In case you missed it, I had 2.5 minutes on The One Show yesterday, talking about cyberbullying as part of Safer Internet Day (week), and 3 minutes this morning on BBC News, talking about whether parents should panic about their children sharing inappropriate material online.
Click for all media appearances.
So, earlier this evening, I was live on The One Show, talking about cyberbullying, from my book Raising Children in a Digital Age, and ready for a new cyberbullying report coming out from the BBC tomorrow, as well as Safer Internet Day 2015. All a bit of a whirlwind. If you want a vague idea of what happens – was collected, given a room (with wi-fi), in which I’d planned to work on a report, but ended up rehearsing my points for most of the afternoon. Got a chance to practice them with the producer, then was sent for food, make-up, rehearsal – in which about 10+ minutes in which I got lots of questions, from which Matt/Alex picked the ones they wanted to use. Back behind the scenes, until I was called to the sofa, quick chat whilst the VT is playing, then we’re on air, and what feels like 30 second later, I’m done – no chance to namecheck anyone – sorry – but lots of you are namechecked in the book, so… Watched the rest of it, quick photo, and off home.
Back up in the morning for a few more media interviews, and hopefully some report writing!
Love a few more reviews on the book (hopefully positive ones)… only 47p on Kindle as a special for Internet Safety Week – and the show will be on iPlayer for a bit 🙂
If you didn’t know, just under a year ago, I saw the publication of my labour of love Raising Children in a Digital Age, which led to a flurry of media the week before for Safer Internet Day 2014, most notably as a ‘big guest’ on BBC Radio 2 with Steve Wright in the Afternoon (proved very useful for those ‘an interesting fact about yourself’ introduction exercises). With my book having gone to reprint after 4 months, and generally received very well, the publishers contacted press again re Safer Internet Day 2015. 
After a number of ‘we might have this, oh no’, what is already known is:
I love the theme this year. Part of the reason that my book is known as Raising Children, rather than the original working title of Parenting is that, although I don’t have children, we as a wider society all have a responsibility for our society, past (I am a historian by training!), present and future. As someone who doesn’t have children I am not just telling you how Ive done it, but been able to take a bigger overview of research mixed with ‘real’ experience. So enjoy what #SID2015 has to say:
The day offers the opportunity to highlight positive uses of technology and to explore the role we all play in helping to create a better and safer online community. It calls upon young people, parents, carers, teachers, social workers, law enforcement, companies, policymakers, and wider, to join together in helping to create a better internet. Ultimately, a better internet is up to us!
Join the efforts to make the internet part of a safer world for all – this coming Tuesday, 10th February.
So, yesterday afternoon, I finally grabbed that promised chat with Oriidah, who has been our local contact for the trip in Uganda. I was interested in the route she’d taken to get to the role she’s in now, and what her role consists of … I then asked some further questions about ‘digital Uganda’ which will form another post for this afternoon.
Odiirah undertook a BA in Journalism & Communications at Kampala University, where she majored in writing for print – typically the most popular specialism as there are a lot of newspapers in Uganda. Most others do broadcasting, although a few do PR, but PR is not big in Uganda, and if you have trained in print or broadcasting, you can still do PR.
The course lasted for three years, with all studying the same material in the first year (including economics), whilst students specilise in the 2nd and 3rd years. Odiirah finished four years ago (June 2008), and those specializing in print often find work quite quickly, as there’s a lot of vacancies, although originally, as many do, she only got taken on as a freelance writer – paid per story that is printed.
In her 2nd year holiday Odiirah worked with some newspapers as a trainee (The Weekly Observer), and stayed for year whilst still at university, only dropping it in the final semester when there was too much research to do. As she already had experience she was able to go to a bigger newspaper – The Daily Monitor, where she wrote features.
I asked whether there were any stories that she particularly remembers writing – and Odiirah said that anything to do with compassion and people in need were the ones that she found most powerful. She wrote a story about a lady with breast cancer (not common in Africa, therefore misunderstood) for cancer month, who was demoted from a senior position – it appears simply because she’d had a breast removed. The woman has had to continue in that role, looking after her brother who is paralysed. (Apparently there are unions in Uganda, but they are not that active… because labour is so cheap).
Another story that Odiirah particularly remembers is that she visited a school for the dumb and the deaf – the only one in the country. She followed a family with four children who were all both deaf and dumb – there’s no help from the government for them. Social Security is available in Uganda, but only for those who are working, e.g. Odiirah pays 5% of her salary in, and the company pays in 15% – if one doesn’t have a salary, one can’t save, and if one earns less than 150,000UGS there’s no security plan available.
Six months after graduation, Odiirah took the job of Communications and Promotions Officer at PAG
As in most departments at PAG there’s just one person in a department .. and many are spread across the districts of Uganda. Odiirah was mainly hired by Tearfund to undertake work for the Connected Churches initiative – where churches in the UK are connected with churches in Uganda. Odiirah’s job was to gather information across the churches. She’s now more fully involved in PEP (The project that Tearfund’s involved in that we’ve come out to see).
Odiirah now collects stories of impacts from communities involved with PEP. There’s too many to collect from all, as she visits each district twice a year for three days. Initially there were 10 districts, with 14 communities in each, and there are now a further 3, with 3 communities in each). Stories are sent as reports to Tearfund – monthly, quarterly, mid-year and annual. Other stories are placed on the website (the blog is new and has not yet evolved), and there is now also a page on Facebook, where further stories are shared. An annual magazine Goma is produced, just going into its second edition, which highlights new projects, and is intended for PAG churches in Uganda. Odiirah intends to develop the blog to share more stories, although Twitter doesn’t yet feature much for Ugandans.
How has the digital affected Uganda in general? See this afternoon’s later post.
Looks like an interesting book:
This book sets out to retell the history of the intimate relationship between broadcasting and domesticity. Set against a backdrop of changing social relations from the 1930s to the present day, it looks at some of the ways in which radio and television in the UK have represented the home to listeners and viewers encountering their programmes in domestic space. This story of a public medium negotiating its reception in private space is – literally and figuratively – a familiar one.
Read full story.