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Denis OBrien. Photograph; Dara Mac Dnaill

The Department of Communications will mark Halloween by taking charge of the new dual-notification system for media mergers, as government responsibility for the area transfers from the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation to its domain.

Minister for Communications Alex White will make the call on whether or not a media merger is in the public interest, while the new Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) will determine if a deal can go ahead on competition grounds.

The legislation governing media ownership and control was updated earlier this year in Part 4 of the Competition and Consumer Protection Act, 2014, which commences tomorrow.

Whites department is still working on the guidelines that will underpin how the media mergers process will work in practice. These guidelines are expected to address the levels of media ownership that would be regarded as contrary to the public interest.

They may also detail the indicators that will be used to assess diversity - both of content and ownership - in the media sector and determine whether a merger should go ahead.

The guidelines will be published in draft form in early November, the Department says.

They are unlikely to prove too spooky for Independent News & Medias biggest shareholder, Denis OBrien, who also owns the Communicorp radio group. OBrien is officially deemed by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland not to control INM.

But there are some who find OBriens growing media influence a concern. Communicorp station Newstalk is now the largest supplier of radio news in Ireland after last week signing a contract to provide news to six UTV radio stations. The agreement prompted Samus Dooley, Irish secretary of the National Union of Journalists, to call on White to cry halt to what he described as this latest threat to media diversity.

In Dublin alone stations either owned by Communicorp or already supplied news by Newstalks syndicated service have a combined market share of 39.1 per cent, while UTVs music stations FM104 and Q102 have a combined 18.5 per cent share of listeners.

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Media mergers regime change tomorrow

In a new study, researchers have discovered that posts on social media websites like Facebook and Twitter could help control the spread of HIV.

Although public health researchers have focused early applications of social media on reliably monitoring the spread of diseases such as the flu, Sean Young of the Center for Digital Behavior at the University of California, Los Angeles, said that we were still in the early stages of testing how powerful these technologies would be.

He added that with the right tools in place, social media could offer a rich source of psychological and health-related data generated in an environment in which people are often willing to share freely.

His recent work on Behavioral Insights on Big Data (BIBD) for HIV offers the tantalizing possibility that insights gleaned from social media could be used to help governments, public health departments, hospitals, and caretakers monitor people's health behaviors "to know where, when, and how we might be able to prevent HIV transmission."

Young details a social-media-based intervention in which African American and Latino men who have sex with men shared a tremendous amount of personal information through social media, including when or whether they had "come out," as well as experiences of homelessness and stigmatization. What's more, they found that people who discussed HIV prevention topics on social media were more than twice as likely to later request an HIV test.

In the context of HIV prevention, tweets have also been shown to identify people who are currently or were soon to engage in sexual- or drug-related risk behaviors. Those tweets could be mapped to particular locations and related to actual HIV trends.

Young said there was a need for updated infrastructure and sophisticated toolkits to handle all of those data, noting that there are about 500 million communications sent every day on Twitter alone.

Although privacy concerns about such uses of social media shouldn't be ignored, Young said there was evidence that people had already begun to accept such uses of social media, even by corporations looking to boost profits.

The study is published in the journal Cell Press.

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Facebook, Twitter may help restrain spread of HIV, says study

Exton, Pennsylvania (PRWEB) October 29, 2014

Media Supply, Inc., a leading supplier of duplication services, supplies and equipment, announced the release of its 2014 promotional products catalog, as well as its new procurement center in Hong Kong. The diverse catalog is built upon the elite sourcing skills of Media Supplys international team, which has the ability to supply customers with a wide variety of promotional products.

The new Media Supply catalog features custom printed promotional items, also know as ad specialties, including Bluetooth speakers, portable device chargers, smart phone compatible sports bracelets, headphones and even GoPro camera pole mounts. When customized with a companys name and logo, these items make ideal holiday gifts for clients and employees.

Were excited about our new procurement center in Hong Kong, beyond just the support it gives our international sourcing, said Frank Quinlisk, Media Supplys Vice President. It can also assist our clients with negotiating agreements, export expertise, international forwarding, packaging insight and quality control.

Almost every American business uses promotional products, making them a $20.5 billion industry, and for smart marketers, items like Bluetooth speakers, USB flash drives and device chargers deliver a more efficient cost per impression than just about every other major marketing effort. Additionally, the staying power of a logo-imprinted gift easily exceeds other advertising. A recent study by ASI that examined global advertising specialty impressions in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, London, Sydney, revealed that 38% of respondents owned between 1-5 promotional products, and an amazing 13% owned more that 21 products with some type of logo. Numbers like this clearly demonstrate that applying a custom logo to a leading edge technology product greatly increases the number of eyes exposed to an organizations brand.

Media Supplys new promotional catalog is available by visiting Media Supplys catalog request page, where interested parties can elect to receive a physical or electronic version of the catalog. Media Supplys promotional products are also available for view on ASIs website, under ASI number 70302.

About Media Supply: Media Supply, Inc. offers data products, duplication equipment, consumables, services and fulfillment, designed to meet the requirements of those wishing to distribute products and information in data, audio or video form. The company's key products and services are DVD, CD & Blu-ray Disc publishers, USB duplicators, duplication and fulfillment services and premium promotional product supplies. Media Supply is headquartered in Exton, Pennsylvania. For more information, visit http://www.mediasupply.com or call 1.800.944.4237.

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Media Supply, Inc Announces New Procurement Center in Hong Kong and Release of 2014 Promotional Products Catalog

The finalists of this years Excellence Awards, recognising the best in print and digital publishing across Australia, are announced today.

Bauer Media is leading the finalist pack with a total of 19 on the shortlist followed by NewsLifeMedia with 12, and 11 for Pacific Magazines. Sterling Publishing have nine finalists with Hardie Grant Media, Alt.Control Media and CMMA Digital & Print on five each. The Pharmaceutical Society of Australia and Westwick-Farrow Media have four nominations.

More than 250 entries were submitted to the awards which are now in their 18th year. An expert panel of judges from across the publishing industry have been scrutinising all entries.

The winners will be announced at a gala dinner at Sydneys Doltone House Darling Island Wharf on 20 November and will close the two day Publish conference on 19-20 November being organised by Mumbrella in conjunction with Publishers Australia.

To book tickets for the ceremony click here.

Business Magazine of the Year

Custom Magazine of the Year

Consumer Magazine of the Year below 20,000

Consumer Magazine of the Year above 20,000

Magazine Cover of the Year Business

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Excellence Awards finalists revealed

Students demonstrate in Hong Kong, where protests are now in their second month. Photograph: Paula Bronstein/Getty Images

Every time Alice Lau visits Hong Kongs pro-democracy protests, she wears two photo ID badges, slung around her neck in a clear plastic sheath.

The first badge identifies her as a full-time employee of a pro-government newspaper. Every day, her employer condemns the unprecedented protests, now in their second month, for wreaking havoc on the citys transportation networks and economic vitality. The second card identifies her as a volunteer reporter for an outspoken Facebook-based news outlet with more than 100,000 subscribers.

One badge always obscures the other. By day, she displays the first. By night, as she camps out in protest zones and faces down riot police, she displays the second. Few protesters read her newspaper, but most have probably seen her work.

Alice Lau is a pseudonym. Revealing her name or employer could get her fired, she said, and revealing her Facebook platform could invite undue scrutiny. Its not like I want people to think Im a hero, she said over iced milk tea at a McDonalds in Admiralty district, the protests de facto core. I just feel like I need to use my talents to help Hong Kong, to help my community. Im just an ordinary citizen.

Hong Kongs traditional media is suffering a crisis of confidence. Many of the citys most influential newspapers and TV stations are owned by local tycoons who, wary of jeopardising their mainland business ties, have taken great pains to maintain a conservative editorial line. The citys young people have responded by turning to social media for news and thus, the ongoing umbrella movement may be the best-documented social movement in history, with even its quieter moments generating a maelstrom of status updates, shares and likes.

Press freedom in Hong Kong is not in a good state its not an authoritarian regime yet, but the pressure is on, said Mark Simon, a senior executive at Next Media, the citys only openly pro-democratic media conglomerate. Whats saving the city now are these group acts of journalistic courage.

The protests intensely public nature has fostered a heightened sense of caution. Although few protesters expect a Tiananmen-style crackdown, which would almost certainly spur an exodus from the city, many fear that Beijing will find ways to persecute organisers and high-profile supporters in a gradual, retroactive campaign. Many volunteer supply booths at the protest sites prominently display no photo signs, a plea to keep their operators identities under wraps.

Simon said that a crackdown, while unlikely, would be devastating for the city. Can Hong Kong survive with [student leader] Joshua Wong in jail, or [Next Media CEO] Jimmy Lai in jail do you think Hong Kong could survive that? I say no. It wont work. The worlds not going to treat you the same.

Since Beijing assumed control of Hong Kong in a 1997 handover, it has ruled the the city under a one country, two systems arrangement, granting it freedoms unknown on the mainland, including an independent judiciary, freedom of assembly, and an unrestricted press. Among these, the last is perhaps the most conspicuous the city has 18 newspapers and a string of scandal-hungry TV and radio stations, many of them notorious for broadcasting unscrupulous celebrity gossip and political exposs.

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Hong Kong protests bring crisis of confidence for traditional media