Can 'freeports' spark a post-Brexit manufacturing boom?

Aleks Krotoski explores new ways that we are watching and listening to content.

How much influence does China have on Hong Kong’s media?

With the media in the United States facing a period of unprecedented challenge - technologically, editorially and politically, Chris Bowlby travels to New York to assess the impact of the huge changes sweeping the industry. Some traditional print titles such as The New York Times are enjoying a "Trump Bump," with its digital offer attracting record subscriptions but how sustainable is this? With billions now using social media to access information and news, how can journalism compete and counter the increasing power and reach of the tech companies? And amid a highly partisan media landscape what does increasing polarisation mean for the profession and for US political culture?

Reporter: Chris Bowlby

Picture credit: Timothy A. Clary/AFP/GettyImages

Tunisia has seen huge changes in its media industry in the seven years since its revolution and move to democracy. Before 2011, the country’s TV and radio were tightly controlled by the regime of President Ben Ali, one of the most restrictive in the Arab world. Now the media has opened up to a whole range of new players and there is significant freedom of speech, leading many to hold Tunisia up as the Arab Spring’s success story. But while people are able to say what they want in public, this doesn’t necessarily translate into a free and fair media. There are still concerns the state TV broadcaster is influenced by government and doesn’t reflect the real issues affecting Tunisians. Private TV and radio is increasingly finding its way into the hands of big business and politicians, and the media regulator is struggling to rein in those who break the rules. On top of this, there is concern that the security services haven’t quite shaken off their old ways, and are still trying to prevent journalists doing their work. In the first of a four part series on the media around the world, Marie Keyworth is in Tunisia to explore what has happened to Tunisia’s new found TV and radio freedom after its revolution.

Presenter: Marie Keyworth

Across Serbia, age-old traditions passed down through the generations are dying out. Those hit the hardest are people living in the rural areas who rely on skills like weaving, wood-cutting and pottery to make an income. Realising the potential, the Serbian state is now turning its attention to these micro-enterprises to bolster its economy, offering tax relief and other benefits to artisans. Nicola Kelly speaks to craftsmen and young entrepreneurs about the challenges they face and finds out how they plan to revive their crafts.

Reporter: Nicola Kelly

Can the fashion for high-end coffee save Colombia’s struggling farmers? It’s not been easy growing coffee in recent decades in Colombia, where rural life has been dominated by the conflict between guerrillas, paramilitaries and drug traffickers. Now, two years on from the historic peace deal here, how is business benefiting? And with global market prices not even covering growers’ costs, could the trend for coffee with a story come to growers’ rescue?

Presenter: Simon Maybin

Picture credit: Getty

Will artificial intelligence change how we shop and decide which retailers succeed? Senior retail executive, Jeremy Schwartz, meets chat bots, robots and the humans behind them, to find out. He explores the impact that the AI revolution may have on jobs - not just the number of them but their nature too. As algorithms take over certain tasks, he asks how humans - and the companies that employ them - will need to respond. And he looks at the growing digital divide between retailers and asks what role AI is playing in the struggle for survival on our high streets. Producer : Rosamund Jones.

As international trade tensions escalate, the US state of Wisconsin is a fascinating place to discover the consequences. Specialist producers like Wisconsin's ginseng growers are directly affected by the new trade war between the US and China. Traditional cheese makers meanwhile see all this as the latest round in an endless battle for freer trade in global food. And in the south of the state, a new kind of manufacturing economy is taking shape with a vast new investment by the Taiwanese tech manufacturer Foxconn. Jonty Bloom travels around the state to gain rich insights into where today's trade wars could eventually lead.

Producer: Chris Bowlby

Picture: Wisconsin Cheese during Haven House 2007 Oscar Suite

Do you own a sex toy? And if so, would you admit it to your friends? Increasingly, the answer to both questions is yes. Once a seedy mail-order product advertised in the back pages of porn magazines, sex toys today are marketed as a fun way for couples to enhance their relationships. And in the process, the global sales of these objects of arousal have grown exponentially into the billions of dollars. Laurence Knight explores how this came about, speaking to industry pioneers such as Sam Roddick, Doc Johnson and LoveHoney. And he travels to China, where many of them are manufactured.

Picture credit: Shutterstock