̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - television

Re-enacting the first night of television, 80 years on

Anonymous — Wed, 02 Nov 2016 00:44:15 +0000

Television’s Opening Night: How the Box was Born will be screened on BBC Four on 2 November 2016, 80 years after Britain first experienced the phenomenon of a live television broadcast. No recordings of the 1936 broadcast remain, so Windfall Films sought to piece together and re-enact every aspect of the historic day, with experts Dallas Campbell and Professor Danielle George, as well as Dr Hugh Hunt from Cambridge's Department of Engineering.

At the home of BBC television, London’s Alexandra Palace, the stage was set for a competition between rival technologies after the Television Committee, set up by the government in 1934, could not choose between the two systems tendered and opted to trial both.

Thus Scotsman Logie Baird’s 240-line mechanical transmission of moving pictures and sound along existing wireless technology was in one studio on the first night, and Marconi’s Emitron electronic 405-line system was in another. ̽��ֱ��former used a spinning disc and the latter a cathode ray receiver. ̽��ֱ��ultimate aim was the same – to create a scanned image that could be reproduced by the cathode ray tube of a television screen.

Through the toss of a coin, Logie Baird’s system went first, which was perhaps fitting as he had demonstrated a working television system a decade previously and succeeded in transmitting images from London to Scotland and across the Atlantic.

Logie Baird used a mechanical spinning image device, the Nipkow Disk, which had been invented in 1884. His genius was to perfect the transmission of images over the air waves. When a bright light shone through one hole at a time in this spinning disk it caused a tiny spot of light to scan across the presenter’s face. Hence the camera was known as ‘the flying spot’, explains Hunt, who is a Fellow of Trinity College.

This light was picked up by a photocell and the reflected light intensity relayed by wireless to televisions in people’s homes – as there were only around 300 sets in 1936, many people flocked to Selfridges to watch the phenomenon in their showroom.

̽��ֱ��‘flying spot’ moved from left to right across the presenter’s face to cover the entire screen using 240 lines. ̽��ֱ��receiving TV set needed a signal to identify the end of each line. ̽��ֱ��Baird system incorporated a black band at the end of each line so that the TV set would get a signal to know when to start the next line. Likewise at the end of each screen there were a few blank lines so that the TV would know when to shift the beam back up to the top of the screen.

Together with engineering students Charlie Houseago (Trinity), Anna Maria Kypraiou (Newnham) and Arthur Tombs (Queens’), and colleagues in the Engineering Department, Hunt recreated a scaled-down version of the flying spot camera for the documentary.

As Logie Baird found, synchronizing the television’s flying spot with the camera’s spot was a huge challenge.

Hunt said: "Our disc is 600mm in diameter with 60 holes spinning at 900rpm. This creates a 60 line image at 15 frames per second, not quite up to the original 240 lines at 25 frames per second but we didn’t have the 20 years of development time that Logie Baird had. Still, our image quality was quite remarkable."

̽��ֱ��official trial of the two systems was soon halted as Marconi’s EMI system was much more flexible and versatile than Logie Baird’s flying spot – it could film in natural daylight for instance – and the future of television was set. Until the flat-screen technologies of the 1990s, television cameras were essentially derived from the EMI system and televisions in people’s homes were cathode ray tubes.

"As remarkable an invention as it was I don’t think the flying spot was ever going to last," said Hunt. "But that doesn’t detract from Logie Baird’s genius and vision. He could see that people would be captivated by television. His system was developed and perfected over decades at a time when there were no alternatives."

Television’s Opening Night: How the Box was Born will be broadcast on BBC Four at 9pm on Wednesday 2 November.

Originally published on the Trinity College website.

Cambridge researchers and students have recreated John Logie Baird’s cumbersome ‘flying spot’ camera for a documentary about the first live scheduled BBC television broadcast on 2 November 1936.

Our image quality was quite remarkable.

Hugh Hunt

BBC/Windfall Films/George Woodcock

Hugh Hunt examines the disc of the recreated flying spot camera

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Use of TV, internet and computer games associated with poorer GCSE grades

cjb250 — Fri, 04 Sep 2015 07:00:21 +0000

In a study published today in the open access International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, researchers also found that pupils doing an extra hour of daily homework and reading performed significantly better than their peers. However, the level of physical activity had no effect on academic performance.

̽��ֱ��link between physical activity and health is well established, but its link with academic achievement is not yet well understood. Similarly, although greater levels of sedentary behaviour – for example, watching TV or reading – have been linked to poorer physical health, the connection to academic achievement is also unclear.

To look at the relationship between physical activity, sedentary behaviours and academic achievement, a team of researchers led by the Medical Research Council (MRC) Epidemiology Unit at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge studied 845 pupils from secondary schools in Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, measuring levels of activity and sedentary behaviour at age 14.5 years and then comparing this to their performance in their GCSEs the following year. This data was from the ROOTS study, a large longitudinal study assessing health and wellbeing during adolescence led by Professor Ian Goodyer at the Developmental Psychiatry Section, Department of Psychiatry, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

̽��ֱ��researchers measured objective levels of activity and time spent sitting, through a combination of heart rate and movement sensing. Additionally the researchers used self-reported measures to assess screen time (the time spent watching TV, using the internet and playing computer games) and time spent doing homework, and reading for pleasure.

̽��ֱ��team found that screen time was associated with total GCSE points achieved. Each additional hour per day of time spent in front of the TV or online at age 14.5 years was associated with 9.3 fewer GCSE points at age 16 years – the equivalent to two grades in one subject (for example from a B to a D) or one grade in each of two subjects, for example. Two extra hours was associated with 18 fewer points at GCSE.

Screen time and time spent reading or doing homework were independently associated with academic performance, suggesting that even if participants do a lot of reading and homework, watching TV or online activity still damages their academic performance.

̽��ֱ��researchers found no significant association between moderate to vigorous physical activity and academic performance, though this contradicts a recent study which found a beneficial effect in some academic subjects. However, both studies conclude that engaging in physical activity does not damage a pupil’s academic performance. Given the wider health and social benefits of overall physical activity, the researchers argue that it remains a public health priority both in and out of school.

As well as looking at total screen time, the researchers analysed time spent in different screen activities. Although watching TV, playing computer games or being online were all associated with poorer grades, TV viewing was found to be the most detrimental.

As this was a prospective study – in other words, the researchers followed the pupils over time to determine how different behaviours affected their academic achievement – the researchers believe they can, with some caution, infer that increased screen time led to poorer academic performance.

“Spending more time in front of a screen appears to be linked to a poorer performance at GCSE,” says first author Dr Kirsten Corder from the Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR) in the MRC Epidemiology Unit at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. “We only measured this behaviour in Year 10, but this is likely to be a reliable snapshot of participants’ usual behaviour, so we can reasonably suggest that screen time may be damaging to a teenager’s grades. Further research is needed to confirm this effect conclusively, but parents who are concerned about their child’s GCSE grade might consider limiting his or her screen time.”

Unsurprisingly, the researchers found that teenagers who spent their sedentary time doing homework or reading scored better at GCSE: pupils doing an extra hour of daily homework and reading achieved on average 23.1 more GCSE points than their peers. However, pupils doing over four hours of reading or homework a day performed less well than their peers – the number of pupils in this category was relatively low (only 52 participants) and may include participants who are struggling at school, and therefore do a lot of homework but unfortunately perform badly in exams.

Dr Esther van Sluijs, also from CEDAR, adds: “We believe that programmes aimed at reducing screen time could have important benefits for teenagers’ exam grades, as well as their health. It is also encouraging that our results show that greater physical activity does not negatively affect exam results. As physical activity has many other benefits, efforts to promote physical activity throughout the day should still be a public health priority.”

̽��ֱ��research was mainly supported by the MRC and the UK Clinical Research Collaboration.

Reference
Corder, K et al. Revising on the run or studying on the sofa: Prospective associations between physical activity, sedentary behaviour, and exam results in British adolescents. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity; 4 Sept 2015.

Each extra hour per day spent watching TV, using the internet or playing computer games during Year 10 is associated with poorer grades at GCSE at age 16, according to research from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Parents who are concerned about their child’s GCSE grade might consider limiting his or her screen time

Kirsten Corder

Al Ibrahim

365.060 - Watching TV

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Filmed behind bars

amb206 — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 08:13:33 +0000

̽��ֱ��past few weeks have seen a re-emergence of a media phenomenon that I had hoped had been consigned to the mists of a more ignorant age. I refer to the two voyeuristic documentaries made for Channel 4 television and filmed in British prisons, Lifers and Gordon Behind Bars.

Based on interviews with inmates, the Cutting Edge documentary Lifers was shot in Gartree Prison in Leicestershire; the series Gordon Behind Bars is set in Brixton Prison in south London and follows the progress of the irascible celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey as he attempts to set up a food business staffed by prisoners.

Prison particularly, and punishment in general, is a social practice visited upon more than 100,000 of our fellow citizens every year yet remains a hidden business, something that happens to others in some other place, a place away from where the business of the rest of society is conducted.

Like all things hidden or unknown, prison breeds a fascination and a thirst for understanding. This desire to know more is in many ways admirable: the torch of inspection, review and understanding should be shone into the shrouded dark of a society’s furthest reaches. It is through such projects that injustice, abuse, exploitation, malpractice and corruption are exposed and can be addressed. However, what was screened in the past fortnight fell far short of this noble enterprise.

Historically, documentary-makers who focus on prisoners, prison life and the carceral state have, with a few notable exceptions (Rex Bloomstein’s Lifers, 1984, and the follow-up Lifer - Living with Murder, 2004), fixated on the sensational, not to mention prurient, facets of that world. ̽��ֱ��approach has been somewhat scatophilic in nature, concentrating less on shining the proverbial light but instead wallowing in the murk and filth.

Of course, this approach has not been the sole province of documentary-makers. There is, lest they be forgotten, the ‘nick-lit’ brigade of writers who focus on, and thus perpetuate, the standard iniquitous mythologies about prisoners and prison life. However, I digress - the approach taken by the makers of Gordon Behind Bars and Lifers is designed to evoke an emotional response, to titillate, rather than provide a means of understanding. I refer to this form of reporting as penal voyeurism.

̽��ֱ��two recent Channel 4 programmes are prime examples of the two flip sides of the penal voyeuristic coin. On one side, we had Lifers, with its clumsy imagery (the fellow with his budgie) and spotlight on sad and broken individuals carrying the weight of years and a dawning horror of their actions. This is the Guardian-esque approach to prison reportage, painting the prison world as a form of Stygian purgatory.

On the other side of the coin, we have Gordon Ramsey’s effort with its visual attention on the situational control measures of bars, gates, locks, walls and so on. Ramsey’s focus is on the promotion of the work/responsibility ethos that has been popular with successive governments since the Thatcher years, the prurient interest in people’s offending history and the volatile machismo of a men’s local prison (though interestingly, and unusually, Gordon’s machoisms were consigned to the voice over). This is the Sun/Daily Mail-esque approach.

It is unfortunate that once again what may have been a good opportunity to explore some of the more important, rarely heard, stories to be found behind the walls was squandered. To sum up one ex-con of my acquaintance it was … “the same old, same old s**t!”

This is not to say there were not some redeeming points made, wittingly or unwittingly, in both programmes. I spent five years in Gartree (where Lifers was filmed) … five years on the same wing, in the same cell, looking at the same walls and I have often struggled to explain to people how that felt and what impact it had on me.

̽��ֱ��major triumph of Lifers was how its makers managed to convey that sense of isolation and time away (the four World Cups as opposed to 16 years) and of time and lives wasted and the impact of that on the familial self (the man talking to his son on Christmas day was especially evocative). It was this sense of passing moments, moments that would normally be spent with loved ones, moments lost, that was poignant and moving and could have done with further extrapolation.

Oscar Wilde said: “We who live in prison have to measure time by throbs of pain, and the record of bitter moments.” This was what Lifers managed to capture.

Lifers also successfully captured the power of forensic psychologists in a prison setting. Many people in society view psychologists as benign curative entities with the best interest of the vulnerable at heart. This is simply not true in prison, where contact with psychologists is often coerced, and where psychologists have now become, in the words of Dr Crewe, ‘the new enemy of the prisoner community’. ̽��ֱ��reason for this? ̽��ֱ��power of their word. As one of the men in Lifers pointed out, a psychologist could add ten years to a man’s sentence with ‘…the sweep of their pen!’.

For the lifer, psychologists are seen to fill a malignant position: central to their role is not the interests of the offender but the interests of the public - and these can often be in conflict. With nearly an eighth of the prison population of England and Wales serving some form of indeterminate sentence (such as life or IPP), a large portion of the prison population are now subject to the, largely unchecked, power of prison psychologists.

As for the Ramsey series, let’s hope that the inevitable ‘con done good’ hook will, in rather nauseating fashion, move away from the negative stereotypes thus far on show. However, one thing captured brilliantly by the programme was the form and function of the humour that lurks inside. Prison is not a place for smiles (you DO NOT smile on the landings) but it can often be a place of raucous laughter. Humour, often of the blackest kind, is a way of ameliorating the inescapable impact of being locked away.

It would also have been nice to have some form of follow-up on those that were cast aside by the (in my opinion, dubious) selection criteria employed by Gordon and the shows producers (and the prison). However, I feel that once discarded these chess pieces are not to reappear within this game and therefore our curiosity must remain unsated. A shame.

̽��ֱ��third and final part of the first series of Gordon Behind Bars is screened on Tuesday night. What has shown promise for any future episodes, and what could be a saving grace for the series, is the innovation and bravery shown by the Governor in embracing change, challenging the cynicism of his uniformed staff and actually allowing the Ramsey project to take place. This should not be underestimated and needs further exploration. We can only hope that these facets will be allowed to emerge but, alas, I fear that the head chef’s ego conjoined with sensationalist editing will get in the way.

Jason Warr is a PhD candidate in the Institute of Criminology at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. His research topic looks at Forensic Psychologists working in the modern prison. He gained a range of qualifications while in prison and did his first degree (Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method) at the LSE.

For thousands of people in Britain, prison is a grim reality. For the rest of us, it holds a fascination that is all too often simply prurient. Jason Warr, a PhD student at Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� who has served a custodial sentence himself, offers a critique of television documentaries filmed behind bars.

A good opportunity to explore some of the more important, rarely heard, stories to be found behind the walls was squandered.

Jason Warr

Guardian newspapers

Jason Warr

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EX-TRA-PO-LATE! Moral philosophy and the Daleks

bjb42 — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 00:01:03 +0000

It shouldn’t work, but somehow it does. Ever since Doctor Who first aired in 1963, the series has been internationally recognisable thanks to one of the most ridiculous space-creatures ever conceived; a master race of intergalactic pepperpots, armed with a sink plunger and an egg whisk, who (according to popular mythology), are hell-bent on conquering anywhere, provided it doesn’t involve stairs.

But don’t let that fool you. For more than 45 years, the Doctor’s arch-enemies, the Daleks, have been striking fear into young viewers with their chilling war-cry of “Exterminate!”. Like the Doctor himself, they have become an icon of British culture. For many, hiding behind the sofa when they appear is virtually a rite of passage.

Now, with the new season of Doctor Who nearly upon us, a Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� academic has turned his mind to what makes the Daleks so terrifying. Writing in a new paper, Dr Robin Bunce – normally a researcher in intellectual history – explores why these unlikeliest of sci-fi foes bettered the rest, and became the most menacing alien ever to invade the small screen.

His answer has nothing to do with their often-cited, non-human appearance, nor their weird, electronic voices. In fact, Dr Bunce believes that the Daleks succeed because they offer us a moral lesson in what it means to be human in the first place. They terrify us because the evil they represent is a more precise definition than that of philosophers stretching from Socrates to Kant. They are chilling, he argues, because they are a vision of what we ourselves might become.

“ ̽��ֱ��reason the Daleks are evil is because we recognise that they were once better,” Dr Bunce explained. “They are the nightmare future we dread.”

“According to their back-story, once they were capable of genuine emotion and real moral good. Now they are sexless, heartless brains, shut up in machines incapable of intimacy, who have forgotten what it means to laugh and no longer think of themselves as individuals. We recognise the Daleks as evil because they have lost all that we hold most dear.”

̽��ֱ��Daleks are perhaps Doctor Who’s greatest success. After their first appearance, they boosted ratings and turned the show into a national phenomenon. “Dalekmania” became a common term and “Dalek” itself now commands its own entry in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Almost half a century later, their popularity shows little sign of subsiding. A 2008 survey by the National Trust found that while only 53% of children could identify an oak leaf, nine out of 10 could identify a Dalek. In 2010, readers of the science fiction magazine SFX voted the Dalek as the all-time greatest monster, beating both Godzilla and Gollum from ̽��ֱ��Lord Of ̽��ֱ��Rings.

Dr Bunce, a bye-fellow at St Edmund’s College, Cambridge, decided to explore what it is that makes these villains so villainous in the first place. He returned to the original 1963 script for “ ̽��ֱ��Daleks”, in which they first appeared, which was written by their creator, Terry Nation. In the story, the Doctor and his companions arrive on a post-apocalyptic planet, Skaro. They encounter both Daleks and the more peaceful Thals.

His paper concludes that the Daleks are a more powerful representation of evil than most of their extra-terrestrial competitors. ̽��ֱ��fact that they are so morally repugnant is, he suggests, what makes them both frightening for viewers and (as a result) an enduring success. This stems from a very modern take on the idea of evil.

Nation’s script stresses the Daleks’ lack of humanity as the essence of their evil nature. This in itself is nothing new – since time immemorial evil people have been described as animals, because animals are not rational. Socrates had a similar view, arguing that reason and knowledge make humans good.

Daleks are different, however, because they are more rational than humans, but also far more evil. Instead of losing their capacity for rational thought, they have lost their ability to feel. As the plot of ‘ ̽��ֱ��Daleks’ unfolds, we discover that after an apocalyptic “Neutronic war”, they retreated into metal shells in which their emotions withered. ̽��ֱ��fact that they were once better, Bunce says, makes them horrifying: “We dread becoming like them.”

For viewers in 1963, living shortly after the Cuban Missile Crisis, some of the connotations in Nation’s original script would have been more relevant than they are today. ̽��ֱ��surface of Skaro resembles contemporary ideas about how Earth might look after a nuclear war. ̽��ֱ��“Neutronic War” refers to the spectre of the neutron bomb – which could emit more radiation than an atomic bomb, but with a lower blast. As a result, it was more selective in wiping out humans and animal life, but not buildings and infrastructure. ̽��ֱ��Daleks represented the consequences of these very real nightmares at the time.

In the 21^st century, Bunce suggests that they embody a more general fear, about the triumph of technology and science over humanity. Once creatures like us, they have mutated into something far more sinister. Inside their metal shells, they have oversized brains representing the dominance of scientific reason, at the expense of shrivelled bodies. This fear about what we might become, through scientific advancement, has existed since Victorian times. Like the Daleks, it shows little sign of abating today.

Bunce considers the Daleks a lesson in moral philosophy: “ ̽��ֱ��final lesson is that moral progress is achieved by enlarging the moral imagination, not by increasing our knowledge or becoming more rational,” he said.

“Empathy is the key. We are more likely to act well when we understand that our enemy, however different they may seem, is part of a community who will grieve if they are harmed. ̽��ֱ��Thals are good because they love each other. ̽��ֱ��Daleks don’t and that’s why they’re evil.”

A peculiar breed of evil, in fact, which has also made them a terrific success.

̽��ֱ��study appears in the book, Doctor Who and Philosophy, which is published by Open Court Books: http://www.opencourtbooks.com/books_n/doctor_who.htm

They’ve had viewers cowering behind the sofa since ‘Doctor Who’ began – but what exactly is it that makes people so frightened of the Daleks? A new study by a Cambridge researcher claims to have the answer.

̽��ֱ��reason the Daleks are evil is because we recognise that they were once better. They are the nightmare future we dread.

Dr Robin Bunce

M. Seckington from Flickr

Dalek

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Watching religiously

bjb42 — Thu, 20 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

̽��ֱ��report, by the Cambridge Arab Media project and Cambridge ̽��ֱ��'s Centre of Islamic Studies, follows a conference earlier this year and provides an overview of the little-studied but sprawling network of satellite television stations now operating in the region.

Since the 1980s, the number of satellite channels in Middle Eastern countries has burgeoned, from none to almost 500. In turn, the range of religious programmes available to viewers has become far wider than ever before, offering them alternative ideas not just about faith, but society as a whole.

Researchers believe that television is, as a result, becoming an evermore influential means of social engineering in the Middle East. While a handful of the channels in question, such as al-Jazeera, are internationally recognised, the majority address specific, niche audiences and are unknown to the vast majority of Westerners.

̽��ֱ��report compiles the findings and observations of numerous academics, first presented at the Cambridge conference in January. It examines the religious voices and opinions which are emerging, the audiences they attract, and the influence that they may be having on people's identities and views.

̽��ֱ��majority of stations considered are Islamic, but the document also covers Christian and Jewish outlets. In some cases, it finds that they are a force for unity, often in troubled states such as Lebanon, Israel and Iraq. Equally, however, it charts cases where Islamic "televangelism" has become a riposte to longer-standing, mainstream religious broadcasters.

"These channels are often political tools which promote a particular vision of a social and political order," Professor Yasir Suleiman, Director of the Centre of Islamic Studies at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge said. " ̽��ֱ��research covered in the report suggests that the presenters and participants in religious programmes are not simply arguing over the rightness and wrongness of their ideas, but claiming and contesting the authority to speak for Islam itself."

̽��ֱ��review highlights a number of cases where clear efforts are being made, through television, to claim audiences on behalf of a certain religious and political ideal.

This is not a feature of Islamic channels alone. Some Christian broadcasters in the Middle East were found to be using television to preach and defend their faith in the face of perceived marginalisation in the Arab World; not least in the case of al-Hayah, a channel which explicitly tries to convert Muslims to Christianity and has moved studios several times for fear of attack as a result.

As the report also finds, however, the drive to influence viewers is not always an attempt to turn them to political extremism. More commonly, studies in a wide range of countries found that audiences were being encouraged to pursue a more pious and ethically sound lifestyle, although opinion differed widely from station to station as to what that might entail.

Rather than trying to engender direct political change, therefore, many researchers found cases where television programmes were trying to effect a "re-Islamization of society". Analyses of the al-Nas network in Egypt or the Iqra' Channel in Saudi Arabia, for example, did not find that viewers were being encouraged to make political judgements as a result of religious broadcasts, but rather to focus on their individual and ethical behaviour in accordance with Islamic teaching and for the sake of a greater social good.

Perhaps more surprisingly still, in some of the most troubled countries studied, this effort to encourage society to rediscover its religious identity is also used in an attempt to unite it. In Iraq, where there are now multiple Sunni and Shi'ite broadcasters, researchers found neither attempting to win over viewers from the other, but observed: "There was instead a kind of virtual reconciliation where sectarian political sentiments were present but not directly expressed. All channels tended to respect national unity."

Curiously, a similar picture emerges in Israel, where Jewish programming was aimed largely at progressive or secular Jews rather than the right-wing Orthodoxy which tends to dominate national politics. ̽��ֱ��most popular channel, Hidabroot, appeared to convey the message that regardless of audiences' political or religious preferences, all had a common, Jewish identity which deserved respect.

Further work, examining the nature of audience these channels generate and the impact their content is having, is now being planned. "We hope to launch this second phase of the project in the future, but it will need careful planning and project funding," Dr Kahled Hroub, Director of the Arab Media Project said.

̽��ֱ��full report is a joint publication by the Cambridge Arab Media Project and the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Centre of Islamic Studies. ̽��ֱ��research project behind it was also supported by the International Development Research Centre in Canada. Copies can be downloaded for free from: http://www.cis.cam.ac.uk/Reports

A new survey of the boom in religious broadcasting in the Middle East reveals how the small screen is becoming an increasingly important battlefield in the struggle for people's hearts and minds.

These channels are often political tools which promote a particular vision of a social and political order.

Professor Yasir Suleiman

B.S. Wise from Flickr

Free TV Texture

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