, including an online discussion forum, wiki (for members of the intiative), and the Spotlight on DML Blog, which is a cool place to follow some of the work in the series. And, here's my recent entry over there, about race online. One of my colleagues and fellow authors in the volume on "Race and Ethnicity," Mohan Dutta, has an interesting entry about underserved youth and online health activism, that is very worthwhile reading.

Bringing Global Health Data to Life

2006-10-11T08:45:00.000-07:00

We often talk about trying to find better, more innovative and engaging ways of sharing complex thoughts, ideas and data with large groups of other people. Thanks to Jenna Mandel-Ricci who shared this video in PH 710. The video clip (simlar to YouTube for those of you familiar with that) is a brief (7 minutes, with brief commercials at the beginning and end) presentation by Dr. Hans Rosling, a professor of international health at Sweden’s world-renowned Karolinska Institute, and founder of Gapminder, a non-profit that seeks to "bring vital global data to life" by developing and distributing free software. Rosling demonstrates some of this software in his presentation about global health, discusses a little about the vision of his non-profit organization, and is clearly energetic and enthusiastic here in this talk, recorded February, 2006 in Monterey, CA. The occasion is The Technology Entertainment Design Conference, also known as TED, an annual conference self-described as "a global community of remarkable people and remarkable ideas." Dr. Rosling sets a new benchmark for us all in terms of presentation of complex data in easy to understand ways.

CLICK THIS LINK TO WATCH THE VIDEO.

Back from Haitus ~

2006-10-11T08:44:00.000-07:00

Back to posting after a haitus. Hope to see you around.

eHealth Literacy and Internet Interventions: New Articles from JMIR

2006-07-28T08:49:00.000-07:00

The Journal of Medical Internet Research is frequently a good resource for material on health-related technology research. A couple of recent articles are especially noteworthy.

A paper titled, "Internet Interventions for Long-Term Conditions: Patient and Caregiver Quality Criteria," by Cicely Kerr, Elizabeth Murray, Fiona Stevenson, Charles Gore, and Irwin Nazareth (J Med Internet Res 2006 (Jul 28); 8(3):e13), explores a patient-generated analysis of an online intervention.

And, a paper titled, "eHealth Literacy: Essential Skills for Consumer Health in a Networked World," Cameron D Norman, Harvey A Skinner (J Med Internet Res 2006 (Jun 16); 8(2):e9), reviews some of the important skills necessary for evaluating health information online.

HIV Risk and Latino Gay Men: Free Web Seminar

2006-07-20T15:10:00.000-07:00

I just got an email notice about a free web seminar with one of the leaders in the field of research on HIV risk among Latino gay men, Dr. Rafael M. Diaz. Here's the notice:

Understanding Latino Gay Men and HIV Risk: A Conversation with Dr. Rafael M Díaz

About this Web Seminar:

Latino gay men continue to be disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS. Acción Mutua will host a web-based seminar to explore the contexts that put Latino gay men at risk for HIV infection/transmission. More importantly, we will discuss factors that help Latino gay men remain safe, healthy and strong and other issues around resiliency.

Who should sign up?

* Anyone working to prevent new infections/transmissions of HIV among Latino gay men and other men of color
* Anyone seeking to understand the social and cultural context of HIV risk
* Anyone who wants to explore what makes Latino gay men resilient in the face of the HIV/AIDS epidemic

Participants in this seminar will discuss:

Ø The social and cultural context of what it means to be a Latino gay man

Ø The impact of racism, homophobia, and poverty on Latino gay men

Ø How to build upon Latino gay men's individual and collective strengths

*Seminar approach:

We encourage participants to submit questions in order to make the seminar interactive and responsive to their particular concerns. Submit questions between now and the day of the seminar to accionmutua@apla.org; entitle theemail "7/25 Seminar Questions."

Details:

This web seminar is FREE. Participants will log in to the appropriate website and call a toll free number to participate in the discussion.

RSVP: Please sign up by email at accionmutua@apla.org

You will receive instructions on how to log in and what number to call after you register.

DATE: Tuesday, July 25, 2006

TIME: 2:00-3:00 pm (Eastern time)

This is a great opportunity for any one interested in knowing more about HIV risk to learn from one of the leaders in the field.

Pew Report on Bloggers

2006-07-20T04:45:00.000-07:00

There's a new Pew Internet and American Life study out, about bloggers:

"The Pew Internet Project blogger survey finds that the American blogosphere dominated by those who use their blogs as personal journals. Most bloggers do not think of what they do as journalism. Most bloggers say they cover a lot of different topics, but when asked to choose one topic, 37% of bloggers cite “my life and experiences” as a primary topic of their blogs. Politics and government ran a very distant second with 11% of bloggers citing issues of public life as the main subject of their blog. Entertainment-related topics were the next most popular blog-type, with 7% of bloggers, followed by sports (6%), general news and current events (5%), business technology (4%), religion, spirituality or faith (2%), a specific hobby or a health problem or illness (each comprising 1% of bloggers). Other topics mentioned include opinions, volunteering, education, photography, causes and passions, and organizations."

Of interest here, is the part I put in bold above, a "specific ... health problem or illness" which makes up 1% of bloggers. An interesting juxtaposition to another finding from the Pew about the fact that health-related information is one of the most often searched for items in people's internet use. Taken together, I think this can only mean that health-related blogs are going to increase over time.

Visionary Behind Wifi in Parks

2006-07-14T05:29:00.000-07:00

Personally, I can't wait for the wifi spots in Central Park to go live so I'm following this story closely. In this morning's NYTimes, there's a piece about Marshall Brown the visionary behind the wifi project for the city's parks, who "dreams of the wireless bubble on a grandiose scale," according to the article. I thought this quote from Brown was interesting:

“The first end of Internet expansion was about globalization, but this second phase of wireless Internet is going to be about the Internet made local.” His niche: for example, “What we’re going to enable by installing our portals in the parks is for people to get more in touch with where they happen to be.”

Brown also seems to have a desire to adddress some educational issues with this technology. The wifi hotspot just activated in Battery Park will usher users in through a portal that will offer a historical slide show, a tour of the Dutch gardens, and a video-cam hookup to the Statue of Liberty. As the article states, "In Mr. Brown’s wireless neighborhoods, connectivity is accompanied by educational content."

That's an interesting concept, providing educational content via portals at the free wifi spots. And, it seems like a great opportunity for the City Department of Health, or others interested in public health, to get out a message.

Black Gay Bloggers Protest Homophobia

2006-07-12T10:46:00.000-07:00

Ran across this in Newsday.

"A reggae concert meant to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS is coming under fire from some black gay bloggers and activists who are incensed that the lineup includes two artists they consider to be anti-gay.

Among those scheduled to perform at the July 18 show at Webster Hall are Jamaican dancehall artists Beenie Man and the group T.O.K. Protesters have asked the concert's organizer, LIFEbeat - The Music Industry Fights AIDS, to drop them or force them to publicly denounce controversial lyrics in their songs.

'The idea that they would invite artists who encourage murdering gays and lesbians is so outrageous, insulting and unbelievable,' activist Keith Boykin said.

But concert organizers, while rejecting the anti-gay lyrics, said including the commercially successful performers in the show would allow them to reach an audience they otherwise wouldn't get to, pointing out that dancehall, a beat-driven form of Jamaican music, remains hugely popular despite controversy over its lyrical content.

John Canelli, LIFEbeat's executive director, said he felt strongly that the performers' presence would 'create dialogue around AIDS and the Caribbean-American community" and an "opportunity for groundbreaking change and good to come from it.' The artists aren't being paid, he said."

Secret Lives of Teens Online

2006-07-10T15:44:00.000-07:00

There's been much hoo-ha (that being the technical term for it) in the old, broadcast media of late about the 'secret lives of teens online,' such as this report from a TV station in Portland, Oregon. And, has anyone watched the reports on Dateline recently? It's as if there's a producer there with a vendetta against the Internet.

And today, via Howard Rheingold, some reason has been re I learned of a newly released research from Professor Larry Rosen at UC-Dominguez Hills. Rosen finds that "only 7% of teens interviewed had ever been approached by anyone with a sexual intent and nearly all of them simply ignored the person or blocked the page." The research isn't based on a random sample (but rather a convenience sample), so it's not generalizable to all teens, or even all teens online. It's interesting, nonetheless, as a counter to the hyperbole and moral panic surrounding sexual predators online.

You can download a press release about Rosen's research here (downloads as a PDF file).

Convergence, Terrific Peer-Reviewed Journal on New Media

2006-07-07T17:41:00.000-07:00

I just came across a wonderful journal, called Convergence, The International Journal of Research into New Media. In publication since 1995 (though I just learned of it) today, and based in the UK, full text articles are available from Hunter College library starting from 2004. (Use the "Electronic Journals" link from the main Wexler Library page, and search for Convergence.)

HIV Blogs

2006-07-06T05:30:00.000-07:00

The magazine POZ created by, for and about the HIV+ community, has created a new and innovative approach to publishing online with its'roster HIV Blogs, including one by the Editor-in-Chief, Regan Hofmann. More and more, CEO's, editors, and other top level management-types are creating their own blogs (or, having someone else write a blog that has their name on it), and it's good to see this take off in a health-related field. However, the well-intentioned folks at POZ have made the classic public health (and beyond) blunder of not including enough voices (or, in this instance blogs) by people of color. Given the increasing impact of HIV on communities of color, and particularly women in those communities, it's shocking that of the HIV Blogs listed at POZ, only one is by a woman of color.

Resource for Peer-Reviewed Articles about e-Health Education

2006-07-06T05:20:00.000-07:00

I ran across what looks to be a valuable resource for peer-reviewed articles about health education and technology, with an international focus. It is The International Electronic Journal of Health Education.

A bit more about the journal from their author guidelines:

"International health education and promotion including articles that focus on programs and research in countries outside the US and articles from within the US that deal with immigrant populations or international outreach activities such as study abroad programs.

Health education and promotion articles are welcome that are most effectively published using the technology available through the Internet. Examples might include reports of computerized health assessments or audio/visual intervention programs. Articles might be accompanied by computer software, PowerPoint presentations, website links or a/v streaming to demonstrate a technology based project or product. These articles may originate from any geographic location, however it will be essential for authors who submit a technology based article to demonstrate the centrality of computer or Internet technology to either the content or presentation of the article."

It's definitely worth browsing their online table of contents for the past couple of years to see if there's anything relevant to your current health / education / technology interests.

Wifi Arrives Soon in NYC Public Parks

2006-07-06T05:04:00.000-07:00

From today's New York Times:

By the end of August, wireless networks will be established at 18 locations in 10 of New York City's most prominent parks — including Central, Prospect and Riverside Parks — in a major citywide expansion of free Internet access, according to city officials."

In my view, this is a great news for the city and for urban public health. Spreading wifi networks throughout the city's parks is a small but important step toward a framework that conceptualizes Internet access as a digital entitlement (to use Mansell's phrase) as well as an incremental move toward bridging various digital divides in the city. These impact health in a variety of ways, including but not limited to, greater access to health information that is available online. In some ways, I see the expansion of the wifi network in the city as analogous to the expansion of education in this country two centuries ago.

You can read the full article here (free registration required).

More about Podcasting and Health

2006-07-05T18:22:00.000-07:00

Interesting presentation this evening by Iskra and Tara about podcasting and public health. I thought I'd add to the conversation with a couple of additional links.

If you're interested in creating your own podcasts, Apple provides some fairly extensive instructions on how to do it here. You can use iTunes (a free download here) to browse through a catalog of different types of podcasts.

There are also competitors to iTunes, such as Gcast, which offers free podcasting.

And, bringing this back around to health, on the Gcast site you'll notice that they're affiliated with Bono's ONE Campaign to fight HIV/AIDS. Pretty cool.

Literature Review - Deadline Extended

2006-07-05T10:37:00.000-07:00

I sent this to everyone via Hunter email this morning, but several of these have bounced back (or been returned as undelivered for past 4 hours), so I'm posting this here. Apologies if you're just now getting word.

Several people have written to ask for extensions on the literature review. Rather than make individual exceptions, I'm extending the deadling for lit reviews until Friday, 7/7 @ 5pm. I still want hard copies (printed on paper), and would like them in my mailbox on the 10th floor ("J. Daniels" under the "Adjunct Faculty"). DO NOT, under any circumstances, slip paper copies under my door. These get thrown away by custodial staff.

The Environment, Bodybuilding & Race, from Two Favorites

2006-06-30T17:51:00.000-07:00

A couple of favorite blogs have recently included (broadly) health-related posts, so I will close out the week with a few comments about each.

I've already mentioned the briliant writing of Twisty-Faster and her patriarchy-blaming ways. And, she recently saw the Al Gore film which she refers to as a globalwarmingumentary. God knows I love a made up word and that's a doozy. Ms. Twisty mentions this blurb from NPR which perpetuates the myth of global warming as a 'controversy," noting in her inimitable style: "NPR. Ever since they got that Bushite pit boss, you’ve really gotta keep your eye on’em." Love her.

And, from my other favorite blog, Liz over at Granny Gets a Vibrator, writes about her experiences with personal training. Liz, who is white, tells a story of working out with an African American woman, and a conversation ensues about black-white body differences. As it turns out, African Americans on average, "tend to have greater bone density than white people, different patterns of fat distribution, and unique shapes to certain muscles." Then, she goes on to talk about a bodybuilding-buddy of hers who is an African American man, and who has "high short calves." She relates this back to the sport of bodybuilding and writes this:

"But even as I was expounding on the anatomy lesson, it occurred to me that of course there is nothing inherently wrong with Kevin's calves. They're strong and sturdy, hard as rocks, well developed and healthy, and they do a damn good job of supporting his enormous bulk. The only problem is that they don't quite meet the gold standard for bodybuilders, which is--surprise!-- arbitrarily based on the average shape of white people's calves."

Bingo. Well-said, Liz!

Gender, Time & the Push to Multi-Task

2006-06-29T15:29:00.000-07:00

Interesting presentation last night in class by Kezzie Joseph about multi-tasking and the impact on women's health. As she notes on her blog, she sees "multi-tasking [as] more of an woman's health issue," and I wanted to expand a little on that idea.

So, why is it do you think that women, more so than men, feel so pressed for time that they are risking their health? While you may have heard about the "wage gap," the fact that women still make less than men in paid employment, you may not have heard about the "leisure gap," wherein even in double-earner couples women have significantly less leisure time than men do. The reason for disparity in leisure time between women and men is primarily the result of the unequal allocation of housework and childcare. Overwhelmingly, women have the primary responsibility for housework and childcare, even when both partners work.

Given this inequality that shapes women's lives on a daily basis, it's no wonder that women feel pushed to multi-task. Of course, some women have advocated different strategies for resisting this inequality. Some have argued that housework should be paid labor. And, as I mentioned last night some people, women and men, are resisting all the ways our lives have sped up and are part of the Take Back Your Time movement.

Bayer Accused of Releasing Tainted Drugs in Foreign Countries

2006-06-28T14:54:00.000-07:00

This story was originally reported a few years ago by CBS News, but I ran across it today via this student blog.

The story is that Bayer came out with a drug for hemophiliacs that was found to be tainted with the HIV-virus. The FDA blocked Bayer from releasing the drug in the U.S., but the company went ahead and sold it in France, Spain and Japan. Bayer, of course, denies any wrong-doing.

I wanted to post this story for a couple of reasons. One, so that I could mention Progressive U, which bills itself as "the new media voice for students," and seems to be a growing portal for young people interested in civic engagement through the Internet.

I also wanted to focus attention on the pharmaceutical companies who are in the business of "Selling Sickness," as author Ray Moynihan puts it. As Moynihan notes in his excellent book, even when pharmaceutical companies are not engaged in the kind of egregious behavior that Bayer is accused of, they are actively pursuing the creation of new diseases and conditions for which that they can then sell us "cures," at great profit to them and tremendous cost to the consumer. It's too bad Bayer felt the need to expand beyond the business of selling aspirin, which seems to be one of the few miracle drugs. Clearly, the huge profits of the pharmaceuticals are a higher priority for them than good health. And, these profits, in turn, influence politics in Washington around health care. No wonder we have no national health care.

TechSoup, NetSquared and Blogging for Justice

2006-06-27T14:29:00.000-07:00

A few things worth noting from TechSoup. If you're not familiar with this organization and you work in a non-profit that makes any use of technology, I urge you to visit their website (linked above) and sign up for their newsletter.

If you can make it down to D.C. this Thursday, June 29, there's an interesting conference on "Blogs, Wikis, and Workspaces," that will explore ways new technologies, like the ones we've been using in the course, can help public policy organizations be more effective and efficient.

TechSoup has also started a project called NetSquared, which is intended to help nonprofits harness Web technologies for social change. One of the social justice efforts highlighted on NetSquared is about "Justice for Gwen Araujo." In case you don't know, Gwen Araujo (pictured above) was a transgendered woman who was killed when her attackers learned she was biologically male. A community activist joined with others and blogged about the trial of Araujo's attackers. You can read more about it at the link above. I think it's a great example of the way Internet technology can be used for social justice.

Laptops for the Homeless

2006-06-26T13:08:00.000-07:00

Circling back to this meme about how technology can improve the lives of the poor, there's an article from WIRED Magazine about laptops for the homeless, brought to my attention by Bill McIver on the Digital Divide Network listserv. Here's a brief bit from that article:

"Many of those now living without a permanent roof over their heads have cell phones in their pockets or laptop computers at their hips. While people living in shelters and alleys have found it difficult to cross social divides, the digital divide seems to disappear on the streets. Nearly all homeless people have e-mail addresses, according to Michael Stoops, director of the National Coalition for the Homeless. 'More have e-mail than have post office boxes,' Stoops said. 'The internet has been a big boon to the homeless.'

Helping the homeless get e-mail addresses has been a priority for years at shelters across the country. And in an age when most every public library in the nation offers internet access, the net has proven a perfect communication tool for those without a firm real-world address."

Clearly, there are some implications here for public health and public health practitioners. It might be possible to get health information to homeless people via email, and certainly those who want to work with this population need to know how to help people set up email accounts.

And, even more encouraging is this story:

"Terri Hellerich's connection to the information superhighway is all that made life livable on the streets. 'It kept me sane and provided my income,' she said. Hellerich found herself homeless after a landlord in West Sacramento kicked her out and kept her belongings to make up for a debt. She didn't have a change of clothes, but she did have an old cell phone that she could use to stay online and check her inbox.

Hellerich slept on benches but she frequented a women's shelter with a cluster of internet-connected computers used mostly by the children who arrived at the safe house with their mothers. She started blogging and conducting a business. As an independent internet marketer, she was able to maintain bank accounts, nurse existing client connections and forge new business relationships. The business brought in only about $100 a month, but that was enough to help get her life back on track."

The article goes on to mention the blogs of several other homeless folks, including Kevin Barbieux, a woman in the UK known as Wandering Scribe, Willie York, and another blog written by a young woman who wrote about being homeless and now has housing.

Anytime, Anywhere Learning Podcasts

2006-06-23T10:01:00.000-07:00

Via Andy Carvin's Waste of Bandwidth, a series of podcasts from the anytime, anywhere learning foundation summit in Boston. Each podcast is about 45 minutes long, between 15 and 20 megabytes. To dowload and listen, click on the name of each speaker below.

Ben Shneiderman:

Ben is the author of Da Vinci's Laptop, and is a computer scientist/edtech researcher at the University of Maryland. He talks about the need to make students ecstatic about learning, using authentic, interactive learning experiences that positively affect the community. He also talks about his work with Hive Group, developing web-based visualization tools for exploring complex data sets.

Mike Furdyk:

Mike is one of the founders of TakingITGlobal.org, the global youth activism network. He talks about his life growing up with technology from the time he was a toddler, and how it led to him creating an online community where young people can come together to affect positive social change.

Tim Magner:

Tim is the director of the Office of Education Technology at the US Department of Education. In his presentation, he offers a broad overview of emerging technologies, from mobile devices to nanotechnology, and examines the role these tools should play in education and educational management.

Although these are all focused only on "education and technology," I think each of these has clear relevance for health communication.

Information Technology & Poor Communities

2006-06-22T16:37:00.000-07:00

Interesting discussion in class last night about "digital entitlements," using Mansell's phrase, a couple of items through my inbox today that relate to that discussion. Via The Chron.com, a recent forum, called the Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technologies and Development, at the United Nations urged:

"... urged private businesses to help governments make information technology more accessible and affordable, especially in developing countries.

Computers and communications technology should not just be "a privilege for the rich, but a tool for the poor," U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown said at a meeting of policy makers and high-tech experts.

Efforts to bridge the current "digital divide" should include linking villages to the Internet and providing cell phone technology cheaply to rural communities, he said at the launch of a U.N.-backed forum on using technology to battle global poverty and unemployment."

And, via the DDN listserv, notice of the Southeast Wireless and ICT Conference, which will "focus on the new and evolving technical, political, legal, and financial issues surrounding municipal broadband deployment. Industry experts and community leaders will present research results and practical hands-on experience derived from case studies on applying ICT to create digital communities and enhance rural life."

Finally, here's the link to the group I mentioned that's involved in grassroots efforts to provide wifi throughout NYC.

Technology Used to Combat Childhood Obesity

2006-06-21T14:55:00.000-07:00

A few people in the class, including Liudmila, Tara, Julie, Nurit, and Cris, have been blogging about food and nutrition-related issues. Lots of folks have pointed to the increase in sedentary activities for kids, such as watching tv and playing video games, as part of what is responsible for the rise in childhood obesity. However, some have seen the power of technology for addressing the epidemic among children, as in this intervention,via eSchool News.

Jill Bond, a teacher at Morningside Elementary School in Port St. Lucie, Fla., uses food nutrition education to teach her fourth grade students core curriculum subjects such as math, science, and language arts.

"It's amazing how little these children knew about nutrition," Bond said. With resources gleaned from textbooks, the internet, and Discovery Education's Health Connection, she taught her students math, science, reading, writing, and about food groups, carbohydrates, fats, and more.

For a lesson on grains, she had her students grind whole grains, such as popcorn, wheat berries, and groats, into cornmeal, flour, and oatmeal. Students also kept journals of what grains they ate that week, and they watched a video from Discovery Education Health Connection about how different cultures eat different grains.

Although showing video to students might seem counter-productive, Bond said it engages her students more quickly than she otherwise could.

"Children 'so' need the entertainment, so it's nice to have the multimedia tie-in," Bond said. "These kids are so multimedia-entwined since birth. They've been raised with big-screen TVs, and some of them can text message faster than I can type."

The videos offered by Discovery Education are arranged in short segments. The videos Bond shows are only minutes long, but still, she will pause them to ask questions or to get students to anticipate what is coming up next.

Discovery Education Health Connection is a full health and prevention curriculum program available online. Its content covers nine areas: alcohol and other drugs; the body; growth and development; mental health; nutrition; physical activity; safety; tobacco; and violence."

It's also worth noting that the Wikipedia entry for Childhood Obesity is a stub, maybe some of you will consider contributing to it and expanding it.

Blogs from the NYTimes

2006-06-20T13:56:00.000-07:00

There's a fairly useful page over at the New York Times about blogs. The page, Blogs 101, provides a set of "Collection & Rankings" blogs, and then categories of blogs by subject.

On an interesting note the author writes:

"This page is under development; feel free to suggest your own finds."

And, there's no subject heading for "Health." Perhaps you'll send in your own, or a classmate's, blog? Something to aim for.

Cancerland & Patriarchal Medicine

2006-06-20T06:04:00.000-07:00

I mentioned this blog last night in class as one that has a unique and compelling voice. Originally, I visited the blog because I was looking for new voices in feminism, but I return again and again for her writing, her beautiful food photography, and the real-life drama of living with breast cancer. Browsing her archives, I also ran across this article by Barbara Ehrenreich about her journey through "Cancerland." In the United States, one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer at some point. The chances of her surviving for five years ore 86.8 percent. For a black woman this falls to 72 percent; and for a woman of any race whose cancer has spread to the lymph nodes, to 77.7 percent. There's been a lot of focus on "awareness" as a public health response to this, and Ehrenreich does a fantastic job of dissecting this cultural phenomenon. Here's one clip:

"What has grown up around breast cancer in just the last fifteen years more nearly resembles a cult—or, given that it numbers more than two million women, their families, and friends-perhaps we should say a full-fledged religion. The products—teddy bears, pink-ribbon brooches, and so forth—serve as amulets and talismans, comforting the sufferer and providing visible evidence of faith. The personal narratives serve as testimonials and follow the same general arc as the confessional autobiographies required of seventeenth-century Puritans: first there is a crisis, often involving a sudden apprehension of mortality (the diagnosis or, in the old Puritan case, a stem word from on high); then comes a prolonged ordeal (the treatment or, in the religious case, internal struggle with the Devil); and finally, the blessed certainty of salvation, or its breast-cancer equivalent, survivorhood. And like most recognized religions, breast cancer has its great epideictic events, its pilgrimages and mass gatherings where the faithful convene and draw strength from their numbers. These are the annual races for a cure, attracting a total of about a million people at more than eighty sites—70,000 of them at the largest event, in Washington, D.C., which in recent years has been attended by Dan and Marilyn Quayle and Al and Tipper Gore. Everything comes together at the races: celebrities and corporate sponsors are showcased; products are hawked; talents, like those of the “Swinging, Singing Survivors” from Syracuse, New York, are displayed. It is at the races, too, that the elect confirm their special status."

The entire article, linked above, is long but definitely worth reading if you care about women's health.

Personal Trainer Download

2006-06-19T15:41:00.000-07:00

As I was just saying, there are lots of possibilities for getting fit online now. Another site came across my radar that has a page targeted especially toward public health professionals, and then the New York Times just featured an article about a yoga instructor who makes work-outs available via download.

And, here's a link to someone providing fitness and health-realated podcasts.

Online Diet & Fitness?

2006-06-16T09:29:00.000-07:00

In our discussion in Wednesday evening's class about "Health Risks of the Internet," one of the issues that came up afterward was the sedentary nature of sitting, hour after hour, in front of a computer screen. This, obviously, has health risks in terms of obesity and all the co-morbidity issues related to it. In addition, there are repetitive strain injuries (RSI) that can result from overuse of the body at the computer.

But, this also got me thinking about the other side... are there ways that IT can be used to benefit diet and fitness? In terms of RSI, there's software you can install on your computer that reminds you to take breaks and claims to help prevent injury. I don't know of any research that's been published that puts this software to the test, but it would be interesting question to investigate.

Of course, there are also those online pharmacies that can be used to purchase diet pills although that's certainly an area that includes more risk than benefit in my opinion. Frankly, I don't want to trust the possibility of a heart attack or stroke from a diet pill based on the claims of Anna Nicole Smith (although, I really do wish her well in her lawsuit).

Then, there is the online diet and exercise support available at places such as eDiets.com and Weight Watchers Online. Again, I wonder if anyone has done any clinical trials examining the effectiveness of these sites. If I were designing such a study, I'd randomize a group that needed to lose weight, assign half to the face-to-face Weight Watcher meetings and half to Weight Watchers Online and see who lost more weight over time.

And, as I've been saying, wireless technology (wifi) opens up a whole new arena in terms of connectedness and the implications for health. This is no less true around diet and fitness. Now, you can download software for your PDA or PocketPC that allows you to track your daily diet and exercise, and it charts your progress for you. The added bonus here, of course, is that with a wireless-enabled hand-held device there's no sitting in front of a computer screen, you can take it with you! Still, there are no clinical trials on the effectiveness of these hand-held devices, but it's certainly worth researching given that the National Weight Control Registry reports that keeping a food diary was the most important factor (along with regular exercise) for those who have lost significant weight and kept it off for two years or longer.

Health Benefits of IT, Globally

2006-06-15T09:31:00.000-07:00

I talked with several people after class last night about the potential of mobile and wireless Internet technology (IT) and the implications of these for addressing health disparities. And, in thinking about that, I wanted to point you to a couple of links. One is the blog of Howard Rheingold, Smart Mobs. The blog is part of the work he did for his most recent book of the same name and there's lots of interesting information there. In terms of the connection to health, there's a recent post up about how a blog saved a girl's leg in China.

I also wanted to mention the amazing work of a Boston-based non-profit called Satellife, which is doing work to address health disparities in Uganda using wireless networks. Here's a Wired article about Satellife from a couple of years ago.

Part of what connects these is the notion of "leapfrogging," a strategy in which developing countries (or poor neighborhoods), skip inferior, less efficient, more expensive or more polluting technologies and industries and move directly to more advanced ones.

Google Juice & Boosting Your Rank

2006-06-14T14:47:00.000-07:00

Got "Google juice"? The web service Alexa allows you to check a website's traffic and rankings. And, in addition to being a fun tool to play around with it's another way to check the origin and credibility of the information that you see online.

Seeing site's rankings may also raise questions about how you can increase your website's rank in Google and other search engines. A recent article in the Washington Post gives a good description of how people go about boosting their website's ranking, or in the lingo of the day getting more "Google juice."

How do you get more "Google juice"? According to the article:

"a whole new industry has arisen around mining the Web for links and other page-tweaks that can help sites boost their Google rank and reel in more visitors.
This industry calls itself "search-engine optimization," though I think a better name would be "search-massage consultants."

The key to the 'search-massage' is to propogate links to your site. And, that's what folks in this industry do. Here's another snip from that article:

"Rand Fishkin, chief executive of a Seattle-based search consultancy called SEOMoz, said he focuses on getting editorial links for his clients, partly by creating feature articles that Web publishers will link to: "We call it link-baiting. The idea is to attract a lot of natural links."

It sounds like the Web's version of public relations, with consultants baiting webmasters much like PR firms pitch stories to reporters. "

I think this notion of 'Google juice,' and how it can be manipulated, is important for several reasons. One, it highlights that the order in which results are returned from a Google search are not a vetting process that tells you anything substantive about the results. And, I also think it highlights the need for the kind of critical thinking that I've been talking about in class and online, when we find information on the web. Think about the "juice" behind your next Google search.

Reproductive Health Information Online

2006-06-14T13:29:00.000-07:00

As should be clear by now from the discussions in class, finding information online is not a straightforward proposition, especially when it comes to politically charged health issues such as reproductive health. Harkening back to a day when "Operation Rescue" operated storefronts that posed as "women's health clinics," The Rosetta Foundation's "TeenBreaks.com" is a front for pro-life advocates. They are using the website to push forward a claim for something called "post-abortion syndrome," which is not a clinically recognized diagnosis, but rather, an insidious attempt to question women's right to choose.

And, this has real life consequences for us here in New York City, as the abortion opponents gear up their fight nationwide and the city becomes a refuge on a kind of underground railroad for women seeking safe, legal procedures.

Into this fraught online (and offline) environment, comes this breath of fresh air: RHReality Check, a blog and website devoted to fighting the agains the disinformation around reproductive health. Via Jeanne Flavin, Fordham University.

Kenneth Cole, KFF, Webcast Event

2006-06-13T07:08:00.000-07:00

Today, Tuesday, June 13, the Kaiser Family Foundation will host a live webcast event with AIDS activist, Kenneth Cole as part of “Kaiser Conversations on Health,” an ongoing interactive program designed to elevate public debate of significant health issues. Submit questions for Kenneth Cole in advance of the live program at conversations@kff.org.

WHO: American fashion designer, humanitarian and president and chief executive officer of Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc., Kenneth Cole, has been at the forefront of AIDS activism since 1985 when he allocated his company's entire advertising budget to a campaign featuring an Annie Leibovitz photo of eight well-known models posing barefoot with a group of children to support the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR). He joined amfAR's Board of Directors in July 1987 and became Chairman of the Board in 2004. In addition to Board leadership, Cole designs and donates most of amfAR’s annual advertising creative and every year donates a portion of his company’s retail sales on World AIDS Day to amfAR. Cole continues to fight HIV/AIDS, most notably with the recent "We All Have AIDS" campaign.

WHAT: Kenneth Cole talks with Kaiser Family Foundation Vice President Jackie Judd and a live audience, reflecting on his AIDS activism work and strategies for success.

WHEN: Tuesday, June 13 at 12:00 p.m. ET.

WHERE: Watch the live webcast on kaisernetwork.org.
http://cme.kff.org/Key=10987.GWB.C.D.F81nFH

HOW: Submit questions for Cole in advance of the live program at conversations@kff.org.

The archived webcast of this event will be available at 5:00 p.m. ET. In addition to the archived webcast, kaisernetwork.org provides the transcript, podcast, and links to related resources.

Please note: The program is accessible via webcast. If you have never viewed a webcast before, please test your media player in advance of the live webcast.
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/health_cast/hcast_howto_view.cfm

"If you see someone on a cell phone...."

2006-06-12T10:15:00.000-07:00

If you see someone with a cell phone, what do you think of them? Who do you guess they're talking to, and about what? Over the weekend, a friend of mine was in town and was using her photo-enabled cell phone to blog her trip. I guess that's part of what's got me thinking about cell phones today.

There are several bits in the news that have me thinking about cell phones and mobile computing. Here in NYC, there's an on-going story about public school restrictions on cell phones. And, in today's NYTimes there's a piece about the use of higher-range ring tones that, according to the article, younger people can hear but older people can't hear. What struck me about the coverage of this is the way adolescents are likened to other-than-human-creatures, like dogs, with special hearing.

This is via Rich Ling, and a forwarded email listserv posting. There's another news story on MSNBC and in Newsweek that caught my attention as well. The focus of the article is about the war in Iraq, and how you discern who is a threat, and what caught my eye was this quote:

"If you see someone with a cell phone," said one of the commanders, half-jokingly, "put a bullet in their f---ing head."

Here, people with cell phones are seen as a particular kind of threat, not unlike the public school kids in NYC are viewed.

Any time there's technological innovation, there are unintended consequences that follow. Howard Rheingold has an interesting piece from a couple of years ago comparing the development of mobile computing via cell phones with the other sorts of technological innovation, like the automobile. Some of the unintended consequences he talks about in this piece are about how technology has influenced mating and dating patterns, which certainly has some relevance for public health.

I wonder, too, about the unintended consequences of "Othering" and new technology, and I worry about the unintended consequences of mobile computing for forces that want to destroy civil liberties and human life.

MTV and KFF Sponsor Video Blogging Contest about HIV/AIDS

2006-06-09T08:23:00.000-07:00

I received this, dated June 5, from Julia Davis at The Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) today, and wanted to pass it long. The partnership between KFF and MTV has been remarkably successful, and is a real benchmark for anyone interested in public health campaigns that target a large youth audience.

"Today, think MTV and the Kaiser Family Foundation – as part of their think: Sexual Health campaign and with support from the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors (NASTAD), iFilm and WebMD – announced the creation of think HIV, the first ever multi-platform, interactive community for this first generation of Americans who have lived their entire lives during the AIDS epidemic. The initiative seeks to provide a platform to foster dialogue and active engagement on the topic of HIV/AIDS and especially its impact on young people, as well as provide information and resources to young people about HIV/AIDS. According to UNAIDS, half of new HIV infections worldwide are among those under the age of 25.

“The MTV audience has never known a day without HIV, and young people around the world are at the center of the epidemic,” said Brian Graden, President of Entertainment for MTVN Music Group and President of Logo. “We have a long history of educating and empowering our audience on this issue, and while progress has been made, there is still work to be done. think HIV will offer our viewers a new, interactive and safe place to learn about and fight it.”

“By utilizing the latest media technologies, think HIV gives voice to a generation of young people about a topic that deeply affects them in unique and powerful ways,” said Tina Hoff, Vice President and Director of Entertainment Media Partnerships for the Kaiser Family Foundation. “A core tenant of work has always been to go where young people go to reach them with information and this new joint venture brings us into the new age of media.”

think HIV will feature the following components:

* think HIV Online Community – think HIV online will serve as an interactive community that will launch following the premiere of the “THINK HIV” documentary on August 18th. The site will be an engaging and interactive, safe space for young people to share their personal stories through videos, photos and blogs and text about HIV/AIDS. The user-friendly site will also provide easy access to information and resources about HIV/AIDS including prevention and testing as well as how to get involved in the global fight – including access to health information, resources and the online community at WebMD. Visitors will be able to upload their videos to the site via software from iFilm. The Alive at 25 HIV Vlogging Competition winners will be featured on the site with official state information about HIV/AIDS, links to local services, and key resources for young people developed in partnership with NASTAD members.

* Alive at 25 – National HIV Vlogging Competition – Beginning June 5th and running until June 30th, young people ages 13-25 from around the country are encouraged to submit essays of 250 words or less at think.mtv.com on why they should be selected as the exclusive think HIV vlogger (video blogger) for their state. One winner will be selected from each state by Kaiser, MTV and NASTAD, and will be given a video camera to vlog about what HIV/AIDS means from their unique perspective. Vlogs will go live on the think HIV website on August 18th. One vlogger will be awarded a grand prize VIP trip to the MTV studios in New York, and earn the opportunity to showcase their vlog on MTV. For details about the competition visit www.think.mtv.com.

* THINK HIV Documentary – MTV News & Docs – in partnership with Kaiser – will produce “THINK HIV,” a documentary in which young people themselves tell the story of how their generation has been impacted by the virus. Part memorial, part testimony, these short vignettes filmed entirely by infected or affected young people will paint a raw, intimate, and informative portrait of the epidemic’s impact on their lives. The half hour show will premiere on MTV on August 18th — the last day of the International AIDS Conference in Toronto.

think HIV builds on both MTV and Kaiser’s long-term commitment to educating and empowering young people in the fight against HIV/AIDS, in part through their 10-year partnership, currently called think: Sexual Health. To date, the Emmy and Peabody Award winning partnership has garnered more than 100 million viewers to its documentaries, 1.2 million calls to the toll-free hotline (1-888-BE-SAFE-1), and has distributed more than 450,000 informational guides. More than two out of three think: Sexual Health campaign viewers are more likely to use condoms, talk to their partner about safer sex, and to get tested for HIV or other STDs."

Class Blogs ~ Honorable Mentions

2006-06-09T04:52:00.000-07:00

Coming to the end of the first week of Summer session, I wanted to take a few minutes to bring attention to some folks who are quickly getting the hang of blogging.

First, in terms of the assignment to "blog everyday" even though there have been groans and sobs (possibly the gnashing of teeth), lots of people have been able to do this, including: Cris, Beatriz, Kezzie, Steffie, Tara, Mary and Matt.

Second, in terms of content, I wanted to recognize a few people who are getting the hang of both the blogger interface and the task of creating health-focused content. Take a look at Tara's blog about alternative health, Cris's blog about diabetes disease management, and Kezzie's blog about women's health (and her impressive tech-skill at adding a video component!).

Finally, if you're still struggling in the class, you might seek out one of these classmates for help on getting up to speed.

Teleshrink

2006-06-09T04:30:00.000-07:00

There's an interesting article in yesterday's New York Times about the practice of therapy by remote, technological set up.

What struck me about the article was this snippet:

"Basically, doctors can do, surprisingly, almost everything," said Don McBeath, the director of telemedicine and rural health at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock. "The difference is they can't touch you or smell you."

Dr. Gibson said the lack of smelling and touching, at least when it comes to psychiatry, has proved to be a good thing. Being physically in the presence of another human being, she said, can be overwhelming, with an avalanche of sensory data that can distract patient and doctor alike without either being aware of it.

"Initially we all said, 'Well, of course it would be better to be there in person,' " she said. "But some people with trauma, or who have been abused, are actually more comfortable. I'm less intimidating at a distance."

This is completely counter to what I would have expected. To me, it would seem that therapy would be more effective in person. I was surprised to find that some patients and clinicians actually prefer remote counseling to face-to-face.

Wondering What a Blog is, Anyway...?

2006-06-08T06:48:00.000-07:00

If you're still a little perplexed by what a blog is, and what the term "blogosphere" means, there's a terrific post by Andy Carvin, another technology activist at Learning.Now, that explains it all for you.

How to Make Best Use of Class Time

2006-06-07T14:31:00.000-07:00

As we discussed on Monday, each class time will start with a "practicum," that is a period of hands-on practice posting to your blog, commenting on classmates' blogs, the course wiki, and preparing your in-class presentation. Of these, the priority should be posting to your own blog, then reading and commenting on others' blogs.

This is also a time to get to know your classmates, share knowledge with them, ask questions.

As a third use of your time, you can use this time to check in with me, ask me questions about things you couldn't solve on your own.

Digital Divides and Community Activism

2006-06-06T06:13:00.001-07:00

One of the things we'll be discussing in this class is the "digital divide," which is usually defined as "the gap between those people with access to communications and technology tools nd those without it."

For those of you interested in this topic, I wanted to pass long some excellent resources for learning more about what this means. In addition to the recent reports on the digital divide that I have linked above, you should also familiarize yourself with The Digital Divide Network (DDN). The DDN offers a tremendous wealth of information on their website, and they also have a fairly robust listserv (email list) that you can sign up for. If this is an area that you want to learn more about, I strongly encourage you to subscribe.

From your introductions to each other last night, I gleaned that many of you have a strong committment to social justice and community activism. So, it might interest you to learn that there are lots of people are activists around technology and issues of unequal access to technology, and of course, they have blogs! Check out this blog, by community technology activist in Ohio, Angela Stuber. I learned of her work, and her blog, through the DDN listserv.

First Meeting of Summer I Course

2006-06-05T10:51:00.000-07:00

Today is the first meeting of the Summer I Course. We'll cover a lot of ground tonight, so come prepared to stay the entire time. Also, please review the course materials already posted on Blackboard, and take a few minutes to scroll back through the previous entries on this blog.

Credibility Commons

2006-05-23T15:39:00.000-07:00

There's some really interesting new research out about credibility of information online:

"Two university researchers, along with a team of experts, are working on a technology that would allow users to assess the credibility of information they find through web searches.

Michael Eisenberg, professor and dean emeritus at the University of Washington, and David Lankes, an associate professor at Syracuse University, received a grant to establish a web site called the Credibility Commons. The site aims to provide computer programs and tools to help users more easily find credible information online.

The Credibility Commons arose out of a conference hosted by the University of Washington's Information School and sponsored by the American Library Association's Office of Information Technology Policy, with funding from the MacArthur Foundation. The conference centered on the credibility of internet information. Participants--who included experts from libraries, education, and other communications fields--sought to determine the scope of the problem, define the existing state of knowledge on the topic, and develop practical steps to address the credibility of information found through web searches.

Eisenberg said his team would like to provide different search capabilities and have educators and others try them out and offer feedback. "Google's page ranking has to do with who else links to that site, and it's quite good related to topic, but no one has done that on the dimensions of credibility," he said. "How do we have those credible sites come up first?"

He added: "Librarians have question-and-answer services, or 'Ask a &' services, where people can contact them and get a response back. Our hypothesis is that a librarian would not recommend a site that's not credible. So, can we somehow harvest all the sites that librarians are recommending and put these into a database and search that, rather than searching the entire web?"

Eisenberg said such a service would be particularly useful for students, who often have trouble finding and assessing the credibility of information online. "That's not filtering or censorship, that's gathering a collection that is selected as appropriate," he said.

There are applications available now that can help users determine the credibility of information they find when searching the internet. TrustWatch, a plug-in that can be downloaded for the Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer web browsers, attaches a verification to search results, telling users whether the information is verified by TrustWatch. Eisenberg said there are 10 or 15 different services like this, but users of these services have to question who determines what information is or isn't considered credible.

The Credibility Commons team discussed what its research agenda might be, and some members decided that the research should be a living, continuous project.

"We need a place for people to be able to share information, where we can provide some baseline tools for experimentation and information about credibility," Eisenberg said. The MacArthur Foundation agreed to provide funding, and the web site just recently launched. "It's captured a lot of interest, and a lot of people are contacting us about ideas related to it, as well as collaborations," he said.

So far, the site contains mostly research on the credibility of internet information. In the next few weeks, however, the group hopes to add to the site a daily or weekly listing of the latest credibility news, as well as new tools to help users assess the credibility of information online.

"We'll focus on some things probably more appropriate to a K-12 audience," Eisenberg said. "[But] the scope of our interest is not limited to & higher ed or K-12--we're really interested in everyone, and that creates special challenges. We very much want to have our audience be of the broadest possible focus."

You can read more here.

REMINDER: Final Thoughts on Wiki

2006-05-22T09:03:00.000-07:00

This is a reminder that while there is no final exam for this course, you are required to post your final thoughts about (at least) one thing you learned in the class this semester. Please do this on the page indicate on the wiki. And, when posting, please be careful not to delete others' posts.

I'll review these, along with your blogs, and post final grades for the semester on Blackboard by the end of this week.

Have a great summer everyone! ~

African Americans and the Internet

2006-05-17T12:41:00.000-07:00

There's an interesting article on Alternet today about African Americans' stake in the Internet. Here's a snippet:

"Cheap, ubiquitous and comprehensive broadband access is as necessary to the economic well-being of African-American communities as good streets."

Wireless as a Public Utility

2006-05-16T05:27:00.000-07:00

There's been some talk in the mainstream press lately about an idea whose time has come, I think, and that's the notion that wireless internet access (often referred to as "wifi") should be regarded as a public utility, like electricity or running water. And, I think we've only just begun to think through what the implications of this are for public health and health communication.

The lastest news about this is in today's New York Times, and here's a snippet:

"New York City officials set a July deadline yesterday for a city contractor to have a wireless network up and running in Central Park, in what would be a major expansion of free Internet access that the city plans to replicate across its vast ribbons of parkland during the next several years.

The effort is part of a larger initiative that would also set up wireless networks by summer's end in parts of three more large parks: Prospect Park in Brooklyn, Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx and Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens.

All told, the commitment by the Department of Parks and Recreation, which announced the timetable at a City Council hearing, represents a major leap forward for a three-year-old project that has been hobbled by technical difficulties and a lack of interest by major Internet providers. However, it remained far from clear yesterday whether the deadlines could be met.

In pushing ahead, New York is, perhaps, trying to catch up with other cities, including Philadelphia and San Francisco, which have vowed to create citywide wireless networks and to treat Internet access as a broadly available public utility. "

Multi-Tasking Baked into the Equation

2006-05-16T05:21:00.000-07:00

The New York Times ran an interesting story yesterday about multi-tasking, and the way that is going to affect advertising in the future.

At an Industry Media Lab, Close Views of Multitasking
By SHARON WAXMAN

LOS ANGELES, May 14 — In a sleek media lab hidden in a Los Angeles high-rise, some of the country's biggest media companies and their prominent clients are seeking to understand the state of the divided American attention span.

The space looks like the most advanced of homes: the living room is outfitted with the latest in video technology, and in the kitchen, the refrigerator has a television monitor for leaving notes for the children, and for looking up recipes on the Internet.

The installation, the Emerging Media Lab in Los Angeles, is run by the Interpublic Group of Companies, a holding company for ad agencies as well as media buyers like Universal McCann and Initiative. Since February, clients like Sony, L'Oréal and Microsoft have been using it to figure out a central question vexing marketers: how do you reach consumers who seem to be doing so many things simultaneously?

People now surf the Internet while watching television. Their children instant-message friends while listening to music. They all talk on the phone and check their e-mail while they cook.

"Our research showed that people somehow managed to shoehorn 31 hours of activity into a 24-hour day," said Colleen Fahey Rush, executive vice president for research at MTV Networks, which worked with an online research company, OTX, last year. "That's from being able to do two things at once."

As media companies plunk down billions of dollars in advertising at the major networks' fall presentations this week, market researchers are still struggling to understand the realities of what has been called "concurrent media usage."

Thus far, the researchers have found some common ground, but differ widely in crucial areas of interpretation. They do seem to agree on two points: that this kind of multitasking does not apply only to young people and that the amount of time spent multitasking is rising across the board.

For advertisers, the challenge is getting their message across in one medium while the consumer is active at the same time in several others. The buzzword these days is "engagement" — as in how engaged, or involved, the consumer is in a particular activity, a notion that is still relatively new in a media world that has for decades relied on stable indicators like the Nielsen ratings.

The question for programmers is whether it is possible to break through the clutter and offer material that commands more of their viewers' attention, and perhaps more advertising as a result.

In the Emerging Media Lab, major advertisers can observe engagement for themselves, watching consumers try new technologies or use old ones, through cameras that feed back into an observation room.

"Multitasking is not quantified yet," said Greg Johnson, the lab's executive director. "The metrics of all this is a big piece of what our clients want to know, and they want to know desperately. They don't know where their customers are, and it's our job to find them again and what they're doing."

Using the lab themselves, media executives can assess how their ads or other content appear on devices like portable video game players or cellphones.

"You can see things here in context," explained Lori Schwartz, the director of the lab project. Standing in the living room, she wielded a wireless mouse to navigate a media center, a flat-screen monitor on the wall that fed into the Internet, television channels, a DVD player, an Xbox 360 and a stereo system.

"For a lot of our clients, it is hard to keep up," Mr. Johnson said. "It's hard for them to know what to do next when every day there is something new — a blog, a site. They know to move their dollars, but they don't know how much or what media to pick."

Last week, 40 executives from the Sony Corporation of America came to explore the lab's possibilities after one division had tested its video-on-demand service there. "It's another way for us to further understand how consumers are using new media," a Sony spokeswoman, Lisa Davis, said. "We expect the learning here to benefit all of our businesses."

David Sklaver, president of KSL Media, who buys advertising time for clients like Western Union and Bacardi, said multitasking was either "a blessing or a curse" for advertisers. "If someone is watching a TV drama and has CNN News on the Internet," he said, "it's most likely you don't have an engaged viewer." But on the other hand, someone watching a sports event on television could enhance the experience by simultaneously surfing the Internet for game statistics.

A widely cited study conducted last year at Ball State University in Indiana observed 400 people over a broad age range for a day, and found that 96 percent of them were multitasking about a third of the time they were using media. A university white paper recently estimated that consumers spend about nine hours a day in media use, most of it watching television.

The OTX study for MTV used an online sample of 4,213 people, and found that those responding engaged in 15.6 hours of leisure activity a day, which included nonmedia activities like shopping, socializing or eating. Almost a third of that time involved doing more than one thing at a time, the study found.

Most of the multitasking involves television plus another activity, whether reading a newspaper, surfing the Internet or talking on the phone. And when that is the case, which activity is getting primary attention?

On this crucial point, the research differs. In a summary of its latest work on the topic in March, Forrester Research noted that only 11 percent of consumers who went online while watching television said they paid the greatest attention to TV. Some 61 percent paid more attention to the Internet, while 28 percent said they gave equal attention to both. Forrester used on-line surveys of 12,000 people as the basis for its findings.

Ms. Fahey Rush said her research showed something different. "TV is considered the primary media activity when you're doing two things at a time," she said. But when asked how she assessed what people were paying attention to while multitasking, she paused for nearly a minute. "We certainly asked people about how they feel about our brands on a variety of platforms," she said.

David Poltrack, the president of CBS Vision, the network's research arm, said that in the age of multitasking, it was hard to evaluate levels of engagement. "We know people are watching with shared attention," he said. "But we don't know to what degree it's less-than."

It does seem certain, though, that a viewer who is multitasking is not doing those activities with equal interest. "Terms like multitasking imply equal attention," said Mike Bloxham, director of testing and assessment at Ball State. "But cognitive science tells us this isn't possible. You have to give priority to one in order to absorb the messages."

Industry experts say it will be some time before this kind of research results in changes in the pricing of advertisements. IAG Research, a company that measures engagement, has slowly been bringing the television industry around to its measurement approach. In daily online surveys, the company asks respondents substantive questions about the programs and advertisements they watched. The viewer's attentiveness is graded on a scale of 0 to 100, and is not formally used to set advertising rates, but Alan Gould, IAG's chief executive, wonders how long that will last.

"When you have a small but attentive audience, that information can be very important," he said, citing the UPN hit show "Everybody Hates Chris." He said viewers of the program were 27 percent more attentive than those of a normal program. One day, that could mean higher ad rates for such shows that command a greater portion of its viewers' concentration.

"Over time," he said, "I don't see how it doesn't get baked into the equation."

My question reading over this is how this is going to affect health communication? How is it possible to influence people's thinking about a specific issue, disease or health condition when they're paying attention to multiple things at once? Over time, I don't see how that doesn't get 'baked into the equation' in health communication.

Ed Tech Tops Agenda

2006-05-10T04:55:00.000-07:00

Via the YouthLearn Newsletter and eSchool News online comes this tidbit:

"Education, government, and industry leaders gathered April 28 in Washington, D.C., to discuss key issues regarding the use of technology in the nation's schools. Among the topics addressed at the fifth annual Intel Visionary Conference: how to secure funding for educational technology during a period of lean federal budgets; how to deliver targeted and sustained staff development; and how to prepare students for an increasingly uncertain future.

Opening the conference was Tim Magner, director of ED's Office of Educational Technology, who prompted his audience to imagine the future by considering the past.

'Think about the jobs you're doing now--were they around when you were in the fourth grade?" Magner asked. Noting that few participants had job titles that would have made sense a generation ago, Magner said educators are in the strange position of having to prepare students for jobs that don't yet exist or that "we might not even be able to imagine.' "

I think Magner's comment is particularly true when it comes to careers in health and health communication.

Finding Answers Online in Sickness and in Health

2006-05-09T14:38:00.000-07:00

The good folks over at the PEW have released a new report about finding health info online. Here's the blurb:

"As more Americans come online, more rely on the internet for important health information. Fully 58% of those who found the internet to be crucial or important during a loved one's recent health crisis say the single most important source of information was something they found online.

You can read the full report here..

Internet & Health Research with Adolescents in Ghana

2006-05-09T13:43:00.000-07:00

Catching up here. I received this press release from Johns Hopkins University last week via email, thought it was relevant here:

"Internet May Be the Way to Send Youth Health Messages"

In a study of Ghanaian teens and their Internet usage, Dina L.G.
Borzekowski, EdD, assistant professor in the Bloomberg School's
Department of Health, Behavior and Society, and her Ghanaian coauthors,
Julius Fobil and Kofi Asante, learned that approximately 53 percent of
teens from Ghana's capital city of Accra used the Internet to find
health information, regardless of their school status, gender, age or
ethnicity. The study is one of six articles about teens published today
in a special issue of Developmental Psychology.

"In a world where we can sometimes be quick to point out the negative,
this is a great example of the media being used in a positive way. The
Internet can be a good educational and public health tool for
hard-to-reach populations," said Borzekowski.

The authors surveyed a representative sample of 778 15- to 18-year-olds
living in Accra, Ghana, who were either in school or out of school.
Participating youth completed self-report surveys of their media use.
Whether it was for school, work or personal reasons, 52 percent of
out-of-school Internet users had tried to get health information, while
53 percent of in-school Internet users had done the same.

Of important social significance, said the authors was their finding
that teens who were not in school used the Internet as an alternative to
talking to their parents, who may have less formal education than the
parents of teens in school. "A lack of parental education or cultural
taboos regarding sexual topics may make it more difficult for many of
these [out-of-school] teens to get information on health and sex," said
Borzekowski.

"The Internet is making great strides for youth in developing
countries," said Borzekowski. "The far-reaching and positive use of the
Internet is invaluable for adolescents who want to find out more about
personal, sensitive and embarrassing issues related to their bodies,
relationships and health."

"Online Access by Accra's Adolescents: Ghanaian Teens' Use of the
Internet for Health Information" was authored by Dina L. G. Borzekowski,
Julius N. Fobil and Kofi O. Asante.

The study was supported by grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates
Institute for Population and Reproductive Health.

Public Affairs media contacts for the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of
Public Health: Kenna Lowe or Tim Parsons at 410-955-6878 or
paffairs@jhsph.edu.

Many thanks... a few thoughts about KFF

2006-05-09T13:31:00.000-07:00

Many thanks to Ms. Julia Davis, from Kaiser Family Foundation, for her fabulous presentation in class. (And, my apologies for taking so long to get to this post!) For those of you who would like to review her presentation, which I highly recommend, I've made it available via the Blackboard system.

There were a number of themes that her presentation brought together, and that others have already noted on their blogs, so I won't repeat those comments here.

I do want to highlight a couple of things about the work that Ms. Davis and KFF are doing that's relevant for our discussions in this class. One of these is the way the KFF seeks to selectively include their "brand" name on their public health campaigns. I think this raises some interesting questions about how we evaluate information that we see online, or in other forms of media.

I'd also like you to note how frequently they change their campaigns and how pervasively they saturate a given target area. I really think that in this way they are the leader in developing public health campaigns; this is especially true when you look at their track record in developing media partnerships.

The other area that KFF leads in, and that I mentioned in our discussion in class, is in the area of evaluating the effectiveness of their research. If you haven't found this on your own, you should definitely take a few minutes to explore what they have done around evaluating the effectiveness of public health campaigns. It's exemplary.

Guest Speaker, Julia Davis

2006-05-02T06:39:00.000-07:00

In class today, you'll have a chance to work on your presentations and blogs.

Then, after the break, we'll have a guest speaker, Julia Davis, from the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), who will be joining us. Among her many responsibilities, Ms. Davis is responsible for managing the partnership between KFF and MTV. I know you will be interested in what she has to say about media and health communication.

On a practical note, there's been a change in the lab. You will need your SNET login and password to use the computers in the lab.

Health-Related Podcasts

2006-04-26T05:37:00.000-07:00

We've talked about podcasts briefly in class before. As you'll recall (or may already know), podcasting is a method of distributing multimedia files, such as audio programs or music videos, over the Internet for playback on mobile devices and personal computers.

I've been wondering when and how people are going to start using podcasting for health-related purposes, and I came across a terrific resources from the University of Denver and Health Sciences Center. Here, they explain what podcasting is, and how to create a podcast, and they also provide links to a number of health-related uses of podcasting.

Some of the major uses for podcasting and health are for journals, Grand Rounds, subject specialities for health professionals, education for medical students, and as a resources for patient info.

Student Presentations Begin, 4/25

2006-04-24T19:56:00.000-07:00

We begin student presentations in class tomorrow. I've posted a grading rubric for the presentations on the course wiki. This should be pretty straightforward from what I've said in class before, but be sure to check it out before you present.

Each presenter will have 20 minutes to make their presentation. Since we only have four people presenting this time, we'll go ahead and keep to our usual schedule with time at the beginning of class to work on your blogs.

And, don't worry...there's no juggling, acrobatics, or dancing required!

New Study: Health Information Literacy

2006-04-21T09:26:00.000-07:00

A new study has just been published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research about "health information literacy" that is very relevant to many of the ideas that we've talked about in class.

You can read the entire article here, but I just pulled out a couple of snippets from the abstract:

"Even though most students (89%) understood that a one-keyword search is likely to return too many documents, few students were able to narrow a search by using multiple search categories simultaneously or by employing Boolean operators. In addition, nearly half of the respondents had trouble discriminating between primary and secondary sources of information as well as between references to journal articles and other published documents. When presented with questionable websites on nonexistent nutritional supplements, only 50% of respondents were able to correctly identify the website with the most trustworthy features. Less than a quarter of study participants reached the correct conclusion that none of the websites made a good case for taking the nutritional supplements. Up to 45% of students were unsure if they needed to provide references for ideas expressed in paraphrased sentences or sentences whose structure they modified. Most respondents (84%) believed that their research skills were good, very good, or excellent. ...

Conclusions: While the majority of students think that their research skills are good or excellent, many of them are unable to conduct advanced information searches, judge the trustworthiness of health-related websites and articles, and differentiate between various information sources. Students’ self-reports may not be an accurate predictor of their actual health information competencies."

This corresponds to what I've seen in my own research with adolescents (15-19) and their abilities with search engines. In most instances, the young people I've talked to have a sense that their research skills are "good or excellent" yet they have difficulty critically analyzing the trustworthiness of various sources of information.

Something to think about: what has helped you the most to think critically about information you find on the web?

Easy as 1, 2, 3...

2006-04-13T19:38:00.000-07:00

Are you old enough to remember that Michael Jackson song, "Easy as 1, 2, 3..." ? Probably not as this was way (way) before even the days of "Thriller."

Finding and uploading images, photos and pix to your blog is just that easy.

One way to add visuals to your blog is by using digital photos. If you've got digital photos on your computer already, you can just click on the "Add Image" icon in your editing window on Blogger and it will add the image for you (just follow the steps).

Another way to add visuals if you don't have any digital photos on your computer, is to find images someone else has created and posted on the web. One of the easiest ways to do this is by going to Google Images and typing in a keyword for what you're looking for. Not sure what you're looking for? Auntie Google can help, try typing in the title of your blogger post and see what comes up. Then, click to download the image (if you're on someone else's computer this can be easily erased once you've uploaded the image).

Finally, there's a third way to add visual images to your blog. This requires being vastly more tech-savvy than your professor (as I have not done this before), but you can actually add photos to your blog directly from your cell phone! Amazing, huh? If anyone actually does this, let me know... I want to hear how you did it.

See, adding images as easy as 1, 2, 3...!

For more on adding images to your blog, go here.

New Media: Text and Visuals

2006-04-13T19:17:00.000-07:00

In developing the grading rubric for the blogs, one of the categories is "visual" style. Several people in the class are doing this well already, better than I am (!!!), and I wanted to mention their blogs here. You should check out Eneyda's blog and Alisa's blog. Both of these have a really good sense of incorporating text with the visual. For me, this is one of the aspects of new media that is so invigorating is the use of text with compelling visuals.

I'm going to start following my own advice and ad some pix and other visuals here. I've already added a profile pic.

What sort of visuals have you added to your blog?

IT - By African Women, for African Women

2006-04-13T18:54:00.000-07:00

My customized Google News (it pulls stories with the word "women" in the title or first sentence) alerted me about this gender and IT story out of Africa (via the Indo-Asia News Service):

"LinuxChix Africa was formed in 2004 'by African women for African women' because, as one of the co-founders Dorcas Muthoni says, 'people fear computers and women are more affected by this fear'.

'But with a lot of technology tools coming into their lives, women are becoming more and more open to this (computers). The whole IT industry has opened a lot of specialised areas, which are not necessary geeky,' Muthoni said.

The group plans to acquaint schoolgirls with IT as an industry so as to enable them to choose IT as a career. Thanks to its efforts, networking, web design and web development are no longer a taboo area for women.

Muthoni said: 'We see LinuxChix Africa as a solution provider and also a development organisation.'

The group is a chapter in Africa affiliated to Linuxchix worldwide. Another group started in India just a few months back.

South Africa's Anna Badimo and Kenya's Muthoni - both co-founders of Linuxchix Africa - are focused on implementing activities.

'We are working to get communication going with other partners across the continent. We've been drafting our business plan for the next three years. Basically, we are emphasising networking, both for recruiting members and for recruiting partners,' Muthoni said.

Africa faces a number of challenges currently - AIDS, illiteracy, the lack of development, building up the educational infrastructure, an unfair global economic system and more.

Linuxchix Africa argues that community development can no longer be viewed in isolation but require multi-tiered, cross-sectoral, and well-coordinated approaches that are aligned to information and communications technology (ICT).

'Without ICT, communities get left behind and are unable to take advantage of its social and economic benefits,' argues the group on its website - africalinuxchix.org.

FLOSS, or Free/Libre and Open Source Software, now makes it possible to make software available to people who could otherwise not afford it.

Countries will no longer have to prioritise between poverty and the digital divide. Women, affected the most, need to be "properly tooled and positioned" to make that difference in their lives, Muthoni said.

Hoping to make the field of ICT less male-dominated, Muthoni and Badimo are going about adding details to their effort at gender parity.

'Few people in our part of the world have contact with, or a background in, IT. Women also try to avoid science or mathematics. They've not been in big numbers in IT or computers. So we've had very few opportunities for women to interact or mentor other women,' Muthoni added.

What I find interesting about this story is the unique attempt to bridge one aspect of the 'digital divide' with a specific focus on gender. This is crucial given efforts, such as those explained by Jennifer Nadeau of the Guttmacher Institute, when trying to bring sexual and reproductive health information to women in Africa. I say, BRAVA to LinuxChix!

RSS Explained

2006-04-12T12:37:00.000-07:00

For those of you looking for content for your blogs, I'd to point you to the technology of RSS, or "real simple syndication," which can help you with getting content for your blog.

Here's a blog that explains RSS.

Feedback on Blogs

2006-04-12T12:35:00.000-07:00

Everyone in the class should have received an individual email from me giving you feedback on your blog. If you haven't receive this email, or if you received the email but have trouble opening the attachment, let me know.

Communicating with Policy Makers

2006-04-12T06:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, we were honored to have Dr. Jennifer Nadeau, Director of Communications at the Guttmacher Institute make a presentation to the class.

Nadeau explained the mission of her organization, "to communicate research about reproductive health to policy makers, journalists and other decision-makers" and some of what she does as Director of Communications, "communicate research in plain language."

There are a number of points that Nadeau made in her presentation that I wanted to highlight here.

First, she talked about the strategic use of different types of media for different types of communication. In several settings (W. Africa) with various audiences (policy makers), new media is simply not the most effective mechanism for communicating. However, in terms of reaching journalists she pointed out that the Institute's website is a crucial tool for getting information to the media. I found her discussion of the way quotes are generated (often made up by communications staff) and used by journalists (they need these to write articles, but rarely call to get quotes given tight deadlines) to be particularly illuminating.

(On a related note, though not discussed in class, you should note the distinction here between the way articles are written by journalists and the methods used for peer-reviewed articles, such as the journals that the Institute publishes. )

Second, her discussion of the uses of new media and emerging technologies, such as Skype, for internal and project communication is an important one. We need to think of new technologies as not only changing the way we communicate health messages, we need to also consider how these technologies can change the way we do our jobs in developing and fine-tuning those messages within health-focused organizations.

Third, Nadeau addressed some of the constraints on the Institute's work based on the political context surrounding reproductive health. This is something we've heard before, in Estelle Raboni's presentation on TEENWIRE.com. The social, political and cultural context in which health messages are created and distributed is an important factor to address, whether you are talking about reproductive health or another area. And, it makes the Guttamacher Institute's focus on communicating with policy makers all the more crucial.

“Open Source” and “Open Medicine” at UN

2006-04-12T06:13:00.000-07:00

There is an interesting symposium at the UN on Thursday, 4/13/06, that is relevant to the course and might be of interest to some in the class.

UNU-MERIT holds Research Symposium on “Open Source” and “Open Medicine” at UN Headquarters

Can an Intellectual Property regime designed to protect private interests be reformed to open up standards and knowledge? What results when government authorities promote free, open source software in their jurisdictions? Who (if anyone) should own or control access to the human genome sequence? What parallels can be drawn with the fundamental principles of 'openness' for science and society as a whole?

These are among the issues to be discussed at a Research Symposium titled Challenging Intellectual Property Access to Knowledge Issues in Open Source and Medicine, at the UN Headquarters, New York, on 13 April 2006 . The event is co-organized by the United Nations University -Office at the United Nations, New York , and UNU-MERIT.

The speakers include:

* Tim Hubbard, Head of Human Genome Analysis, The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute,
Cambridge, UK;
* Louis-Dominique Ouédraogo, Retiring Inspector, UN Joint Inspection Unit;
* Tadao Takahashi, Principal Investigator at Project Foresight ICTs-2015, Centre for
Strategic Studies in Brazil; and
* Rishab Aiyer Ghosh, Senior Researcher, UNU-MERIT.

The event is open to interested members of the public. Registration forms can be downloaded from the website of the UNU Office at the United Nations , New York .

See full announcement here.

Health Disparities Symposium @ Columbia U

2006-04-11T07:39:00.000-07:00

The First Annual University Research Symposium for Understanding Fundamental Disparities in Health will be held on Monday, April 24,from 8:45 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. in the Low Library Rotunda at Columbia University.

Keynote Speakers will be Antonia C. Novello, MD, MPH, DrPH, New YorkState Health Commissioner and 14th Surgeon General of the UnitedStates, and David Satcher, MD, PhD, Interim President, MorehouseSchool of Medicine and 16th Surgeon General of the United States.

The purpose of the symposium is to stimulate thinking about theunderlying themes or fundamental social causes of health disparities and to initiate the development of cross-disciplinary Working Groups that could coalesce and continue after the Symposium.

Advance registration is required. To register,

Guttmacher Institute

2006-04-11T07:20:00.000-07:00

I've just heard from our guest speaker from the Guttmacher Institute, Jennifer Nadeau, Director of Communications, and she will be joining us for the second half of the class today.

Please take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with her organization (linked above), and think about what kinds of questions you want to ask Ms. Nadeau.

Digital Divide - Closing?

2006-04-10T13:26:00.000-07:00

The New York Times reported last week that the digital divide may be closing for African Americans, and that story has been picked up by lots of other folks around the Internet.

An interesting fact concerning these new findings about African Americans and the Internet is that, as the Marketing Profs point out on their blog, "the falling price of laptops, more computers in public schools and libraries, and the newest generation of cell phones and handheld devices that connect to the internet have helped more people to gain access the internet."

To me, this is highlights two important facts: 1) it illustrates the interconnectedness of race and class; and, 2) it demonstrates the shift from the locked-down "desktop" model of the Internet to the mobile-computing, ubiquituous model that Howard Rheingold sketched out in his prescient book, Smart Mobs.

PEW: An Essential Resource

2006-04-07T17:26:00.000-07:00

As folks in the class start to do some serious preparation for their projects, I wanted to remind you of an essential resource: The Pew Internet & American Life Project.

These folks do some terrific work. At their website (linked above) you can always find new, rigorously researched, and accessibly written reports.

Of course, I should also tell you one of my dreams is that the Pew will decide to create a New York office and I will get to work there. HA! Now you know.

Enjoy the Pew!

Internet in Medicine Conference

2006-04-06T05:26:00.000-07:00

If you are interested in finding out what's happening in the growing field of Internet in medicine, you might want to consider attending this conference.

World Congress on Internet in Medicine (MEDNET 2006) in Toronto, Canada: October 13-20, 2006. Topics include "ehealth technologies for healthy eating and active lifestyle," among many others.

This would be a great opportunity to learn more about the field, especially if you have an employer who would pay for you to attend. Otherwise, it's worth a bookmark for future reference.

Study of Email Messages to Promote Health Behavior

2006-04-06T05:09:00.000-07:00

Researchers at UMass and Syracuse have just published a study called, "Using Sequential Email Messages to Promote Health Behaviors: Evidence of Feasibility and Reach in a Worksite Sample," that some may find interesting.

The study, which you can read here, surveyed 960 employees at a worksite of a large insurance company, then:

"participants received daily emails, Monday through Friday, for 26 weeks. The emails provided (a) succinct strategies to encourage physical activity or increase fruit and vegetable intake and (b) links to detailed Web-based information and tools. Program reach was assessed by the number of emails opened, measures of sustained participation over 6 months, and the number of health-related Web-links clicked."

While the title of the research article suggests that the email messages "promote health behavior," in fact, what the researchers are measuring is whether or not the study participants opened email or visited health-related websites. Although they found fairly high rates of "email opening" over time (and these did not vary by gender, age, income, education, ethnicity, or baseline health behavior), whether or not there is a connection between health-related "email opened" and actual health behavior change, remains an open question.

Upping the Ante and Leading by Example ~

2006-04-06T05:04:00.000-07:00

So, in class yesterday, I mentioned that I've raised my expectations about how frequently people post to their individual blogs, "upping the ante," so to speak (a phrase used in playing poker).

I thought I would lead by example, and start posting more here about issues related to e-health as I come across them. I get items through my email inbox and on my customized news sources that I'll post here and comment about.

And, as a reminder about the class, I've revised the grading rubric for blogs based on your comments and you should find a copy of that in your inbox.

Screening Messages

2006-04-05T06:31:00.000-07:00

In class on Tuesday, we heard from Martine Hackett, Ph.D. Candidate at the CUNY Graduate Center. Martine's presentation touched on the intersections between Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) and electronic media, specifically on how the Internet is being used to address SIDS.

After an overview of the history of public health campaigns, with an emphasis on the combination of visual imagery and text message in early posters, she then turned to new technology and more recent public health campaigns. Finally, she focused on how electronic media relates to audience.

In terms of how the Internet is used to communicate health messages about SIDS, Martine posited three types of communication: 1) Official Sources, including governmental agencies and non-profit organizations; 2) Professional to Professional, via a state to state listserv; and, 3) Parent to Parent, via message boards, blogs and memorial sites.

There were some interesting discussions in the class about how "horizontally segregated" these forms of communications remain. In other words, Martine posits that most of the communication is within and among professional or parent groups, and rarely are these boundaries crossed. Some in the class, like Alisa, didn't see anything wrong with this. Others, such as Velma and Lorraine, suggested that parents may know more than professionals about how they incorporate public health messages into their lives. Martine suggests that there is a middle ground for discussion between reified "scientific" knowledge and parents' culturally-grounded knowledge of parenting skills.

I'm hoping that in your blog entries about this presentation that you will find and provide links to some of the parent-to-parent message boards, blogs, and memorial sites.

All in all, a terrific presentation and a good discussion. I've posted the PPT over in Blackboard for you to review.

A meta-note about the presentation: Class members should also note that this presentation should serve as a guide for what is expected in the in-class presentations by students beginning 4/25/06. While you don't need to provide the kind of historical background that Martine so expertly did, you should follow Martine's lead in the way that she educated the class about SIDS and then looked at the way new media is being used to address this health concern. In addition, you should then look at what the peer-reviewed literature says on the use of new media related to your topic.

Grading Rubric for Blogs & Wikis

2006-04-04T06:04:00.000-07:00

I've come up with a draft for a grading rubric for evaluating your work on the blogs and the wiki and want to discuss it this morning in class.

Basically, the categories I'm thinking of include: Content, Organization, Audience, Style, and Mechanics. Then, within each of these categories evaluations would be rated "Excellent," "Good" or "Fair."

Give these categories, and these levels of evaluation, some thought and we'll discuss. I'm very open to students' input on this and it's a chance for you to influence how your grade for the course is determined.

A Word about Presentations ~

2006-03-28T07:59:00.000-08:00

For the last several class periods, each student will make an in-class presentation using some type of presentation software (PPT, wiki or blog).

The presentation should include: a health issue or disease of concern or interest to the student; a discussion of how new media technologies are being used to address this issue or disease; and, a review of the peer-review literature which examines the use of e-technologies to address this heatlh issue or disease.

Grades Posted, Come to Class Ready to Wiki!

2006-03-27T12:17:00.000-08:00

I've posted all your mid-term essay exam grades and those are available through Blackboard.

Tomorrow in class, we'll spend some time working on getting an entry for every one in the class on the wiki. So, if you have materials (text or images) that you want to post to the wiki, please be sure you have those available tomorrow in class.

See you all soon!

In Class Today, 3/21/06

2006-03-21T06:23:00.000-08:00

In the first part of class today, I'd like you to try posting to the wiki and I want you to give some thought to your presentation for the class.

Later, I'll present some of my research about adolescents and the Internet, talk about the survey the class filled out at the beginning of the semester, and then ask each of you to talk a little about your presentation later in the semester.

Mid-Term Exam Today, 3/14/06

2006-03-14T07:57:00.000-08:00

Today, mid-term exams are due. Please post the essays on the designated discussion forum on Blackboard. Then, take the multiple-choice portion of the exam available on Blackboard.

In Class Today, 2/28/06

2006-02-28T06:48:00.000-08:00

Read the assigned articles (one peer-reviewed and one journalistic), and post your comments on the class Wiki.

The link for the Wiki is located to the right.

GUEST SPEAKER: Joshua Levy

2006-02-14T09:04:00.000-08:00

Many thanks to Josh Levy for making a guest appearance in the class today. He talked about a lot of interesting aspects of social software and how they might be used to address health issues.

One thing he talked about that I want to think about more is the difference between WebMD and a health-focused wiki as sources of health information. Which do you trust more? Why?

I was also intrigued by Josh's discussion of the Tsunami Blog and Wiki.

More about this later....

In-Class Tasks for Today, 2/14/06

2006-02-14T07:14:00.000-08:00

From 9:45am - 10:45am you should be using class time to do the following:

- Add Comments to EdTechHealth Blog (what kind of adopter are you?)
- Read about Guest Speaker, Josh Levy (what are your questions for Josh?)
- Required Reading (posted at Wiki and on Blackboard)
- Post to Blog (your own) a reaction to Josh's presentation, include link to Josh's blog.

Diffusion of Innovation

2006-02-07T07:28:00.000-08:00

"Technology confronts us with a double danger: Rejecting it without understanding it leads to oppression and accepting it without critical understanding leads to domination."

-- Robert Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"

The quote from Pirsig above suggests that we must both understand and use technology in order to effectively critique it. Questions we'll be asking in this class in our learning to both use, and critique, technology revolve around social disparities in health and how to address them. How do we understand the relationship between technology and social change? How do we explain the relationship between technology and the social determinants of health? To help answer these questions, we need to understand more about theories of technology and social change.

THEORIES OF TECHNOLOGY AND CHANGE

*Technological Determinism – see technology as inevitable & unstoppable. Some inventions 'take the world by storm' (archetype: the Sony Walkman).

*Social Constructivism - sees society as more powerful than technology. Which technology succeeds depends, in part, on who is powerful in society, and who it benefits. Other tech’l innovations seem to fail, lie dormant for decades, but when 'their time has come', their use grows quickly, even explosively (archetype: the fax machine).

*Diffusion of Innovations – most compelling, prevailing theory of technology and social change. A broad social psychological / sociological theory called Diffusion of Innovations (DoI) Theory purports to describe the patterns of adoption, explain the mechanism, and assist in predicting whether and how a new invention will be successful.

DIFFUSION OF INNOVATION (DoI)

Originator(s) and professional background:

* Gabriel Tarde (1900s): He was the main European forefather of the diffusion field. He was a French lawyer and judge by occupation. Even though he had no formal schooling, he was very innovative and ahead of his time. He observed certain generalizations about the diffusion of innovations that he called the laws of imitation, today it is called the adoption of an innovation.

* Bryce Ryan and Neal Gross (1950s-1960s): Neal Gross received his PhD in Sociology from Iowa State University in 1946. He was a researcher at Iowa State University from 1946-1948. He then took a faculty position at the University of Minnesota from 1948-51 before moving to Harvard University. Bruce Ryan was a graduate assistant for Neal Gross.

Circumstances or events that led to model/theory development:

Diffusion research did not develop from a single discipline or a single event. Different disciplines led to the development of this theory, the first discipline involved was Anthropology. Among the other research traditions that led to the expansion of this theory were: Early Sociology, Rural Sociology, Education, Public Health and Medical Sociology, Communication, Marketing and Management, Geography, General Sociology, General Economics, and other traditions.

Purpose of the theory (model):

The theory’s purpose is to provide individuals from any discipline interested in the diffusion of an innovation with a conceptual paradigm for understanding the process of diffusion and social change.

DoI Theory is concerned with the manner in which a new technological idea, artifact or technique, or a new use of an old one, migrates from creation to use. According to DoI theory, technological innovation is communicated through particular channels, over time, among the members of a social system.

The stages through which a technological innovation passes are:

* knowledge (exposure to its existence, and understanding of its functions);
* persuasion (the forming of a favourable attitude to it);
* decision (commitment to its adoption);
* implementation (putting it to use); and
* confirmation (reinforcement based on positive outcomes from it).

Early knowers generally are more highly educated, have higher social status, are more open to both mass media and interpersonal channels of communication, and have more contact with change agents. Mass media channels are relatively more important at the knowledge stage, whereas interpersonal channels are relatively more important at the persuasion stage.

Important characteristics of an innovation include:

* relative advantage (the degree to which it is perceived to be better than what it supersedes);
* compatibility (consistency with existing values, past experiences and needs);
* complexity (difficulty of understanding and use);
* trialability (the degree to which it can be experimented with on a limited basis);
* observability (the visibility of its results).

Different adopter categories are identified as:

* innovators (venturesome);
* early adopters (respectable);
* early majority (deliberate);
* late majority (sceptical);
* laggards (traditional).

Earlier adopting individuals tend not to be different in age, but to have more years of education, higher social status and upward social mobility, be in larger organizations, have greater empathy, less dogmatism, a greater ability to deal with abstractions, greater rationality, greater intelligence, a greater ability to cope with uncertainty and risk, higher aspirations, more contact with other people, greater exposure to both mass media and interpersonal communications channels and engage in more active information seeking.

Important roles in the innovation process include:

* opinion leaders (who have relatively frequent informal influence over the behaviour of others);
* change agents (who positively influence innovation decisions, by mediating between the change agency and the relevant social system);
* change aides (who complement the change agent, by having more intensive contact with clients, and who have less competence credibility but more safety or trustworthiness credibility).

The change agent functions are:

* to develop a need for change on the part of the client;
* to establish an information-exchange relationship;
* to diagnose the client problems;
* to create intent to change in the client;
* to translate this intent into action;
* to stabilise adoption and prevent discontinuance; and
* to shift the client from reliance on the change agent to self-reliance.

If you're interested in reading more about Diffusion of Innovations, here are some books on the subject:

Glanz, K., Lewis, F. M., Rimer, B. K., (Eds). (1997). Health behavior and health education theory, research, and practice. Second edition. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

This book does an excellent job of explaining the diffusion process. It explicitly states and describes the main constructs and key terms of the theory. Unlike many sociology and anthropology books where this theory can also be found, these authors provide several specific applications to the field of health education.

Rogers, Everett. (1995). Diffusion of innovations. Fourth edition. New York, NY: The Free Press.

The book presents a very thorough study and description of the model of Diffusion of Innovations. Many scholars consider this book to be the "bible" of the theory. It is a good source of information regarding all the different components of Diffusion of Innovations. In addition, the author, Rogers Everett, is a renown authority on this field of study.

Specifically, in commenting about this post, I want you to consider whether you are an early adopter, early majority, late majority, or a laggard, when it comes to adopting technology, and give a concrete example of why you say that.

What This Course is About

2006-01-31T13:50:00.000-08:00

In recent years, digital information technology has dramatically altered many aspects of human life, including personal and public communications about health. While we are early in the stages of the Internet revolution, its full ramifications on human health are only beginning to emerge.

One thing is clear: information technology is changing social institutions, group and individual behavior, and influencing public policy.

In the health arena, information technology is changing health education and prevention services. Consumers seek health information online, using the same databases as providers, and partly as a result of this, power relationships between patients and providers are shifting. Communities are taking advantage of new technology to empower themselves with a greater focus on health as a community asset. This shift occurs within a global context of social inequality, of very real "gaps" in health status between technological "haves" and "have-nots," sometimes referred to as the “digital divide.” This course will offer an introduction to the possibilities and limitations of electronic communication media for health education and interventions.

Electronic media of all kinds have been important to the development of health communication, especially public health campaigns. While blogs and bloggers have created something of a stir, if not a wholesale revolution, in journalism for their ability to shift the center of knowledge and authority. Blogging has also been very important in the field of education, for many of these same reasons (Downes, 2004). Yet, what’s been less well-explored is the potential of blogging for health communication, and that’s part of what we’ll be exploring in this class.

Blogger Basics

2006-01-31T13:48:00.000-08:00

I've posted a document on Blackboard called "Blogger Basics" (filed under Course Documents). Please save a copy of this document on your computer at home and print out a copy and bring it with you to class next week.

First Class Day and Blog Roll

2006-01-31T12:38:00.000-08:00

I was nervous going into this class (as I always am before meeting a class for the first time even after teaching for 10+ years), but by the time class was over was completely jazzed about the class, the people in it, and the semester before us all. I think it's going to be quite the fun ride.

I worry about the people who say that "technology hates them" or similar things (there are several folks). I hope everyone who is feeling that way now sticks it out in the class and feels a real sense of mastery by the end of the term. I also worry that people who are already pretty savvy in their use of technology will get bored too soon. It may be that at some point in the class, we adopt the "each one, teach one" model and get those with mad skills to help out those who are new to this. I'm curious about how students would feel about that.

I got email from most everyone in the class (I think I'm missing three) with their URL's for their blogs. I've posted those in the "links" section on the right. This is sometimes called a "blog roll" and you will see this a lot among bloggers (also known as the "blogosphere"). As you can tell from this paragraph, half the battle with technology is learning the lingo (or jargon)! People love to make up new words, don't they? Part of it is that because the technology really is new, new words are necessary. Still, it can be a bit mind-boggling at first. Hang in there, and soon you will sound like one of those "in the know" people.

Between now and next class (Tuesday, 2/7), please visit all your classmates' blogs and post at least one comment. Your comment can be anything, but lease keep it civil and respectful, as I know you will. Have fun!

20 Things about Me

2006-01-31T08:10:00.000-08:00

1. I am the only child from my parents’ marriage, which was a second marriage for both of them.
2. I have two half-brothers, one from each of my parents’ first marriage. Now, I rarely talk to either of them.
3. I was born in Houston, Texas.
4. I live in New York City, and consider it home.
5. I think a lot about death.
6. I hope to die while in the city.
7. I can never imagine retiring.
8. I don’t believe in God most of the time, but I go to church almost every Sunday.
9. I don’t really believe in horoscopes, but I read mine everyday.
10. I’m a Scorpio, not that that means anything.
11. I am incredibly ambitious and driven.
12. I worry if I’m too ambitious.
13. I love documentaries.
14. Someday, I want to make a documentary.
15. I want to design my own clothes.
16. I love interior design magazines.
17. Someday, I want a room that I designed to be in a magazine.
18. I wrote a book that got published.
19. I finished my Ph.D.
20. I’m prouder of getting my degree than the publishing the book.