NadiaWilliams
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Essential Road Safety Tools
This was originally posted to my old blog on 21 February 2017. I often get very, very angry with drivers. Just in this last week, I was almost run over by a driver running a red light, who was on his phone while driving. I had an unpleasant exchange with another bunch of wankers in…
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Preferred Meaning
This was originally posted to my old blog on 20 February 2017. Cultural theorist Stuart Hall suggested that mediated information must be examined through the lens of what he dubbed the Circuit of Culture: Image Source The circuit shows how every element influences and is influenced by every other element. Nothing stands alone, nothing escapes…
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The Narrow Gate (Newsworthiness)
This was originally posted on my old blog on 18 February 2017. It is impossible for any of us to know everything. Considering that there are 196 countries in the world, if only a single interesting thing happened in each of them every day, it would be a full time job to keep abreast. We…
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Is that an echo I hear?
This was originally posted on my old blog on 4 February 2017. The echo chamber effect works in two ways. First, it’s when you only get exposed to media which reflect your ideology, never challenging your already cemented views. Second, it’s when an opinion is uttered, and repeated in the media you are exposed to…
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The Wet Cat (Out-Foxed)
This was originally posted on my old blog on 3 February 2017. The successful reporter is one who can find a story, even if there is no earthquake or assassination or civil war. If he cannot find a story, then he must make one. These words perfectly explain the current flood of misleading or even…
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The Mirror (Reality)
This was originally posted on my old blog on 27 January 2017. We all live in the local, moving in and interacting with a limited part of the world. To form a view of and understand what lies outside our personal experience, we rely on the reports of others. In other words, mediators. Media –…
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The Jocks and the Nerds
This was originally posted on my old blog on 12 January 2017. I can think of few better metaphors for our roads than my kids’ school. It was established more than 100 years ago, the building erected with spacious passages, if you consider the maybe two or three hundred pupils it catered for at the…
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Full of Stars
This was originally posted on my old blog on 10 October 2017. He’d parked the van across the footpath, pulling up until the footplate at the back door touched the wooden gate of the entrance beside the shop. The footpath was wide in this spot, but this van was one of those extra long ones.…
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A thought experiment
This was originally posted on my old blog on 27 December 2016. Think of a road near where you live, work, or study. It should be a reasonably busy road, but not a highway, and if all such roads near you have well designed, separated cycling infrastructure you can stop the experiment right here. Got…
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Accessible Magic
This was originally posted to my old blog on 30 November 2016. One morning last week the world was painted with a brush dipped in frost. I cycle past a primary school on my way to college. After weaving my way through the mess of cars trying to push their way as close as possible…