Re: [backstage] Linguistic discrimination?
Since the BBC is more generally accused of being pro-Chavez because it enjoys his anti-US position, maybe this is just a bit of balance? More seriously, it does raise wider issues about how Internet access and language skew online representation. The BBC is always very clear that polls online are de facto self-selecting, and therefore cannot be held to be an accurate measure of public opinion. CNN labels their votes as not scientific. Not all operators are as scrupulous. all the best, martin - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
RE: [backstage] Linguistic discrimination?
Deirdre Harvey :: Web Producer :: BBC Newsline :: Newsroom :: BBC Broadcasting House :: Ormeau Avenue :: Belfast BT2 8HQ :: ph. 02890 338264 http://bbc.co.uk/newsline From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brian Butterworth Sent: 08 December 2008 11:42 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] Linguistic discrimination? Interesting point of debate. This logic says that it is possible only to have an opinion if you speak the language of the country that you have a though about. That's not the argument at all. The argument is that only inviting comment in one language will mean that the comments made will necessarily be contributed by the speakers of that language. In logical terms the argument says nothing about what opinions it is possible to hold. It does hold that it is only possible to take part in a discussion if you understand and can speak/write in the language in which it is taking place. If you choose a language that is associated with a particular cultural or socio-economic group to ask a question about a particular country, clearly you are not going to be hearing the full range of responses and potentially creating a false impression of opinion on a subject. This is just silly, I can like a part of Wales without speaking Welsh! Yes, yes you can. But no matter how much you like Wales or how fervently you might wish to express that opinion, you won't get a chance to when everyone else is speaking Welsh and you have no idea what they're saying.
Re: [backstage] Linguistic discrimination?
I think the Venezuelan diplomat is half right. As more and more political debate is conducted online those with limitedor no access to the Internet are not represented fairly. From my experience most poor people accessing the Internet from cafes are too busy emailing relatives for money or some form of help. Political discussions are least of their worries. Another thing, most poor people acces the net via mobile phones, mainly for text messaging transactions like mobile money transfers. Where the diplomat is wrong is that politicians in developing countries take advantage of this digital gap and are weary of an effort to bridge this digital divide. I think the diplomat is just being sanctimonious. Venezuela can use some of their oil money to educate the poor masses and provide meaning Internet access. The language difference arguement is lame because there lots of auto translation tools available. On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 12:44 PM, Andy Halsall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Of course you've also limited the debate to those who have the capability and the inclination to participate in such a debate on a foreign broadcaster's website, whatever language(s) it's hosted in. Very good point, although I don't know how prevalent internet access is in Venezuela and how common internet cafe type establishments are. -- Andy Halsall Director ICTSC LTD, The ICT and Security Company. Direct: +44 (0)114 335 0392 Mobile: +44 (0)750 511 1705 Non-Geo: +44 (0)845 224 2591 Sales: +44 (0)845 224 2305 Web: www.ictsc.com --- This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify [EMAIL PROTECTED] and the sender. Please note that any views or opinions presented in this email are solely those of the author. The recipient should check this email and any attachments for the presence of viruses. The sender accepts no liability for any damage caused by any virus transmitted by this email. This email should be digitally signed, if it is not, it is probably not from who it claims to be from. Please report any abusive or unwanted email content to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Registered office: 26 Cleveland Street, Upperthorpe, Sheffield, S6 3JB. Registration Number: 5667864 This email and any attachments were created and sent using Open Source software, ICTSC Ltd believes in open standards and the freedom to innovate. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ -- Sam Mbale Mpelembe Network http://www.mpelembe.net Follow me on http://twitter.com/mpelembe
Re: [backstage] Linguistic discrimination?
Andy Halsall wrote: Of course you've also limited the debate to those who have the capability and the inclination to participate in such a debate on a foreign broadcaster's website, whatever language(s) it's hosted in. Very good point, although I don't know how prevalent internet access is in Venezuela and how common internet cafe type establishments are. Interesting discussion. I've often thought about this topic and selection biases, based on my anecdotal experiences as a largely monolingual visitor who spent 3 months living in Venezuela. Of all the (10x20 I guess) Venezuelans I've met and talked with (some f2f there, some online, some here in Europe), the great majority were all pretty hostile to Chávez. However all were to some degree English speakers; my Spanish simply wasn't up to talking to anyone else. I have no doubt that a more representative cross-section of Venezeuela would've included a lot more Chávez enthusiasts. In my limited experience, there are a good number of 'net cafes around. Well, it's not Cuba, at least. But hanging out on foreign news sites filling in questionaires may well be the kind of activity that is more tempting if conducted from home with flat-rate billing, rather than a pay-per-minute seat in a crowded net cafe. Still, at least asking the survey questions in Spanish would be polite. Even if it doesn't reach the folk living in slums around Caracas, worrying more about food and electricity than TCP/IP, it would be a step in the right direction. There are other mechanisms beyond surveys (eg. reading blogs from community groups) that can help with understanding others' perspectives, but they're not so amenable to simpleminded maths or as cheap to implement as a Web poll... cheers, Dan -- http://danbri.org/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Linguistic discrimination?
2008/12/8 Andy Halsall [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Monday 08 December 2008 11:42:24 Brian Butterworth wrote: Interesting point of debate. This logic says that it is possible only to have an opinion if you speak the language of the country that you have a though about. No, the logic seems to be that requiring comments in a language that only a certain demographic of a country speak will illicit responses only from people of that demographic, if, as in this case that demographic also have a moderately uniform political view (as much as that is possible) you have essentailly closed the debate to those outside of a particular political grouping. Of course you've also limited the debate to those who have the capability and the inclination to participate in such a debate on a foreign broadcaster's website, whatever language(s) it's hosted in. -- Peter Bowyer Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/peeebeee - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Linguistic discrimination?
Of course you've also limited the debate to those who have the capability and the inclination to participate in such a debate on a foreign broadcaster's website, whatever language(s) it's hosted in. Very good point, although I don't know how prevalent internet access is in Venezuela and how common internet cafe type establishments are. -- Andy Halsall Director ICTSC LTD, The ICT and Security Company. Direct: +44 (0)114 335 0392 Mobile: +44 (0)750 511 1705 Non-Geo: +44 (0)845 224 2591 Sales: +44 (0)845 224 2305 Web: www.ictsc.com --- This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify [EMAIL PROTECTED] and the sender. Please note that any views or opinions presented in this email are solely those of the author. The recipient should check this email and any attachments for the presence of viruses. The sender accepts no liability for any damage caused by any virus transmitted by this email. This email should be digitally signed, if it is not, it is probably not from who it claims to be from. Please report any abusive or unwanted email content to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Registered office: 26 Cleveland Street, Upperthorpe, Sheffield, S6 3JB. Registration Number: 5667864 This email and any attachments were created and sent using Open Source software, ICTSC Ltd believes in open standards and the freedom to innovate. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
[backstage] Linguistic discrimination?
Good morning list, I don't suppose many of you are aware of this, but this morning the BBC News Online website is being accused of bias by the Venezuelan Ambassador to the UK for a very (IMHO) interesting reason. For those who can read Spanish, the details of the accusation are on the Venezuelan state TV website: http://www.vtv.gob.ve/articulos/reportajes/12217 For those who can't, the brief summary is this: The (English language) BBC News site currently has a 'have your say' section inviting comments about Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's performance in the ten years of his Presidency at http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_776/newsid_7765400/7765415.stm. There is currently no equivalent page on the BBCMundo.com (Spanish language) website. For the avoidance of any doubt, I will clarify that Spanish is the official language of Venezuela. Given that Venezuela has a population of about 60% below the poverty line and the majority of Chávez's supporters are known to be from the poorer sectors of the society (who are unlikely to have had sufficient education to speak English), the BBC stands accused of asking for comment in English only in order to deliberately manipulate the results to ensure that Chávez is discussed in predominantly adverse terms. Whilst I am pretty certain this is more likely to be a lack of communication between different parts of the BBC, rather than deliberate bias, I can't help but feel that the Ambassador might have a valid point here. I have suspected for a while that 'linguistic discrimination' is an under-recognised topic amongst website designers of websites with an international target audience who permit user feedback. The danger for the BBC, of course, is that this sort of debate could undermine the excellent work that has gone in to the development of BBCMundo.com and BBC Mundo Radio in Latin America in recent years. Without wishing to turn this into a political debate on this list, I wonder what you think? How much discussion goes into deciding which pages should invite comment and is the risk of 'linguistic discrimination' considered in conjunction with the World Service's different language services? Would it not be better, for example, for the invitation for comments to be on the Spanish site and for the comments to then be translated for the English site? Is there some form of software platform linking the different bits of the BBC and language services which allows for comments to be 'shipped' in translation between different departments? Or perhaps the comments should be displayed on the English page with a 'health warning' to warn that a full range of opinions might not be expressed due to the fact that it is only an English page? Best wishes, Dominic. (I do not work for the BBC) - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
RE: [backstage] Linguistic discrimination?
This just sounds like a classic BBC cock-up/lack of co-ordination to me. Best wishes Robert Binney Global News Division BBC World Service * Desk: +44(0)2075573245 * Mob: 07711910957 (Internal 312833) * 123SE Bush House, The Strand, London WC2B 4PH From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brian Butterworth Sent: 08 December 2008 11:42 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] Linguistic discrimination? Interesting point of debate. This logic says that it is possible only to have an opinion if you speak the language of the country that you have a though about. This is just silly, I can like a part of Wales without speaking Welsh! It may be impolite to talk about people abroad in English without starting a separate topic in their own language, but it would be plain daft to say any more. I mean, I have an opinion about the ταραχές στην Ελλάδα, but I can't see why the BBC should have a debate about them. 2008/12/8 Dominic Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] Good morning list, I don't suppose many of you are aware of this, but this morning the BBC News Online website is being accused of bias by the Venezuelan Ambassador to the UK for a very (IMHO) interesting reason. For those who can read Spanish, the details of the accusation are on the Venezuelan state TV website: http://www.vtv.gob.ve/articulos/reportajes/12217 http://www.vtv.gob.ve/articulos/reportajes/12217 For those who can't, the brief summary is this: The (English language) BBC News site currently has a 'have your say' section inviting comments about Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's performance in the ten years of his Presidency at http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_776/newsid_7765400/7765415.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_776/newsid_7765400/7765415.stm . There is currently no equivalent page on the BBCMundo.com (Spanish language) website. For the avoidance of any doubt, I will clarify that Spanish is the official language of Venezuela. Given that Venezuela has a population of about 60% below the poverty line and the majority of Chávez's supporters are known to be from the poorer sectors of the society (who are unlikely to have had sufficient education to speak English), the BBC stands accused of asking for comment in English only in order to deliberately manipulate the results to ensure that Chávez is discussed in predominantly adverse terms. Whilst I am pretty certain this is more likely to be a lack of communication between different parts of the BBC, rather than deliberate bias, I can't help but feel that the Ambassador might have a valid point here. I have suspected for a while that 'linguistic discrimination' is an under-recognised topic amongst website designers of websites with an international target audience who permit user feedback. The danger for the BBC, of course, is that this sort of debate could undermine the excellent work that has gone in to the development of BBCMundo.com and BBC Mundo Radio in Latin America in recent years. Without wishing to turn this into a political debate on this list, I wonder what you think? How much discussion goes into deciding which pages should invite comment and is the risk of 'linguistic discrimination' considered in conjunction with the World Service's different language services? Would it not be better, for example, for the invitation for comments to be on the Spanish site and for the comments to then be translated for the English site? Is there some form of software platform linking the different bits of the BBC and language services which allows for comments to be 'shipped' in translation between different departments? Or perhaps the comments should be displayed on the English page with a 'health warning' to warn that a full range of opinions might not be expressed due to the fact that it is only an English page? Best wishes, Dominic. (I do not work for the BBC) - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk http://backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html . Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ -- Brian Butterworth follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital
Re: [backstage] Linguistic discrimination?
On Monday 08 December 2008 11:42:24 Brian Butterworth wrote: Interesting point of debate. This logic says that it is possible only to have an opinion if you speak the language of the country that you have a though about. No, the logic seems to be that requiring comments in a language that only a certain demographic of a country speak will illicit responses only from people of that demographic, if, as in this case that demographic also have a moderately uniform political view (as much as that is possible) you have essentailly closed the debate to those outside of a particular political grouping. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Linguistic discrimination?
On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 5:42 AM, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Interesting point of debate. This logic says that it is possible only to have an opinion if you speak the language of the country that you have a though about. This is just silly, I can like a part of Wales without speaking Welsh! The logic is more like the English speaking world has a different opinion than the Spanish speaking world. This is frequently true, since you can hear more comments, first hands accounts and more diverse opinions in a given sphere of language. In the US, electoral candidates often run different messages in English and Spanish, sometimes hoping one isn't listening to the others. If I spoke only English, I would have to rely on selected Spanish translations and individual excerpts from the Anglosphere - not the much fuller coverage and mass bulk of first hand material in the original language. In the US, I often muse how American English news will cover hurricanes like, A hurricane is nearing Haiti Dominican Republic Cuba Ignoring the millions of Americans in Puerto Rico. I always go to Spanish speaking Puerto Rican source for accurate or *any* information Ethnic media has always been important for this very reason. Often minority group issues only get coverage if it impacts the majority or in power group. Which means, the news is often slanted towards conflict. One excellent example of this slant was the coverage of the March 11 attacks in Spain. The US was blaming certain groups and talking about how the citizens were fearful of Al Qaeda to switch parties, meanwhile, the front page of elpais.es online had the letter claiming responsibility and a host of other information showing the citizenry was more upset that the government seemed to actively lie about the source of the attacks. Two entirely different stories. My guess is the majority of Americans still believe Spain buckleld under a bombing as opposed to reacting to the specific actions of their government like they reported. I think the Ambassador has a strong point. The first thing is - BBC has the capacity to get more direct spanish speaking sources. A smaller source might not. But any reporter worth their salt knows the conflict in Venezuela is largely between the minority wealthy and the majority poor, which translates often into bilingual English speaking and Spanish or indigenous speaking people. English speakers are more likely to be inculturated by English speaking media or already on that side. I don't think it's a realistic argument for anyone to suggest the best way for asking a Spanish speaking population their experience is to do it in English or even in their English outlets. It would be much more effective and accurate to reach out to people in the outlets produced in their native language. If we were to ask Iraqis their experience since Saddam Hussein's fall, would it be best to do ask in English, Spanish or Arabic? - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Linguistic discrimination?
On 08/12/2008 14:06, Rich Vazquez [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 5:42 AM, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Interesting point of debate. This logic says that it is possible only to have an opinion if you speak the language of the country that you have a though about. This is just silly, I can like a part of Wales without speaking Welsh! [snipped] If we were to ask Iraqis their experience since Saddam Hussein's fall, would it be best to do ask in English, Spanish or Arabic? Ideally all three? Simon Batistoni from Flickr has written a really interesting paper covering communities, language, machine translation and the web [1]. For me, it's inspiring that Flickr are seeing Internationalisation as part of their business model and not leaving it as one for the academics to ponder. As Joel Spolsky says in his classic article on Unicode [2] it's really not that hard to manage multilingual content, you just need to know that's what you want to do from the outset. Back here at the Beeb, there are many systems and support for Internationalisation varies between them. The World Service and Welsh language departments have done a lot to promote language development work and given the multi-headed monster that is most software development, things are moving along. Gavin [1] http://2008.xtech.org/public/schedule/detail/534 [2] http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Unicode.html - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
[backstage] Media Selector query
Bit of a geeky query this one, so sorry in advance if it all gets a bit technical. I've noticed since the Local Radio changes to iplayer a couple of weeks ago that the mediaselector XML that I (and several other sites) use to get links to Real Audio content that is available on iplayer has changed slightly. Specifically, if you take an example such as http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/4/mtis/stream/b005h0n9 there are now multiple media sections for Real Audio. It looks as though different .ram files are now being served up to UK and non-UK audiences (presumably so UK audiences get the benefit of higher bitrates from Coyopa ?). However the problem is that it's not clear which media tag is suitable for which audience. Consequently, since my code at the moment just takes the first media node it can find where the encoding is set to real, I'm finding that I'm serving up UK only links to all users, which is causing problems for my overseas users. I can obviously parse each media node and look for words such as 'uk' or 'intl', but then I'm at the mercy of those links containing that word in them. The best solution would be some way to tell which links are suitable for UK and/or non-UK audiences, but I'll settle for some consistent way of always being able to identify the non-UK link, as that should work for all audiences. Any ideas? I presume also that as MP3 and Flash start to roll out for radio they'll end up being added to the mediaselector? Andrew Dancy Reincubate - accelerating growth of start-up entrepreneurial businesses http://www.reincubate.com http://www.reincubate.com/
RE: [backstage] Media Selector query
never feel sorry for being too geeky! Ah see what you mean, so some kind of attribute would be useful but currently the spec doesn't support it. Or maybe we should be producing two different types of feeds? One international and the other UK? Ian Forrester This e-mail is: [x] private; [] ask first; [] bloggable Senior Producer, BBC Backstage Room 1044, BBC Manchester BH, Oxford Road, M60 1SJ email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] work: +44 (0)2080083965 mob: +44 (0)7711913293 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 08 December 2008 16:09 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: [backstage] Media Selector query Bit of a geeky query this one, so sorry in advance if it all gets a bit technical. I've noticed since the Local Radio changes to iplayer a couple of weeks ago that the mediaselector XML that I (and several other sites) use to get links to Real Audio content that is available on iplayer has changed slightly. Specifically, if you take an example such as http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/4/mtis/stream/b005h0n9 there are now multiple media sections for Real Audio. It looks as though different .ram files are now being served up to UK and non-UK audiences (presumably so UK audiences get the benefit of higher bitrates from Coyopa ?). However the problem is that it's not clear which media tag is suitable for which audience. Consequently, since my code at the moment just takes the first media node it can find where the encoding is set to real, I'm finding that I'm serving up UK only links to all users, which is causing problems for my overseas users. I can obviously parse each media node and look for words such as 'uk' or 'intl', but then I'm at the mercy of those links containing that word in them. The best solution would be some way to tell which links are suitable for UK and/or non-UK audiences, but I'll settle for some consistent way of always being able to identify the non-UK link, as that should work for all audiences. Any ideas? I presume also that as MP3 and Flash start to roll out for radio they'll end up being added to the mediaselector? Andrew Dancy Reincubate - accelerating growth of start-up entrepreneurial businesses http://www.reincubate.com http://www.reincubate.com/
RE: [backstage] Media Selector query
You never know how technical to go before people start falling asleep at their desks.. The latter idea (a separate feed) would probably be easier to implement in the short term - perhaps an international version of the mediaselector with a similar URL pattern to the current one (hypothetical example : http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/international/stream/p001hlts ) that just has media items that are available overseas? Longer term an attribute on the media item would make sense and would probably be a good move for future-proofing, as I'm sure long term much more audio and video content will end up being available internationally and it's bound to be useful in the future to distinguish between UK and overseas availability. Out of curiousity how is it done at the moment on bbc.co.uk/iplayer ? I presume there must be some code that chooses which media item to use, based on the geolocation data and preferred player settings? Andrew _ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ian Forrester Sent: 08 December 2008 17:06 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: RE: [backstage] Media Selector query never feel sorry for being too geeky! Ah see what you mean, so some kind of attribute would be useful but currently the spec doesn't support it. Or maybe we should be producing two different types of feeds? One international and the other UK?
