Media Management and Economics 2012 Abstracts
Faculty
Not dead yet: Newspaper company annual reports show chains still profitable • Marc Edge, University of the South Pacific • The death of newspapers was widely predicted at the height of the 2008-09 economic crisis. An examination of financial reports for the fourteen major publicly-traded newspaper companies in North America from 2006 through 2011, however, shows that all were profitable. While advertising revenue dropped 55 percent from 2006 to 2011 in the U.S., only one company posted less than the Fortune 500 average of 4.7 percent profits in any of the six years under study.
Patterns of European Inter-Media Competition for Advertising Before and After Online Advertising • Dan Shaver, Jonkoping International Business School; Mary Alice Shaver, Jonkoping International Business School • This study examines the distribution of advertising revenues across media in 21 European countries before the advent of online advertising (1993-1997) and after the introduction of online advertising (2003-2007). It identifies competition levels between media outlets in the pre-Internet period and the post-Internet period. It finds that, broadly, the pre-Internet European media markets could be classified into three categories based on inter-media competition and that, due to a variety of factors, the markets had converged.
Organization ecology and emerging media: A case study • Wilson Lowrey • This study adopts an ecological approach adapted from the sociology of organizations to help explain news media change, as well as media decision-makers’ tendency to stay the course. According to this approach, once securing a financial foothold, media tend toward the similar, the safe and the routine. Burgeoning collectives of look-alike media – “populations” – signal legitimacy, grow stable relationships with other institutions, and reduce uncertainty.
Collapse of the Newspaper Industry: Goodwill, Leverage and Bankruptcy • John Soloski, University of Georgia • The paper examines financial factors that magnified the collapse of the newspaper industry in the mid-2000s when advertising revenues plummeted. The paper shows how goodwill and leverage magnified the collapse and hastened the bankruptcy of a number of newspaper companies. The paper also tests a model for predicting bankruptcy of newspaper companies.
Interactive Audiences on Internet Video Websites: Audience Valuation in the New Media Era • Yan Yang • This project investigates people’s use of interactive features on Internet video websites. It compares interactive and non-interactive audiences in terms of traditional audience valuation criteria (demographics, media consumption) and new criteria (online engagement level, Internet word of mouth value). Based on results from a national consumer panel survey (N=200) among broadband users, interactive audiences are younger, more male-skewing, have higher income levels, are more likely to be in the 18-49 age group.
Mobile OS Competition and Early Diffusion of Smartphones in Global Mobile Telecommunication Markets • Sangwon Lee, Central Michigan University; Seonmi Lee, KT; Justin Brown • Value creation through convergence between different media technologies is key driver of growth in the telecommunications industry. Within the wireless domain, successful diffusion of converged broadband devices like smartphones are essential, with such devices accounting for an increase in new revenues as well as consumer dependence to regularly multitask and communicate throughout the day. Despite a growing body of literature on mobile deployment, there are nevertheless very few empirical studies about the influential factors of smartphone diffusion.
Winning the Popularity Contest: Assessing Independent Record Company Performance in the Digital Download Market • Heather Polinsky, Central Michigan University • Digital distribution has been lauded as the panacea for independent musicians and independent record companies by allowing direct competition with the major record companies. By examining iTunes and Amazon digital download charts, this study finds major record company recordings continue to be more popular with digital download consumers. Consumers favor older recordings from major record companies. There is moderate evidence that independent recording company albums are just as popular with Amazon digital download consumers.
The Potential Effect of VOD on the Windowing Process of Theatrical Movies • Byeng-Hee Chang, Sungkyunkwan University; Sang-Hyun Nam, Sungkyunkwan University; Joo-Youn Park, Hankook University of Foreign Studies • The present study analyzed the potential effect of VODs as new distribution channels on the windowing process by including both IPTV and Internet VOD into the hypothetical windowing process. Using attributions of holdback period, sequential order and movie price for distribution channels, the present study was able to combine a total of 48 hypothetical windowing scenarios and used them in order to answer the two research questions posed.
Creative Destruction: An Exploratory Study of How Digitally Native News Nonprofits Are Innovating Journalism Practices Online • Rebecca Nee, San Diego State University • As traditional media struggle to adapt their practices to the new media environment, a digitally native nonprofit news model has emerged. Framed by management theories of creative destruction and disruptive innovation, this study identifies how leaders of these sites view technology as an opportunity to reshape journalism practices online.
Linking Economics to Communication Research: Exploring the Third-Person Effect on News Consumers’ Intention to Pay • H. Iris Chyi, University of Texas at Austin; Angela M. Lee, University of Texas at Austin; Avery Holton, University of Texas – Austin • Tracing third-person effect research to its psychological origins, this study explores whether the self-other perspective affects consumer behavior in a critical area currently facing the news industry—paying intent of news consumers. A survey of 767 Internet users indicated people perceive others as more likely to pay for news in print, Web, and app formats. The results provide a linkage between communication and economics research and offer a better understanding of the way consumers evaluate multiplatform news products.
Student
Creating lobbying strategies in a competitive environment: An insider’s perspective • Amy Sindik, University of Georgia • This study examines the way organizations in the broadcast and wireless industries formulate lobbying strategies, and if the formulation of lobbying strategies is impacted by the competition between the industries on policy issues.
Smartphone: Utilitarian Product or Hedonic Product? Different Dimension of Adoption Factor and Purchasing Intention • Hyunsang Son; Sylvia Chan-Olmsted, University of Florida • By employing real U.S. consumer, this study develops structural model to investigate consumers’ different motivations for adopting smart phone. The results of this study indicated that consumers’ purchasing intention or actual purchasing behavior related to smartphones were positively predicted by communication facilitation and perceived utility of mobile phone and negatively linked with perceived expense and reassuring dimensions.
An Empirical Study of National Self-sufficiency in Broadcast Television Programming • Xuexin Xu; Wayne Fu; Joseph Straubhaar • This study investigates individual countries’ self-sufficiency in broadcast television programming, a universal and overarching policy aim entrusted in national or domestic broadcast service. It traces and predicts the airtime shares of domestic and American programs, using longitudinal data taken at decade-long intervals during 1962-2001 for 20 countries or territories worldwide.
Too Much, Too Little, or Just About Right? Measuring Concentration of Media Ownership, 1976-2009 • Tom Vizcarrondo, Louisiana State University • Researchers have recently begun approaching media ownership concentration studies by viewing the entire media industry holistically, as opposed to measuring concentration within a specific medium. I expand on this approach by measuring concentration over 34 years. I conclude that the industry has consistently been “unconcentrated” and that the period studied is characterized by three distinct trends—an initial period of declining concentration, a period of relatively stable levels, and a current period of rising concentration.
What’s on (Digital) TV? Multicast Programming, the Public Interest Standard, and the Scarcity Rationale • David Kordus • With the transition to digital broadcast television and the ability to multicast, the space for free television content has expanded manyfold, offering new possibilities for diversity in voices and content and for serving the public interest. With a content analysis of multicast substreams in a random sample of television markets across the country, I take a unique look at just what this new broadcasting space contains and find few hours of local or news programming.
Privacy Capital: Social Media Users Perceptions and Exchange of Their Privacy Online • Jason Cain, University of Florida • This study surveyed a sample of college students at a large university to examine perceptions of privacy, control and vulnerability of personal information shared social networking sites, and any positive outcomes received for sharing this information. Previous models that operationalize how privacy concern is constructed and expectancy-value theory were used as a basis for this research. The data supported that respondents exchanged information to obtain positive. Results for control were mixed and contradictory for vulnerability.
Building a Relationship on Twitter: A Content Analysis of University Twitter Accounts • Brandi Watkins, The University of Alabama; Regina Lewis, The University of Alabama • The current study examines how universities use social media to communicate with external audiences using a relationship marketing approach. A content analysis of university Twitter accounts was conducted to determine the level of interaction among universities and their followers. Using the five levels of relationship building, this analysis revealed that universities tend to engage in more reactive level relationship building than any other level.
The New Non-Profits: A Financial Examination • Magda Konieczna, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Sue Robinson, University of Wisconsin-Madison • As traditional news organizations suffer, many people have suggested alternative business models to supplement a shrinking mainstream journalism. This study presents a first, largely descriptive picture of the financial state of the burgeoning field of non-profit journalism. Many journalistic non-profits operate on a shoestring, hoping to strike upon the magical revenue formula that leads to sustainability.
Media fragmentation and coexistence of market information regimes: Simultaneous use of two television ratings systems in India • Harsh Taneja • Competition between two audience measurement systems is common in media markets. Yet we know little about how market participants utilize information from competing systems. This study examines the Indian television market where executives use information available from two competing ratings services.
Free Culture, Human Capital and Economic Growth • Xiaoqun Zhang, Bowling Green State University • This paper proposes an endogenous growth model which emphasizes the role of free access to the knowledge in the economic growth. The solution of the model indicates that the production efficiency of knowledge, the converting efficiency from knowledge products into human capital, and the externality of knowledge products, have impacts on the economic growth rate. Thus, the government intervention, such as the subsidy to the knowledge producers, will have positive effects on the economic growth.
Corporations as indispensable entities to the media: how interlocking board of directors influence media coverage • Jun Ho Lee, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Michael Bednar, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign • In this paper, we question the objectivity of media reports on corporations intertwined with the media. Specifically, we examined how interlocking directorates may influence media coverage of corporations and then explored how the effect of firm performance on the media coverage of the performance can be moderated by the interlocking boards.
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