• Pages

  • About Matthew Cain
  • Contact Matthew Cain
  • Other Matthew Cains
• Search for:

• Categories

  • Fatherhood
  • Hackney
  • Labour politics
  • Liverpool FC
  • Media
  • Music
  • Politics
  • Reserves
  • RSA
  • Sport
  • Technology
  • Trusted journalists
  • Uncategorized

This is a critically important moment for the RSA. The management has a clear, exciting and challenging vision. Following the recent AGM the society now has the structure it needs to deliver this. I would like your support to be a trustee for the following reasons:
1. My fellowship experience
I have been involved in the social entrepreneurs’ network and  the development of the social enterprise spotlight initiative. A small group of people developed the spotlight from concept to launch in a few short weeks. The dynamism, creativity and openness of the meetings made it the a rewarding experience. Thanks to the support of the RSA staff, the skills and expertise of the fellowship and the profile provided through the RSA’s communications channels, we were able to develop an effective programme which supported a number of enterprises through the year.

As with any new project, we learnt a considerable amount about what the RSA can do best and I’d like to make the most of this experience  in my work as a trustee.

2. My career history

I founded Trufflenet five years ago and the company now provides business insights from digital media to some of Britain’s largest and most high profile private and public sector organisations. Building the company in the current economic climate has been an extraordinary experience. It has taught me the importance of collaboration and learning from investors, colleagues and clients; the creativity and flexibility needed to fashion an attractive offer and the need for focus and energy to make the most of opportunities. I believe this experience –both the successes and failures that I’ve had along the way – will be of considerable benefit to the RSA as it seeks to become a
more entrepreneurial organisation.

I have experience of leading influential research projects, most recently devising the Media Standards Trust’s recommendations for reform of press self-regulation, many of which have won considerable support in politics and the media post phone-hacking. At IPPR I led the research on the state funding of political parties. The high profile
recommendations, which had a broad constituency of support, have been echoed in subsequent public inquiries.

3. An effective trustee

As vice chair of a primary school governing body in Southwark and a non executive director of a community development organisation in Hackney I have experience of working with a range of different organisations. Within
the necessary constraints, I will use digital media to make my experience of the RSA as a trustee visible to the fellowship, helping ensure that the regular work of the trustees is open and accountable.

Given the power of the regional networks within the RSA, I will also be available for visits around the nations and regions of the UK to attend meetings with fellows to ensure that the RSA provides a rewarding experience to its fellows.

If you’d like to talk to me further, please get in touch. Just get in touch with me.

Opportunistic marketers aren’t slow in suggesting that social media monitoring could have helped the Police understand the outbreak of rioting over the last few days –this article is just one example. Police do monitor social media (most obviously, large police forces tweet themselves) but it wouldn’t have been particularly useful over the last few days. Basic keyword alerts might have had them deploying forces to Leicester, Coventry and Birmingham’s childrens’ hospital all of which were reported on Twitter as being targeted – none of which were.

In fact, the real activity – and the point of greater interest to intelligent marketers was away from the obvious social media networks like Twitter. And therein, lies the more interesting story.

The promise of social media was that it would bring people closer together, creating a more democratic world. Its role in the London riots is a reminder of how utopian that promise turned out.

Social media – or more accurately those who use it – have recreated the divides that already existed in society. The well-educated US graduates who flocked to Facebook were rejecting Myspace – not just its design and features but also its community. The shift was described by a leading researcher as ‘white flight’, echoing the exodus of middle class people from cities to suburbs.

There are echoes of the social divide in the growth of Twitter. Casual observer could be lead to believe that Twitter is of a similar size to Facebook. It certainly eats up column inches in the mainstream media. According to Journalisted there were more mentions of Twitter in the national press than Facebook in the last week. For the avoidance of doubt, there are 24m UK Facebook users and less than half the number of Twitter users. Hits to Twitter account for just 1 in every 184 UK internet visits. To put it another way, Trufflenet’s clients see hits to their website from Facebook on their analytics. Twitter is too small to notice.

So why has Twitter got such a large profile? Because it’s used by older, more affluent user, mostly living in London. Research from the Oxford Internet Institute has shown that adoption of Twitter loosely tracks adoption of the iPhone. Trufflenet has even found in its work in the political sphere that it is disproportionately left wing, findings underscored by Hitwise.

It is plausible that young rioters chose to use BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) because they prefer the privacy of the closed network. Indeed, Trufflenet has previously found young people much less likely to boast about poor behaviour on Facebook than Twitter. But anyone who had actually considered the privacy angle would have been likely to find the controversy about RIM handing over data to dodgy regimes in the Middle East. It is much more likely, however, that the greater penetration of BlackBerry’s amongst poorer teenagers meant that more of their friends used it.

Twitter played a vital broadcast role in amplifying news of the riots, spreading rumours and localising the news; and now in promoting the cleanup. BBM played an organising role. Many are using Facebook as a support mechanism for close friends and families.

Understanding what’s being said on social media is no small task. But anyone seeking to utilise that to plan activity needs to go beyond that to understand who is using which channel, how and why people it is being used.

Reform of press self-regulation has moved from the ‘impossible’ tray to the ‘pending’ tray in less than a month. Whilst  many people may want it, and some have an opinion on it, there are thorny issues that have not become any easier. The result will not be the regulator of anyone’s dreams.
1. Independent – but from who?

There’s a consensus across all parts of the debate that the press regulator should be independent. The PCC has been claiming it is independent for years. David Cameron wants it to become independent. But of who? It has to derive its legitimacy from somewhere.

Clearly the PCC is currently insufficiently independent of the press. But a political regulator, directly accountable to the Secretary of State would represent a significant threat to the legitimacy of politics and the media. A regulator could be accountable to parliament (rather than a government minister) but the distinction would be less clear in the public mindset – and the government’s control over parliament makes the distinction subtle in practice.

A press regulator could be semi-independent, through a system of co-regulation. A piece of legislation would set out what a regulator would need to look like (in terms of powers, accountability, transparency) and then an arms-length organisation such as Ofcom or the OFT would consider applications from bodies that sought to do that. In the event of disputes, the oversight regulator would have ultimate authority.

2. Limited funding possibilities

There are only two sources of funding: contributions from the industry (either through a voluntary arrangement as now or a tax) or a subsidy from general taxation either determined by the Treasury or by parliament. Neither guarantees independence nor a funding process that is immune from political priorities.

3. Legitimacy

A regulator without legitimacy will have a short shelf-life, no matter how enforceable its demands. When the press doesn’t like a restriction (such as libel laws) it is usually pretty effective at campaigning against them. Only yesterday Paul Dacre was in parliament arguing for greater press freedom. A regulator’s most effective work is not performed after the event but in beforehand, in changing the culture of the industry. Journalists (or any other profession) give short shrift to training sessions from people who don’t understand the job. The alternative is that on most days of the year a regulator that is liked by government is likely to lack public legitimacy.

4. Transparency

There is a reason why tricky issues of regulation do not capture the public imagination: they aren’t particularly relevant. Self-regulation of banks was deemed a failure so a statutory regulator was established. The banks crashed and the statutory regulation was held at fault. The police are regulated by an independent regulatory body and also face criticism over their role in phone hacking.

The real challenge facing the behaviour of the press is the complete disinterest of the media in reporting on the behaviour of particular newspapers (current events notwithstanding). Key parts of the phonehacking scandal have gone unreported in all but one newspaper – the Guardian. The Press Complaints Commission constantly complains that it has too low a press profile. Apologies for frontpage errors are more likely to be placed on page two rather than the better-read page 3 (or frontpage).

Unless the current scandal results in a complete turnaround in the way that the press reports itself, regulatory reform is likely to have limited impact.