On Friday 11 December SMIT organised its second Joint IBBT-MIT Workshop on Cognitive Radio Standards and Markets, hosted by the European Commission in Brussels.

The workshop aims to feed the debate on market opportunities for and regulatory and standardization issues concerning Cognitive Radio Technologies. At this edition, SMIT researcher Vânia Gonçalves presented the analysis performed within the centre on potential business impacts for so-called Self-X Functionalities in wireless networks (i.e. cognitive and autonomic elements). William Lehr from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology discussed his research (performed in cooperation with MIT colleague John Chapin) on the role of cognitive radio in the evolution towards converged future networks, arguing that models for cooperative secondary use of spectrum (as opposed to non-cooperative methods) should receive more consideration. Martin Weiss from the University of Pittsburgh presented his work on security and trust issues in converged cognitive networks, while Ingrid Moerman from IBBT-IBCN talked about the the importance of experimentally-driven research on cognitive radio.

The IBBT-MIT event was collocated with the E3 business models workshop on "Cognitive Radio Systems and Software Defined Radio Systems. This workshop, co-chaired by IBBT-SMIT, was the last public event of the FP7 project E3, which is finishing at the end of this year. It focused on the business and market impacts of some of the key cognitive radio and cognitive networks solutions currently being developed by the industry and E3 Project, and featured an introductive session with official presentation from European Delegates, then dedicated sessions focusing on business and regulatory perspectives, technical concepts and solutions, and standardization and exploitation roadmaps. Companies and organisations speaking at the event included BT, France Télécom, Alcatel-Lucent, ETSI, and QinetiQ.

Image: Martin Weiss, Vânia Gonçalves and William Lehr

SMIT researcher Ben Van Rompuy published an article (co-authored with Katrien Lefever, ICRI, KULeuven) in the Journal of Media Law (Vol. 2, nr. 1). The article is titled “Ensuring Access To Sports Content: 10 Years of EU Intervention. Time To Celebrate?”

About ten years after the introduction of the list of major events mechanism in the Television without Frontiers Directive and after a decade of decision-making practice in the application of antitrust law to the joint sale and acquisition of sports broadcasting rights, it seems appropriate to review whether the European sports fan has ultimately benefited from the approaches taken by the Community institutions and to assess, forward-looking, whether the existing regulatory framework is still workable in the digital media landscape. In this article, the authors critically analyse and evaluate the EU's actions to ensure fair access to sports broadcasting rights.

Vandaag werd in Brussel het Boek 'Jonge Honden. Is er nog toekomst voor de journsalitiek?' voorgesteld. Het boek komt er op initiatief van het Fonds Pascal Decroos voor Bijzondere Onderzoeksjournalistiek dat dit jaar zijn tiende verjaardag viert. Journalist Geet Zagers vraagt er tien jonge mediaprofessionals naar hun visie op de toekomst van de journalistiek. Een van deze waakhonden is SMIT-onderzoeker Ike Picone die in het boek zijn visie geeft op de relatie tussen journalisten en het publiek van morgen. Hij baseert zich hierbij op het onderzoek rond nieuwsgebruikers dat hij de afgelopen jaren in het kader van het Flemish E-publishing Trends (FLEET) project heeft uitgevoerd. OP de voorstelling werd ook de nieuwst telg in de familie van het FPD voorgesteld,namelijk www.mediaonderzoek.be. Op deze website wil het fonds het media-onderzoek dat in Vlaanderen plaatsvindt groeperen. Het boek Jonge Honden is uitgegeven bij Van Halewyck. www.fondspascaldecroos.be www.mediaonderzoek.be www.fleetproject.be

[Link: http://www.fondspascaldecroos.org/index.php?page=775&detail=2741]

A review of the book ‘Modes of Spectating’, written by Cultuurlab IBBT-SMIT researcher Joke Beyl, has been published in the winter 2009 edition of the Politics and Culture journal. In short: ‘Modes of Spectating offers an original reading experience since it grounds reflection on contemporary modes of spectating in the artistic practice itself by combining art and research. This approach, however, seems to leave the reader with the feeling that the authors succeeded in tackling a very interesting issue, i.e. the social impact of new media technologies on the relation between the artist, the work of art and the audience, yet left the answers unfinished. Although it should be acknowledged that there is a need for more profound research in this field to be able to answer these questions,it is regrettable that the editors did not complete the book by means of an overall conclusion bringing together the most important reflections and wider questions, cited throughout the book. Nonetheless, it is this arousing of reflection, combined with its focus on tangible and specific cases, that can be acknowledged as the most significant contribution offered by the book.’ The review can be read in full via:

[Link: http://www.politicsandculture.org/2009/11/09/review-modes-of-spectating/]

Cultuurlab, a research cluster of IBBT/SMIT, organised a debate about culture and economy on November 23. After an introduction by An Moons, six representatives from the cultural sector discussed the challenges with regard to cultural entrepeneurship, alternative financing models, and other business aspects within the cultural domain. The live stream of the debate can still be watched at LiveStream Cultuurlab

The debate is situated in the Cultuurlab debate series in 2009-2010. Cultuurlab wants to stimulate the dialogue between academics, policy, the cultural sector, and the audience. Our next debate, in spring 2010, will focus on culture and participation and the potential role of digital culture in the participation debate.

SMIT-Director Caroline Pauwels wrote an opinion on user generated content and the need for quality journalism. Her comment, co-signed by IBBT-SMIT researcher Ike Picone (who works on the FLEET-project), was published on November 20 in the Belgian newspaper De Morgen and is titled 'Jos Joskens en de toekomst van het nieuws' ('Jos Joskens and the future of news').

Pauwels sets out from a user generated publication on Belga. Someone (Jos Joskens) posted on the Belga news feed that Belgian queen Fabiola was dead. Soon, other media took over the message. The news was not double-checked, however. Given current hypes concerning user generated content and the opportunities of citizen journalism, Pauwels thinks it is necessary to re-validate the value of high quality journalism. Although Pauwels does not question the inherent value and innovative possibilities of citizen journalism, she pleas for a re-evaluation of journalism in the new media ecology. Whereas new media offer opportunities to offer content faster, high- quality journalism is still a prerequisite for offering high-quality and, above all, correct information.

The opinion was published on the same day that IBBT and SMIT organised a conference in which the results of the FLEET project were presented to an audience of academics, industry and policy stakeholders. The FLEET-project investigates, a.o., the (r)evolutions through which the newspaper sector is going. Related to this, Pauwels stressed in her opinion that the media sector is indeed undergoing fundamental changes. Yet, these changes will not result in a Apocalypse Now scenario in which newspaper publishers will ultimately vanish and other initiatives will take over. In a similar vein, the changes in the media sector should not be considered as a much ado about nothing scenario. Publishing newspapers in the new media ecology is not business as usual. Rather, news media have to re-evaluate their organization, financing and strategic focus. A back to basics scenario, in which craftsmanship is at the core of journalism, ought to be pursued.

An article entitled 'Fair access to exclusive sports rights still a long shot in UK pay TV market', written by IES/IBBT-SMIT researcher Ben Van Rompuy, has been published in the most recent issue of Communications Law. At the end of June 2009, Ofcom, the regulator for the UK’s communications sector, published its third pay TV consultation document. It outlines proposed remedies to tackle continuing competition concerns over access to exclusive content (i.e. movies and sports) in the UK pay TV market. Next to the regulatory action it envisages under its sectoral powers , Ofcom considers a more targeted intervention under the competition rules necessary to prevent further aggregation of the English Football Association Premier League (FAPL) content by the dominant operator BSkyB. Ofcom's proposals indicate the limited success of the action the European Commission undertook in 2006 to ensure greater competition for the FAPL rights and to improve the accessibility of UK consumers to FAPL content. This article addresses this issue by evaluating the European Commission’s competition law approach to the joint selling of sports media rights. With particular reference to the UK market, it is examined to what extent sport fans have actually benefited from this approach and what alternative approaches are worth considering. Communications Law

Last week (on 5 November 2009) SMIT researcher Jan Loisen published a comment in Belgian newspaper De Tijd. Loisen co-authored the article with Ferdi De Ville, a researcher at the Centre for EU Studies (University of Ghent). Both researchers work for the Flemish Centre for Foreign Policy, which conducts policy supporting research and advises the Flemish government on foreign policy issues.

The comment of De Ville and Loisen is titled 'Afstand tussen Kopenhagen en Doha wordt kleiner' ('Distance between Copenhagen and Doha becomes smaller') and focuses on two hot topics on governments' agendas: trade agreements and climate negotiations. De Ville and Loisen discuss the linkages between the trade negotiations in the WTO (Doha Round) and the climate discussions in Copenhagen. In their opinion, some interesting developments can be witnessed with regard to the upcoming Copenhagen climate summit and the trade negotiations in the framework of the World Trade Organization. Increasingly, both processes are being linked to each other. According to De Ville and Loisen, this process should be furthered. The coupling of trade and climate negotiations might be beneficial for a successful closure of the Copenhagen summit.

VUBPress has published the book 'Rethinking European Media and Communications Policy'. The book is edited by IBBT-SMIT Director Caroline Pauwels, IBBT-SMIT and IES researchers Karen Donders and Ben Van Rompuy, and IES senior research fellow Harri Kalimo.

The book is a collection of expert insights on EU media and communications policies in the era of convergence. The media and ICT (Information and Communications Technology) sectors are at the heart of a competitive and inclusive European knowledge society. Since the late 1980s, the boundaries between these sectors have been blurring. Anno 2009, convergence is, finally, starting to take shape. And it is not just about technically migrating the offline world into a virtual one, or vice versa. It is about a much bigger change. New technologies enable fundamental socio-economic innovations as well as a restructuring of value chains. Social computing applications such as blogs and P2P networks push end-users to the centre stage in innovation. The culture of participating, of sharing, developing and using content in new, incremental ways, anywhere and anytime, is spreading fast. People as individuals, as citizens and as consumers can benefit from a completely new array of opportunities.

The fundamental changes caused by convergence also push previously distinct policies together. The objectives of such policies may be quite diverged, however. Conflicts may come to the fore, when economic profitability, legal stability and predictability, basic human rights and sociocultural values are pitched against one another. The developments render the task of public authorities extremely challenging. How to keep up with the current developments - or even better, how to predict the future scenarios - of the converging information society, so as to provide an optimal societal framework? How to take everyone’s interests into account, when the value chains are being completely transformed, when stakeholder groups such as consumers, content producers, network operators, right holders and public authorities interact in the constantly evolving mesh of a true digital environment? Much is at stake: competitiveness and jobs, social inclusion and cultural diversity, market opportunities and fundamental rights.

It appears therefore necessary to fundamentally reconsider the existing legal and policy frameworks. Have they become completely outdated? What are the main problems, and how should they be addressed? These are the very questions that top experts address in this book. Rethinking European Media and Communications Policy provides ample insights on the challenging task of crafting inclusive, competitive and culturally diverse media and communications policy for the converging Europe.

More information about the book: VUBPress

PresenceScape is an innovative research project, involving Alcatel-Lucent and SMIT. PresenceScape deals with new ways of audiovisual communication within distributed teams of knowledge workers. The application focuses on creating a sense of presence by combining teleworking with the informal conversations associated with face–to-face contact. SMIT researcher Koen Willaert has organised several focus groups aimed at identifying various user needs, resulting in design recommendations for the PresenceScape application.

In the PresenceScape demo activity and availability information for a team of colleagues is presented in a 3D virtual room using avatars and other visual signifiers. The system offers always-on voice connectivity and the possibly to start rich 3D videostreaming between colleagues. A Virtual Directing function monitors the initiation of conversations and edits the video communication, employing cinematographic techniques to reframe video images and switch cameras, following the conversation flow.

PresenceScape was also mentioned in this article by newspaper De Standaard