By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. An Animated Introduction to Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent and How the Media Creates the Illusion of Democracy
Josh Jones, Open Culture, 2017/03/13
I read Manufacturing Consent many years ago. Its core claims are lavishly documented (indeed, most of the book consists of the documentation; the argument itself begins and ends in the first chapter). Here is an excerpt of the 'five filters' portion of the video:

• Media Ownership—The endgame of all mass media orgs is profit. “It is in their interest to push for whatever guarantees that profit.”
• Advertising—What do advertisers pay for? Access to audiences. “It isn’t just that the media is selling you a product. They’re also selling advertisers a product: you.”
• Media Elite—“Journalism cannot be a check on power, because the very system encourages complicity.  If you want to challenge power, you’ll be pushed to the margins.
• Flack—“When the story is inconvenient for the powers that be, you’ll see the flack machine in action: discrediting sources, trashing stories, and diverting the conversation.”
• The Common Enemy—“To manufacture consent, you need an enemy, a target: Communism, terrorists, immigrants… a boogeyman to fear helps corral public opinion.”

I try to make OLDaily the opposite of all that. OLDaily is non-profit. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Coded Language of For-Profit Colleges
Tressie McMillan Cottom, The Atlantic, 2017/03/13
"For-profit colleges," writes Tressie McMillan Cottom, "target and thrive off of inequality." She calls these examples of "lower ed" - in contrast with higher ed, which is where the more economically successful go. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Neural Networks and Deep Learning
Michael Nielsen, 2017/03/13

Between meetings with notaries today I was wondering to myself whether work had been done on using one neural network to train another neural network. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web.  How Maker Mindsets Can Be An Easy Fit For Rural Schools
Leah Shaffer, Mind/Shift, 2017/03/09
Some of you may recall my photo set from the Metcalfe Fair last October. What struck me at the time was the participation of young people in the events. In a rural community like Metcalfe, to 'make' is to raise a calf, grow a crop, or restore an antique. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Arab Universities and MOOCs: Cautious Cooperation
Sabah Hamamou, Al Fanar Media, 2017/03/09

Dood article providing an overview of the two major Arabic-language MOOC platforms, Edraak and Rawaq. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Who’s speaking at TED2017? Announcing our speaker lineup
TED, 2017/03/09
Someone said to me today that TED would be a good platform for me. This led to a conversation about how TED is careful not to offend rich people. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Why Your Employees and Colleagues Might Be Your Most Important Customers
Harvard Business Review, 2017/03/09
I used to warn people that unless we in public institutions didn't get our online learning act together, companies like Disney would move in and do our job for us. More...