I’m late to record this but at the end of January Western Union stopped sending telegrams (it’s probably the best-known remaining telegraph sending organization in the US). It may be there are still lesser-known companies out there sending and receiving telegrams of course. On the face of it the death of telegrams came because they did nothing more efficiently than the alternatives, but this ignores the ritual element. For me the telegram still had a niche as a ceremonial form for sending greetings to weddings - a tradition that will now die out…

I imagine nobody will mourn the impending death of the telex since it lacks a ceremonial function (though for the moment it seems to be alive - you can still send them via email).

I haven’t had a chance to read David Horowitz’s new book, The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America but I have followed with fascinated/horrified interest the ensuing furore. I was finally moved to comment when I read Todd Gitlin’s response to being one of the 101 in which he notes in passing that he is accused by Horowitz of "immersing" his students in the "obscurantist texts of leftist icons like Jurgen Habermas."

It’s beyond me to conceive of teaching courses about the place of the media in society (for example) without ensuring some familiarity with Habermas‘ absolutely crucial work on the public sphere (even if only to critique it whether from the left or from the right). There’s a reason why the guy’s an icon. If that makes me a "dangerous academic"-in-training number 102, so be it!

Be particularly careful when using computer software that lets you move or delete whole files at a time - Windows Explorer and the Mac Finder certainly but also programs like NVivo (or Microsoft Office) that have file deletion features built in. Don’t ignore the warning dialogue boxes that come up when making changes or deletions and - particularly - be careful if you take your eyes off the screen when you are typing. I was typing in NVivo, I looked down at my transcript and somehow I must have typed a sequence of keys that deleted one of my interview transcripts and confirmed it because that transcript vanished! The only way I could think to get it back was to revert to what I had saved earlier.

Update: It happened again - and this time I think I know why. If you are working in NVivo on a transcript and type control-D (right beside control-F which is "find") you will delete that document! And there is no ‘undo’!! That’s a feature they are adding in NVivo 7, coming up shortly. And not a minute too soon…

You are backing up your fieldwork and documents regularly, right? To a separate hard disk or removable disk? And preferably taking that backup to a location far away from where your primary work machine is (in case of fire, flood etc)? Data disasters do happen, and it costs very little to protect yourself from them these days.

According to a recent study in the December issue of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology which is summarised here:

people overestimate both their ability to convey their intended tone?be it sarcastic, serious or funny?when they send an e-mail, as well as their ability to correctly interpret the tone of messages others send to them.

So be careful out there!

Today marks the launch of Harm and Offence in Media Content by Andrea Millwood Hargrave and Sonia Livingstone (I was one of the book’s contributors). You can find the press release and a link to an executive summary of the book here and if you are in the UK you can order it online via Amazon for ?18.95 (?1 saving).

Briefly, the book breaks new ground we believe because it looks at recent research across the whole gamut of available medias - television, radio, music, press, film, games, internet, telephony and advertising - as well as the regulation associated with each medium. Something there for everyone we hope! Do let us know what you think of the book if you’ve had a look and I will endeavour to answer any questions that may arise.