Blog Archive

Check out all blog posts in my blog archive. Click on a headline to read the teaser.

A Year in Washington DC › Blog on break while I'm away

Where did all the content go? Read More ›

Developing techniques to capture news websites programmatically. › Capturing the content of news websites

One of the big problems a researcher faces when dealing with 'the internet' is how to capture and keep a record, this is a recent attempt to develop a practical technique... Read More ›

Stop fretting about punctuation and let your ideas flow. › Software for students and academics

Some alternative apps and tools to help you in your academic work. Read More ›

The role of 'fake news' in the 2016 US Presidential Election › 'Fake News'

Where it came from, what the press (and the big social media firms) think of it and what to do about it. Read More ›

UN Rapporteur on freedom of expression in Japan › UN Concerned about Press Freedom in Japan

David Kaye, UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression, has just finished a visit to Japan and has pointed to a number of worrying issues for reporting and the mass media. Read More ›

Outlook for commercial broadcasters in Japan › MIC Survey of Broadcaster Sentiment

Every quarter Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication (MIC) asks commercial broadcasters to evaluate their outlook for the next six months. Read More ›

Not quite what you might expect › Cross-cultural Communication

A critical approach to the study of 'culture' and human communication. Read More ›

Mass media, politics and globalisation › Media in World Politics

Understanding the mass media and politics in a rapidly changing world. Read More ›

Press on my research › Hazlitt article

While attempting to manage my so-called online presence (actually trying to get rid of as many old photos as possible) I stumbled across an article in an online mag called Hazlitt Read More ›

Book chapter › Camera angles study

Book chapter: Camera angles as visual communication in news. The semiotic approach to visual communication assumes that images are created with a communicational intention. What if they are primarily the result of other types of decision-making processes? Read More ›

Lazy ways to prepare multiple document types. › Scrivener Pandoc

Using Scrivener, the rather wonderful writing software, as an editor/previewer for multi-purpose documents written in pandoc markdown Read More ›

Hi-ho Hi-ho, it's off to work we go... › Productivity Surprises

People in Japan are hard-working right? What does that actually mean? Let's have a look at some numbers... Read More ›

Pictures made with a camera › Photography

Most of the images on this site are details of photographs I have taken over the past few years. Some of the full images are in the gallery below. Read More ›

Visual Communication paper › Social Distance Portrayed

Camera framing sizes and social relations in Japan and the UK Read More ›

Japanese Studies paper › At the Digital Watershed: Terrestrial Television Broadcasting in Japan

The switch to digital broadcasting in Japan and what it might mean for the future of the industry. Read More ›

Bank Accounts in Japan › How many is enough?

Money, actual cash, still has an important role in Japan, and having places - LOTS of places - to keep it seems to be pretty important. Read More ›

Television licenses › NHK announces licence fee payment rates

How many of Japan's television households actually pay to watch NHK? Read More ›

Olympic broadcasting › Japanese commercial broadcasters lose money on London Olympics

Why show the Olympics? Read More ›

PhD Thesis › Reading news images in Japan: Visual semiosis in the context of television representation.

About my PhD from 2009, which was a study of the semiotic features of new TV images in Japan. It is based on an empirical survey of over 1500 news images which are coded and analysed using readings and categories suggested by 'social semiotics'. Read More ›