@sdp

webricolage on journalism, media, documentary, human rights, technology and philanthropy

[sameerpadania]

Danny Parker is launching the Community Voice Project, a multi-year, multi-city research program examining how structural conditions shape political beliefs and behaviors in low-income communities across different configurations of regional governance, community infrastructure, news ecologies, and demographic contexts. The project focuses especially on participants’ experiences with the criminal justice system, public assistance, access to medical care, environmental safety, and reliable information. https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2026/03/center-racial-justice-and-equitable-futures-names-2026-faculty-fellows

[sameerpadania]

Between our interview and that demo, the hard-right US activist Charlie Kirk was shot dead while he was speaking, and the reaction, Lowles says, “was so many people, in the US and the UK, saying ‘This is war’; ‘Time for revenge’. There are growing forces, principally on the far right but also other places, who are itching for conflict, who are itching for civil war as the only way to achieve their goals.” And it’s hard, if you were frightened in London on Saturday – whether because you were part of the 5,000-strong counterprotest, or because you were not white – to see how you sit that out. [...] the more proximal government failure, the thing you could really stick on Labour – and Conservative governments before them – is complete negligence towards, and the sometimes wilful sabotage of, community cohesion. “There used to be a tension monitoring unit, they would kind of keep an eye on what’s happening in the country. There was a way for councils, police, statutory agencies to feed in. All that’s gone, through cuts. Then Gove came in and destroyed what was left. The interfaith networks, he destroyed that ideologically and it hasn’t been built back up.”

[sameerpadania]

“During research for her review, she met representatives from global tech companies, and told them how when Volvo invented the three-point safety belt they gifted the patent to the rest of the industry because staff realised the innovation was so vital to raising safety standards. “My pitch was that they have a duty and responsibility to double down on trying to get technology that can clean up these situations, and they should share that technology.”

‘Unless you see it, you can’t believe how bad it is’: the peer demanding a minister for porn

We’ve got into a mess with extreme content because nobody wants to talk about pornography, says Gabby Bertin

[sameerpadania]

A core innovation of the project was the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to identify and analyse smell-related references in more than 43,000 historical images and 167,000 books, across six European languages and four centuries (from the period 1600-1920). This resulted in the European Olfactory Knowledge Graph with 2.5 million smell experiences, which now supports research in literature, food history, health, and community engagement. The project’s methodology included identifying olfactory motifs in visual art, the language(s) we use and the way we and others live and have lived, making it possible for institutions to bring smell into their interpretation of existing museum collections. The developed key digital resources include the Odeuropa Smell Explorer (the first database to search heritage by smell), the Encyclopaedia of Smell History and Heritage; and an Olfactory Storytelling Toolkit for museum professionals developed with perfumers and heritage science experts to enable the presentation of historical scents in museum exhibitions

Preserving Europe’s forgotten smells: Odeuropa, co-led by UCL ISH, receives Europa Nostra Award

The Odeuropa project, which uncovers and preserves international olfactory heritage, has been recognised by the EU’s top cultural heritage b

[sameerpadania]

The idea of the inclusive society as a policy instrument is based on equality of opportunities and the equal capacity of members, irrespective of differences such as gender and faith. Operating within society, the idea of inclusive journalism follows this model, including the anthropocentric practices that exclude the living conditions and concerns of most nonhuman animals. This article argues that for journalism to be truly inclusive the anthropocentric nature of both society and the media must be exposed, and our social practices extended beyond the species divide. The article begins by illustrating the common journalistic practices of reporting on farmed animals, before exploring the new practices of Animal Journalism and, within scholarship, the field of Critical Media and Animal Studies. The article then turns to political theory before suggesting that Donaldson and Kymlicka’s concept of positive relational rights can be placed at the centre of a non-anthropocentric and inclusive journalism practice.

What would ‘inclusive journalism’ have felt like for ...: Ingenta Connect

[sameerpadania]

15 years is an eternity in the digital age. YouTube, Twitter, CreativeApplications.Net (CAN)—Geneva’s Mapping Festival precedes them all. Founded in 2005 to rally a prospering VJ scene (after all, Geneva is home to the makers of Modul8), Mapping quickly ascended to become Europe’s foremost summit for anyone interested in audiovisual synthesis and performance. But whereas other festivals came and went, Mapping is still going strong. The secret: as anything that retains relevance over time, the festival never stopped evolving, maturing, and diversifying. Now known for its cross-disciplinary mandate that merges creativity with criticality—“visual audio + deviant electronics”—Mapping has grown into a festival fixture that feels exceedingly current. Its 15th anniversary, for example, coincides with this year’s 30th anniversary of the World Wide Web; a fact that festival directors Ana Ascencio and Audrey Powell carefully weaved into the program. Under their direction, more than fifty international artists, designers, musicians, and researchers will join the festivities not just to dazzle us with “visual audio” (TUNDRA, Freeka Tet, Recent Arts, Grand River & Marco C), but to problematize the “deviant electronics” underpinning the Web (Marc Garret, Joana Moll, Tatiana Bazzichelli, Régine Debatty). Between the exhibition, the forum, and the performance program, the four-day schedule is dense with opportunities to converse, experience, and to learn hands-on. The latter is were we come in: once again, CAN is proud to contribute Mapping’s educational program. Across twelve workshops, lead by some of our favourite artists, designers, and researchers, participants will examine network infrastructures, prototype post-screen interfaces, build energy-free radio receivers, and transplant scents.

Visual audio and deviant electronics: CAN to host 12 workshops at @mappingfestival 

[sameerpadania]

Germany’s Federal Cartel Office takes on Facebook

“On the one hand there is a service provided to users free of charge. On the other hand, the attractiveness and value of the advertising spaces increase with the amount and detail of user data,” Mundt said. “It is therefore precisely in the area of data collection and data use where Facebook, as a dominant company, must comply with the rules and laws applicable in Germany and Europe.” https://www.wired.com/story/germany-facebook-antitrust-ruling/ 

[sameerpadania]

The Sample Size Calculator allows you to find out the sample size required for your evaluation for a given level of statistical significance and power, as well as the minimum detectable effect size you would like to measure. The Power Calculator provides a measure of the statistical significance of your evaluation for a given sample size and minimum detectable effect size. The Effect Size Calculator allows you to measure what your minimum detectable effect size will be for a given sample size and measure of statistical significance.

E-Valuate | Bond

[sameerpadania]

What We Care About

[sameerpadania]

This paper presents a three-level conceptual and methodological framework for assessing local journalism and the extent to which it meets community information needs. This research grows from frequent calls from policymakers, foundations, and advocacy groups for methods and measures to facilitate comparative analyses of the state of local journalism in different communities. Further, the goal here is to develop a methodological approach that can be realistically scaled to large numbers of communities in order to facilitate analysis of both the factors that affect the state of local journalism and the ways local journalism may affect the state of local communities. The methodological approach presented here focuses on infrastructure (the availability of journalistic sources), output (the quantity of journalistic output from these sources), and performance (the extent to which this output is original, is about the local community, and addresses critical information needs). An exploratory application of this methodological approach is then presented for three communities. The results indicate substantial differences in the journalism infrastructure, output, and performance across these communities and suggest possible points of focus for future research.

Local Journalism and the Information Needs of Local Communities: Toward a scalable assessment approach | Scholars@Duke

[sameerpadania]

The Walton Family Foundation invests in journalism as one element in its high-impact social change strategies, especially in its environment and K–12 education programs. A process that included one-on-one interviews, group conversations and extensive review of grant materials has found that the foundation’s journalism investments have a variety of impacts on individuals, networks, institutions and in media broadly. To inform continued grantmaking in this space, and to learn from past investments across issue areas and platforms, the foundation sought to standardize terminology and align on impact measures across program areas.

Journalism Impact Primer

[sameerpadania]

At Radio Študent Ljubljana we believe that being an actor in media means having power to be seen or heard, power to be visible. That is why it is important for media to reflect the (cultural, ethnic, political, gender...) plurality which can be found in the actual society we live in. Since refugees today represent an important, but also vulnerable and silenced part of our society, they should have an opportunity to represent themselves in media instead of being represented by others. That is why we decided to establish a refugee broadcast hosted by the refugees and asylum seekers at our radio. Having their own radio show enables the refugees in Slovenia to be creative, express their opinions, present their cultures, tell their personal stories, explain the situations in their home countries and so on. For us the importance of this action lies in the combat against the dominant representations of the refugees in the mass media which are mostly characterized by homogenization, generalization, victimization or spreading fear regarding the refugees.

Slovenian #RDgrantee ‘Migrant Voices’ interviews Slovenian prime minister - LIBRARY

[sameerpadania]

Funding Journalism – A Critical Part of a Funder’s Toolkit

A few weeks ago, I designed and moderated a panel at the Philanthropy Northwest Annual Conference titled, “Philanthropy, Community & the Free Press: How and Why We Support Local Journalism.” Investing in journalism is an important part of the Raikes Foundation’s toolkit, and my goal was to bring light to how philanthropy can fund journalism to both expose and address social problems, as well as elevate underrepresented voices.

Philanthropic investment in journalism can be risky—foundations can be seen as exerting too much influence on a publication through their grantmaking. But the revenue model for journalism has changed rapidly over the last decade, along with the rise of amateur reporting and outright misinformation. This has created an environment where well-researched, substantive reporting is more critical than ever. Our media and journalism grantees take care to maintain editorial independence. They choose what to write and how to present it. This means there’s a corresponding risk that we might not agree with the positioning or coverage of an issue. But, this is a risk the Raikes Foundation is willing to take in order to uphold the firewall between funder and grantee.

[sameerpadania]

Global Insights on Access to Justice: Findings from the World Justice Project General Population Poll in 45 Countries presents data on how ordinary people around the world navigate their everyday legal problems, highlighting the most common legal conflicts and courses of action, whether respondents are able to resolve their legal problems, and their satisfaction with the resolution process. The study also highlights respondents’ assessment of their own legal confidence and capability, hardships experienced as a result of their legal problem, and whether any party involved in the dispute resorted to violence.

Global Insights on Access to Justice | World Justice Project

[sameerpadania]

The vetting process is a basic diligence function, ensuring that those who serve in positions of power are free of conflicts of interest or other compromising embarrassments and entanglements. Across nearly every industry, similar checks are performed — of executives and business partners, of borrowers and grantees, and even of political candidates themselves. It's basic risk management.

Why vetting nominees is so important | TheHill - Also one wonders if there is a potential business/revenue opportunity in this for the transparency field, especially the bits that have done influence mapping.

[sameerpadania]

There are a lack of incentives to share phone numbers with strangers and answer their calls. Experty aims to solve this problem. Through Experty any influencer, professional, or expert can grant instant access to their knowledge from anywhere in the world to anyone in the world.

Experty IO - Calls Powered By Cryptocurrencies

[sameerpadania]

This year, due to the consolidation of civic crowdfunding practices across Europe and the increasing importance of blending schemes and financial instruments in the future European funding landscape, the conference focuses on how to best combine crowdfunding with other sources of funding, among which the European Structural and Investment Funds.

Join the 3rd ECN CrowdCamp "The European Dimension of Civic Crowdfunding" in Bologna, Italy - European Crowdfunding Network