What do you reckon?

Will post about LSE Media Communication and Humanity Conference tomorrow as I came home and carried on finishing off my chapter on privacy for the RISJ....lots of discussion, and I was especially interested about John Ellis on mundane witnessing, Barbie Zelizer on "about to die" images and Mirca Madianou on shame and the media.

But the best moment of the day has to be the beginning of the panel which I was on organised by Henrik Ornebring, whose paper with Annamaria Jonsson Tapper began with Mitchell and Webb's deconstruction of user generated content - the funniest (and sadly accurate) account I've seen. So worth watching....

It's Sunday - so it must be LSE

Still finishing off my preparations for the Media Communications and Humanity conference at LSE later this month - and importantly waiting to see how Ushahidi.com does in the Knight-Batten Awards due to be announced on Tues. They won the NetSquared Mashup challenge, have just announced big new funding so I'm guessing they have a pretty good chance...I'm guessing I won't be the only one talking about them at the conference somehow....

Meanwhile another thought provoking post from Dan Gillmor on 'almost journalism' that I've just come across....

There's something about Sarah....

Much excitement about Sarah Palin this week, and much comment; this piece by Anne Applebaum I particularly enjoyed because it considers whether Palin is indicative that the Hillary Clinton era is over. 

The move from early feminist to post-feminist is an interesting one; the idea that we are now ushering in high profile female politicians who were not the ones who had to fight to be allowed to go to university, to be the doctor rather than the nurse, the director rather than the secretary does indicate a sea change....

But there is still a long way to go. Criticism of Palin this week and the unease  about her from many women commentators made me think about the frequent whisper during the Democrat primaries from women saying that they wanted a woman president - just did it have to be Hillary? The same is being said of Palin....That glass/concrete ceiling -no matter how important the 18m cracks are - will only finally be broken when we can describe our distaste for Palin, Clinton or whoever down to them as individuals or their party not their gender........

PS one last thought. Much furious comment on whether Palin should be running for Veep despite having a baby with Down's Syndrome. I look forward to similar debates about the suitability of both Gordon Brown and David Cameron to run this country.....oh, no, there hasn't been any has there....? Is this because we take disability in our stride in the UK - or is it because they are both men?

Gustav v Bihar

A provocative blog in the Telegraph today saying that Bihar could be India's Katrina....there has certainly been small coverage of the floods in India here too - there was some media criticism of the BBC's Damian Grammaticus's report where he took a place on one of the overcrowded boats rescuing those stranded - an age-old debate over how to report in such situations.

I couldn't find anything about Bihar on Global Voices surprisingly but I did find this rather intriguing post on Big Brother Africa III

Thinking aloud....

Have sent off the rewrite of the novel; currently knee deep in disasters and new media again ahead of the LSE conference in a couple of weeks....(nearly finished honest Henrik)

So I'm thinking disasters and aid and money (thanks to Charlie Beckett's blog from Harvard) plus Susan Moeller's paper at the same conference, and Burma (Charlie again) plus an event at the Brookings Institution last year. Plus WFP's account of Mr Sokor and the mobile phone.

In the meantime, here is the ALNAP report