Norwegian prostitution law will ‘hit the weakest’

Street prostitutes will suffer the most from Norway’s ban on buying sex, Fafo Insitute for Labour and Social Service says.

According to the new report published by Fafo, an estimated 40 percent of prostitution in Norway is conducted on the street, with the rest taking place indoors.

Norwegian and Nigerian street prostitutes are the two weakest groups of the country’s 3ooo prostitutes and will be hardest hit by the new ban, Fafo told Aftenposten.

From 1 January 2009 it will be illegal for Norwegian citizens in Norway and abroad to purchase services from prostitutes, while selling will remain legal.

Procuring and human trafficking are already illegal and the new ban is modelled on legislation passed ten years ago in Sweden, with clients facing fine or jail for up to six months.

The law was sanctioned by the Norwegian council of state on 12 December.

In the government’s statement that followed, Justice Minister Knut Storberget declared that “people are not merchandise and criminalising the purchase of sexual services will make it less attractive for human traffickers to look to Norway.”

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Out of sight out of mind

While proponents say the law will reduce prostitution without punishing the prostitutes, opponents argue it will only force the prostitutes to go underground and make them even more vulnerable.

Prostitutes’ support groups claim the law will be ineffective and question how realistic it is that the law will be enforced, particuarily abroad:

“This is a renovation law that will clean up the streets but move the prostitution indoors”, Liv Jessen, director of the Pro Centre, a support group for prostitutes, told Aftenposten.

“The ban will reduce street prostitution but it won’t stop women from working indoors. The girls will just have to rely more on pimps than before to get clients”, she said.

Jessen argues the law will only pass on the problem to other countries when the Nigerian and other foreign prostitutes leave Norway to find more work.

“That is another reason why I have been against this law”, she said.

Jessen is insecure about the future of the Pro Centre itself:

“Prostitution will not disappear, but it will be organised in other forms. We intend to change accordingly”, she said.

Click here for background article

Background: The anti-brand

It is supposed to ‘give you wings’ and the cool kids call it ‘speed in a can’. Wise grandmothers say it is extracted from bulls’ testicles and wise grandfathers say it decreases your penis. No wonder Red Bull is banned in Norway.

Businessworld offers the bedtime story: On a trip to Asia, Dietrich Mateschitz comes across Krating Daeng (‘Red Bull’ in Thai), a cheap tonic favoured by blue-collar workers to keep alert.

The Austrian businessman takes a sample back home, launces an adapted version of Krating Daeng in 1987 and calls it Red Bull.

Instead of traditional advertising, Bized explains how Red Bull’s anti-branding strategy got under the skin of the Generation Y, the ‘millennials’ born after 1981 who were believed to be cynical of traditional marketing strategies.

Scouting for hot spots in universities, bars and clubs, the initial ideal market was mapped out and the ‘viral’ marketing strategy were implemented: Find a university, recruit cash- strapped students and let them work their word-of-mouth magic in their own environment.

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Sporters, clubbers and worried mums

Hanging out with boundary- pushing extreme sporters was another trick of Red Bull’s trade in the 90s.

Red Bull's two crimson bulls Photograph: Karoline Hjorth

Like a man in his middle aged crisis Red Bull hooked on to the Cliff-divers, kiteboarders, snowboarders, motocrossers, mountain bikers, paragliders, street lugers, ice cross downhillers, skateboarders and surfers.

‘Millenial’ clubbers, hip sporters and students pulling all- nighters soon discovered the effects of the drink and the infamous vodka-Red Bull combination was born.

Playing on associations with danger, edginess and youth culture, Red Bull carefully cultivated its mystique.

But as Bized mentions in its analysis of Red Bull’s market strategies; the long approval times  in many countries and boycotts by concerned mothers stirred rumours of the dangers of Red Bull.

The softdrink is banned in Norway, Uruguay and Denmark because of health risks listed on its cans.

One can of Red Bull contains 80 mg of caffeine, around the same as a normal cup of brewed coffee, according to Reuters.

It seems to take a more than worried mums before alcoholic mixers go out of fashion: Red Bull sold 3.5 billion cans in 143 countries last year, Reuters says.

Click here to go back to the main story: Charleston and Red Bull- It’s a Christmas party!

Il Corriere della sera web Critique

Il Corriere della sera is one of the most popular journal in Italy.

 

 

First impression

 

 

The homepage is cluttered with too much information and often my eyes didn’t which direction to go in.

 

According to Jessett.com, one in twelve people may not be able to use web site due to some form of color blindness. Jessett suggests avoiding red and blue.

On the “Il corriere della sera” the main colours are red and blue. 

 

Jakob’s rules add that the banner masthead should be in the extreme left hand corner. On this website is in the centre.

 

On the other hand there is an archive which according to Jakob Nilsen’s guideline it’s very useful to the readers.

 

Speaking with my colleagues/classmate we agree that the flash news are significant part of the web site but the space for them is very small.

 

According with web credibility  restriction as problems with print must not to be placed on users. “Il Corriere della sera” does not have any print facilities. Further more in the web there is not the section “about us”.

 

 

Writing

 

There is not an introduction on the Il Corriere della Sera. Headlines are consistent but there is no lead in every article. Content is pretty much consistent but visually poor.

 

Some of written piece are informative but words are not easy to understand.

According to Jacob Nielsen’ rules familiar words spring to mind when users create their search queries. If your writing favours made-up terms over legacy words, users won’t find your site

 

 

The majority of my classmate noticed that most of the paragraphs are really long. Certainly Il corriere della Sera is not following the F – patter of Jacob Nielsen rules. 

 

Me and my Italian colleagues also made a point that the paragraph contains some invaluable details.

 

In addiction we underline that there is no consistent punctuation anywhere on the site.

 

 

Statistics are not visible in any articles. Also there are only a few hyperlinks visible.  

 

Many articles begin with value judgments instead of the standard “inverted pyramid” route.

 

Jacob’s rules suggest to use a predefined narrative.  Websites must support the user’s personal story by condensing and combining vast stores of information into something that specifically meets the user’s immediate needs. Thus, instead of an author-driven narrative, Web content becomes a user-driven narrative. In the website that I have chosen is the other way round.

 

Content

 

I counted 26 contents. The most important are the news and political issue that is showed in the home page. Music and Fashion content are not visible at all in the web.

Jakob Nielsen also underlines that use of English (American or British) is necessary for any website to succeed. There is any English or American in the Il Corriere della sera website. On the other hand it is visible a Chinese section of the web journal.

Some of Web 2.0 essential (dynamic contents) like video and multimedia are in the site in the left corner. Close to the videos users can listen four different radios: Radio Gazza, RMC ( Radio Monte Carlo) Radio 105, which is really well known, and Virgin Radio.

 

According to my collegues the radio’s icons are no so visible

The option to find blogs is not easy. They are under Opinion section.  Further more RSS feed are completely absent.

 

User can not make comment but political news. That means that there is not interface or feedback.

 

The unique particularity of the site are interactive games as sudoku and crosswords. 

 

Navigation

 

 

Navigation menus have to be intuitive, precise and easy-to-use. It’s important to make sure that your visitors will find they way around the site structure – however complex the latter might be smashing magazine has reported.

 

According to Web Developer’s Journal, there are 3 basic rules to get a good navigation.

 

1. Tell people exactly what is available on your site.
2. Help them get to the parts they want quickly.
3. Make it easy to request additional information

 

Also Web Developer’s Journal points out that most of the web site need to have the following link:

 

       - About the Company

       - Our Products and Services

      - How to Contact Us

Il Corriere della Sera obey to the first basic rule. Every user can find in the home page the main stories regularly updating.

The second principles is the tricky one for the web. Visitors have to scroll up all the articles if, for example, they want to read a local news.

It’s a matter of fact that the web journal does not add any other information a part what is written.  

There is no clue if a reader wants to contact the web. No web letter at all!

Once again Jacob’s rules has not been followed.

 

Conclusion

The web should be more organized especially regarding the home page. Il Corriere della Sera need to add comments. This could improve the feedbacks. I believe it’s very important to get the opinion of your readers. Web journalist can not lose them!

Background to Music to no longer be used as torture

The end of Guantanamo Bay may be near.

US president-elect vowed to shut down the detention center during his campaign.

“We´re going to close Guantanamo…We´re going to lead by example-by not just word but deed. That´s our vision for the future.” Barack Obama has reportedly said on the campaign trail.

He plans to shut down the dentention center as soon as he takes office in January.

Many still in the Bush administration see the difficulties in fulfilling this promise.

The U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff  does not believe the camp should shut down right away according to AP.

“The problem is what do you do with the people in Guantanamo? Regrettably, some who have been released turn up on the battlefield again,” Chertoff told the BBC.

“We had a suicide bomber who was released and then blew himself up in Iraq.”

“My advice would be to take a deep breath and try to put together a plan that would sort between the various categories of detainee,” he said.

Obama has not yet specified the fate of the detainees.

The next step

There has been vast speculation on what Obama will do with the remaining detainees.

The matter has become a sensitive subject in the US because of the accused 9/11 conspirator who is held at the camp.

Due to be on trial many newspapers like The Star hope to see the trial moved to the US civil courts.

Others hope to see the prisoners shifted to other areas.

UN torture investigator, Manfred Nowak, recommends European countries take in Guantanamo inmates, according to the Guardian.

He worries that the newly freed detainees will be tortured if they are returned to their native countries.

One country has made an offer.

Portugal has recently offered to take in the reported 250 detainees according to the Belfast Telegraph.

“As a matter of principle and coherence, we should send a clear signal of our willingness to help the US government closing Guantanamo, namely through the resettlement of the detainees.” said Luis Amado the Portuguese foreign minister to reporters.

He also encouraged other European countries to step up to the challenge.

CLICK HERE FOR THE ORIGINAL POST ON MUSIC TO NO LONGER BE USED AS TORTURE

Web Critique of The Casper Star Tribune

The Star Tribune is the most widely circulated paper in Casper, Wyoming.

The websites layout has begun to implement Jakobs Nielsen’s guidelines but, misses the mark in essential areas like writing and navigation.

When the website first opens it has a nice clean layout.

The white background makes the readability fairly easy and they have set into place an effective color scheme.

Using red, white, blue and gray has proven to be a successful.

NPR won a website design award based on a website with a similar presentation.

However, there are problems with the overall usability of the page.

The navigation is one element that was sacrificed in order to maintain a “clean” appearance on the main page.

The main navigation separates the news into three categories, horizontally across the top page.

Then to further divide those categories a drop down menu is used.

This would have been a great solution had it not been overdone because there are too many options in the drop down menu.

For example, NEWS alone has 16 categories alone. Other examples of the menu can be seen in the picture posted above.

A viable solution to this would be to create a sub menu underneath the main navigation, like the Guardian has done.

This would not be detrimental to the overall aesthetics of the page and if a drop down menu is still needed it would have smaller categories.

This simple change can help improve the page views by allowing the user to access more specific news categories at first glance.

Layout and font

The main page follows the standard three-column news layout that can be see in award winning sites like to New York Times.

The font used is sans serif, making the words easy to read online.

The site makes use of a great amount of white space, almost excessively.

A larger font size could be applied to the main page, which would help improve the ease of readability, but at the same time it would not clutter the page.

Star Tribune has also effectively incorporated media into its layout.

On the left the flash box displays news and other media that may interest the reader.

This box is an important feature that utilizes movement to catch the reader’s eye.

One is drawn to the box as soon as it flashes another story.

Overall the front page makes the online newspaper look promising.

Writing

Example of writing in the Star Tribune

The writing structure does not follow Jakobs Nielsen’s rules of writing for the web.

The way stories are presented actual deters the reader.

The writing fails to create an ‘F’ pattern when one clicks on a news article to read. Unlike the major news site the front page tries to imitate, this section looks rough.

The text takes over half of the page and does not have any consistency.

The first paragraph is not bold.

If there is an ad places on the page the text will stop at the ad, but then continue horizontally after it passes the ad.

This inconsistency makes it difficult to scan the text.

The lone paragraphs also tire out the eye. The text is taken from the news and splattered online without any formatting to make it web friendly.

After the first obvious error it has plenty more mistake.

Poor structure

The articles are not divided by sub headings.

The news just runs down the page without any story indication to the reader. This is a crucial mistake.

In Nielsen’s writings he discusses the importance of scannable text for web writing. A reader will spend around 4.4 seconds at the page for each extra hundred words he finds.

Using this logic, the Star Tribune is losing readers by not sectioning off the web writing into scannable sub headings.

The news articles also barely make any use of graphics.

This can become boring and the overwhelming amount of text turns off the viewer.

The news stories are also void of any links.

They do not link back to any story that makes it harder for the articles to appear on search engines.

This in another simple area that if improved would skyrocket the number of page views they receive.

The only positive side to the news section is the websites utilization of comments.

In order to improve this section the designer need to take a look at the way other news site present the articles.

Great examples to follow would be the BBC and CNN.

It is always a safe bet to follow the way they present writing online because they have web experts on their design team.

If the writing does not improve readers will begin to look elsewhere for the news.

Content

Elements on the website help make it part of the web 2.0 world. This includes reader participation.

After every story the reader is allowed to leave comments and provide the site feedback. Users are also allowed to rate the article.

The rating and article system help the site understand what its readers are interested in reading.

The information can then be used to make improvements on the website by making the most viewed content easily accessible.

Each news story also has navigation that makes it possible to share. On the left hand corner there is a bar that list popular social networking sites.

Ways to increase traffic

These thumbnails include Facebook, digg and del.ico.us. When the reader is allowed to share the story by a click of the mouse, the traffic is bound to increase.

There is also a section on the site where it is possible to RSS the headlines. This option can place it on various blogger list and help get news article linked.

The problems however, arise with its appeal to bloggers. The option to find the RSS feed is not easy to find.

There is also a section for bloggers on the page, but the link to the bloggers does not work.

If done correctly the site could benefit from having bloggers online to expand the coverage of some articles.

Link  failure

Although it appears web friendly there are many bad links. It is easy to click on pages that do not load or exist.

If the website wants to improve the content they must first clean up all bad links.

Then they must examine how accessible some of their features are to the user.

How fast can one access the RSS feed? Where are the blogs? These are important questions that must be looked into with further detail.

Navigation

On the main page the ‘Most popular stories’ sub navigation bar appears on the right side. Then it shifts to the left hand side when the user clicks to read an article.

The navigation follows a nice color scheme, but does not have any consistency.

For example, click on the ‘Sign up for email-alerts’ will change the main navigation bar.

New main navigation

Old options like ‘Exclusives’ are replaced with ‘My City’ for no apparent reason.

If one clicks on ‘announcement and forms’ under the main navigation the area it take the user does not even have the main bar anymore.

It is a shell of where the navigation bar once was and the user has to go back to the main page if they want to navigate.

Drastic changes in the main navigation make it difficult for a user to effectively access the site.

The only consistent navigation happens within the drop down menu.

When the main navigation is working the drop down menu categories never shift order.

The website has also lost some users due to this poor navigation set up. It tries to pack too much information into a small horizontal bar.

The Telegraph has implemented a similar navigation bar, but have a more successful formula.

It is better to have main pages and sub-categories after the user has click on to different news areas.

This way the main navigation would stay the same while the sub navigation adjusted.

Final thoughts

The website has a promising design but many flaws.

A major overhaul in the writing and navigation areas would substantially increase traffic.

Background:Mobile phones are more dangerous than passengers

In January 2007, THINK! began a multimedia campaign to publicize changes in the law relating to the use of mobile phones while driving.

The campaign was aimed at all drivers with particular emphasis on young/new drivers and those who drive extensively as part of their work. It was also aimed at callers.

Campaign activities
This was a high-profile multimedia campaign using TV, online, radio, press and PR. The campaign had three phases.

1) Raising awareness
The target audience for this phase was all drivers and promoted the message ‘Switch off before you drive off’.

2) Targeting callers
The second phase of the campaign continued to appeal to all drivers but broadened the responsibility to the caller. A television commercial, ‘Split Screen’, promoted the message ‘Kill the conversation’.

3) Promoting enforcement
The final phase of the campaign promoted the enforcement message – the risks of getting caught using a mobile phone.

Young and new drivers may be particularly affected by the enforcement element as they run the risk of losing their licence if they get 6 points within their first 2 years after passing the test.

The radio advertisement, ‘Conversation’, underlined the role of police in catching drivers who use mobile phones.

d the penalties for using a mobile phone while driving.

The facts

A research named ‘The mobile phone research’ showed that all phone calls are distructive to drivers .

The research demonstrates that reaction times for drivers using a handheld phone are 30 per cent worse than for driving under the influence of alcohol at the legal limit.

Adding that using a mobile phone while driving means you are four times more likely to crash.

Legal aspects

It is illegal to use a hand-held mobile phone or similar device while driving. The penalty is £60 and 3 penalty points.

If the case goes to court, it’s a maximum fine of £1,000 (£2,500 if driving a bus, coach or heavy goods vehicle), discretionary disqualification and 3 points.

Your insurance costs could also go up.

If you reach 6 points within 2 years of passing your test, your license will be revoked and you will need to re-sit your test to get your license back.

You can also be prosecuted for using a hands free phone or similar device if you are distracted and not in proper control of the vehicle.

The same penalties apply.  Employers could also be prosecuted if employees are distracted because they require them to use their mobile phones while driving.

Using other devices for sending or receiving data while driving is also an offence, that includes Blackberries and PDAs if they have a mobile phone incorporated.

Related researches

Research has shown that those using a mobile phone while driving are four times more likely to crash.

Using any type of mobile – be it handsfree or handheld – means reaction times are worse than those driving under the influence of alcohol.

Tests have shown that reaction times are slower by some 50 per cent when compared to normal driving and by 30 per cent when compared to being drunk – see ‘The Mobile Phone Report‘.

Even careful drivers can be distracted by a phone call or text message and that split second lapse in concentration could result in a crash.

Related link:

• Phone-reliant Britons in the grip of ‘nomo-phobia’

Clich here to go back to the main story.