In a week that saw deeply worrying revelations about the way big data from internet companies is being mined by US and British intelligence agencies, Index on Censorship held a meeting to ask, how free are we on the web?

Pod Academy attended the discussion and recorded some of the contributions (Here:  Index discussion June 2013 ).  It was chaired by David Aaronovitch

Cory Doctorow got the ball rolling by arguing that though there are very real dangers to freedom, there is another, more hopeful aspect to the internet – that new forms of online activism (often dismissively called ‘clicktivism’) are enabling formerly disenfranchised citizens to get involved in campaigning.  However, in the later discussion he explored the danger of ‘accountability through algorithms’ – how algorithms are being used to unlock big data, and how they are necessarily a very blunt instrument when it comes to identifying terrorists. In his words, ‘it is like trying to find a pixel on your computer screen with a hotdog….you’ll get the pixel, and much else besides.”

Investigative journalist and writer, Heather Brook, had been looking into MPs’ expenses for 5 years before an insider in the House of Commons finally sold the database to the Telegraph, it was then, she said, she realised the power of the digital revolution.   She pointed out that we are currently in a period of changeover of regulation from the analogue to the digital age, and that what we come up with must recognise that free speech itself is not a threat to freedom, rather it is the concentration of power.

Paul Tweed, a defamation lawyer from Belfast, said he was committed to free speech as long as it was fair and  honest.  It was too easy for lies and innuendo to circulate on the web in a matter of seconds – there has to be legal redress for ordinary people, and there has to be a way of controlling the giants of the internet – Google, Facebook and Twitter.

Kirsty Hughes, Index’s chief executive focused on the geopolitics of digital freedom, posing the  important questions – Who controls the internet?  Should it be a digital UN or a multi stakeholder internet?  And is it appropriate that Facebook should be setting the rules for the public space of its billion users – how can we hold Facebook to account?

Over  the next three years, less well-off families will be hit harder financially than those with higher incomes.

David Simon, the creator of HBO’s TV drama, The Wire, about drug-ravaged estates in Baltimore, has called for drugs to be decriminalised.  In a debate organised by The Observer, the writer and producer of the award winning TV series said the ‘war on drugs’ has failed to stop the rising tide of drugs, which are now cheaper and more available than ever.

But Simon went further, and claimed that the ‘war on drugs’ and the curse of drugs are inseparable from what he calls ‘the death of working class America’.  In  his view, the deindustrialisation and destruction of the old factory cities has left children, families and former workers washed up and jobless, and he claims the war on drugs has morphed, into a mechanism of social control.  Because the buying and selling of drugs is illegal, anyone involved in the trade, in any way, is liable to be arrested, tried and imprisoned. In drug infested areas, arrests are two a penny – for the police it is like shooting fish in a barrel.  Simon said he had seen a decrease in arrests for non drug offences from 70-90% down to 20-40%, while drug related arrests rose six-fold.  And putting so many unemployed, restless and rootless people in jail, keeps them under control.

David Simon is calling for a new approach to tackling the devastation caused by drugs – decriminalisation.   He wants to see drugs taxed and regulated as with other controlled substances. And he is by no means the only voice calling for this change of approach.  Governments in a number of Latin American countries have declared that the ‘War’ approach has led to massive collateral damage in countries along the drug routes.  And many British academics are also saying the evidence to support the War on Drugs doesn’t stack up, that a new approach is needed.  One of these is Sue Pryce of Nottingham University who spoke to Roger Howard of the UK Drug Policy Commission in a podcast for Pod Academy, Fixing Drugs – take a listen, see what you think.

Three million businesses in the UK are family owned. They account for two thirds of all private sector firms. Think JCB, Clarks, Warburtons, Dyson, Swire, Virgin, Yorkshire Tea, McAlpine, Reed, Ginsters and Speedo. Many of us will recognise these big names, but there are hundreds of thousands of others.

According to the Institute of Family Business, these types of firm provide an impressive 9.2 million jobs, amounting to 40% of total private sector employment. In 2010 they generated revenues of £1.1 trillion which is 35% of private sector turnover. In terms of taxes they are estimated to have contributed £81.7 billion in tax receipts to the UK Exchequer, or 14% of total government revenues in 2010. Clearly, family businesses are an important part of our economy.

A new report published today highlights strengths which underpin family firms. It reveals that family businesses are less likely to fail than big business. Why? Because they are usually made up of a well functioning and diverse board of directors who are able to advise effectively. These findings are the result of a collaboration between researchers from Imperial College Business School, Leeds University Business School and Durham University Business School.

So what is new about this research? Well, Professor Nick Wilson of the Credit Management Research Centre, Leeds University explains, “This is one of the first studies to identify the board and ownership structure of private family firms in the UK and to track their survival rates relative to other firms”.

The evidence they looked at showed that family businesses were less likely to go bankrupt because they can recruit and maintain an experienced, diverse and knowledgeable board of directors.

“Running a successful business of any size is no easy task and this year we have already seen some high-profile businesses such as Comet being forced to close.  Family businesses could provide lessons to larger firms, as our findings show that a more diverse and experienced board of directors, which are prevalent in family firms, could be related to reducing failures in businesses”, says Professor Mike Wright, Director of the Centre for Management Buyout Research (CMBOR) at Imperial College Business School.

In a company, the board of directors provides advice and direction to management, and  to executives if they see the company drifting away from its goals and objectives. It is responsible for ensuring that companies fulfill their mission statement.

Interestingly, 80 percent of family owned businesses are also more gender balanced and have at least one female director. The researchers found that the boards of family businesses are more diverse which makes them more stable and also limits conflict between its members. This is in comparison to other private firms where board turnover is higher.  Family boards also tend to have a wider skill set making them more able to address potential threats to the businesses’ survival.

On the financial side, the team found that these boards are more frugal in their spending, partly because they often have to rely on internal sources for financing of projects. They scrutinise business opportunities with greater intensity and take fewer business risks than private firms.

This project involved analysing data of over 700,000 medium and large private family and non-family firms with an annual sales turnover of at least £6.5 million, a balance sheet total of at least £3.26 million and at least 50 employees. The data was collected from Companies’ House, the national database on limited companies and the Insolvency Service from 2007-2010.

The research was carried out by Professor Nick Wilson, Director of Credit Management Research Centre at Leeds University, Professor Mike Wright, Director of the Centre for Management Buyout Research at Imperial College Business School and Dr Louise Scholes, Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurial Management at Durham University Business School.

You can download and read the report here.

The findings of the research will be discussed at a CMBOR conference taking place at the Business School on 23 May 2013.

Lee Millan writes:

This week, 13th-19th May, is Mental Health Awareness Week. Most of us will know one family member affected by mental illness. It’s one of the most common but less spoken of difficulties. Statistically, with one in four of us experiencing a mental health problem at some point in our lives, mental illness ranks as one of the nation’s biggest health problems, alongside cardiovascular disorders and cancer. And yet, there is still much stigma attached to it.

Mental health illness is not just the strange man up the road constantly talking to himself or the old woman walking down the road taking pictures of everyone that goes by… it is a problem that can take many forms including depression, schizophrenia, eating disorders, anxieties, phobias, drug and alcohol abuse and post-traumatic stress disorder. As part of Mental Health Awareness week, ‘I Don’t Mind’ is an exhibition by Howard Sivills in association with Ferodo Bridges, which explores some of the ideas, myths and perceptions about mental health. Howard Sivills is the main curator of the exhibition. He spoke to Lee Millam on how the exhibition came about. Here’s the audio: I Don’t Mind

The American Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) comprehensively lists mental disorders, and it is used widely by psychiatric practitioners to diagnose patients. On May, 22^nd the fifth edition of the manual, DSM-5, will be published.

Previous DSM editions have attracted both praise and criticism. Some critics argue that the DSM approach is an unscientific system that enshrines the opinions of a few powerful practitioners; while others, like Professor Sue Bailey, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, have praised it for standardising psychiatric diagnostic categories and criteria and improving patient outcomes. Nevertheless most professionals seem to acknowledge that diagnosing psychiatric disorders is an imperfect science and mental health is an increasingly contested field. Just this week, the British Psychological Society, the leading body representing Britain’s clinical psychologists, have declared that there is no scientific evidence that psychiatric diagnoses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are valid or even useful.

DSM-5 contains some new categories of mental disorder. Some of these new additions been described as “daft” even by experts broadly supportive of the DSM, like Professor Simon Wessely, chair of Psychological Medicine at King’s College London. Critics have angled psychiatry is “medicalising normality”; can or should temper tantrums and depression, for example after the loss of a loved one, really be classified as mental disorders? Or, should these states of mind just be seen as part of life’s experiences? Surely, grief is a natural response to the death of a loved one? Do not all children lose their temper from time to time?

Some professionals are now questioning the role of those who may have a vested interest in diagnosing and treating new disorders. The recent article in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) ‘Are antidepressants overused?’ reports that “three-quarters of the experts who wrote the definitions of mental illness had links to drug companies” while data reported in the Guardian cited a 30 percent increase in prescriptions for antidepressants in England between 2008 and 2011, despite their dubious efficacy. According to the BMJ, only one in seven people on antidepressants report they benefit from taking the drug.

‘I Don’t Mind’ is showing at Audit House on Victoria Embankment on 17^th and 18^th May between 11am and 6pm. Come in and have a look.

You can read more from experts on both side of the debate: ‘Do we need to change the way we are thinking about mental illness?‘

Kings College London will be holding an international conference on the impact of DSM-5, 4-5th June 2013. DSM-5 and the Future of Psychiatric Diagnosis: Where is the roadmap taking us?

Also, Have a listen to our podcast ‘Yoga and mental health‘, Esther Gaytan-Fuertes speaks to Veena Ugargol, of the Minded Institute, about her research on the benefits of Yoga for stress-related mental disorders.

Image courtesy of Jacob V. Joyce

The average UK fee for a first degree in UK universities is now £8500 (up from the £3000 introduced in 2006).  Does it represent good value for money?  Are our students well served?

These are the question explored by a new report from the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) and Which? looking at student satisfaction levels and at the type of teaching they are getting.

It makes rather dispiriting reading – even leaving aside the question of whether HE should be free – it looks as if higher fees have had no impact whatever on the amount of contact teaching time, so student satisfaction levels (though still high) are eroding.

Students responding to the survey were asked how they would like to see their raised fees spent. The answer was clear, they want more contact with staff, together with smaller teaching groups.  But that is not happening – in the main because government grants to HE are being replaced by the student fees, leaving universities with no more resources.

It is also shocking to read that although official guidelines (QAA) assume that full time study amounts to 1200 hours a year (contact and non-contact), students at English universities study for no more than 900 hours per year on average.  In other words, students study for less than three quarters of the time that is expected for a degree programme. As the author of the report, Bahram Bekhradnia, comments , study at an English university is more like a part-time than a full-time job!

Nevertheless, the picture may be less depressing that at first appears.  JISC has pointed out that in the digital age, the nature of the student experience is changing rapidly and access to resources and to teaching staff has been transformed. Contact time need no longer mean students and staff sitting in the same seminar room – lectures can be filmed and watched online at a time that suits the learner, academics may engage with and offer feedback to students via email, Facebook and even twitter rather than in time-constrained seminars or tutorials. In this type of model students can engage with digital resources ahead of face-to-face sessions and then use the contact time more fruitfully for discussion and interaction.

There is lots more in the survey – see the summary here.  And tell us what you think…….

Hundreds of people attended the meeting hosted by the Birkbeck Institute for Social Research (BISR) to launch the third edition of the feminist classic text, Beyond the Fragments last Friday (3 May).  Indeed the event had proved so popular that the organisers had had to change the venue, and even then there was a waiting list. Here in our Beyond the Fragments recording  the three authors – Sheila Rowbottom, Lyn Segal and Hilary Wainwright – draw out the similarities and differences between 1979, when the first edition appeared, and now.

Beyond the Fragments was a publishing phenomenon, and in her introduction at the event, Sasha Roseneil Director of BISR said that it was just this type of influential book that the Institute was set up ‘to think about, talk about, and explore’.

The authors, both then and now, have been preoccupied with the process of change.  Inspired by the activism of the 1970s they were keen for their experience in the Women’s Liberation Movement to inform solidarity movements pressing for change. All were clear that the current economic crisis, the decline of social movements over the past 30 years, and the widening gap between rich and poor are huge obstacles to overcome, but they all spotted signs of resistance and change.