Media Functionality and the Principle of Relative Constancy: An Explanation of the VCR Aberration

The introduction and diffusion of the videocassette recorder (VCR) coincided with an increase in consumer spending on mass media as a proportion of gross national product. This article attempts to explain this apparent aberration to the principle of relative constancy by analyzing both the pattern of consumer expenditures on all mass media and the functionality of the VCR in relation to other media. An examination of audience needs and uses of the VCR suggests that the VCR offers a range of functions that implicate both mass communication and interpersonal communication. Thus, the VCR is both a functional competitor and a functional complement to existing mass media. The implications for the study of new media include a suggestion that functional analysis of media may provide an additional explanatory power for the mechanism of consumer spending on mass media.     

Testing the Relative Constancy of Mass Media Expenditures in the United Kingdom

This study tests the hypothesis of relative constancy in the United Kingdom, applying regression techniques to a series of consumer mass media expenditures from 1963 to 1989. The analysis confirms a long-term constancy of mass media spending, regardless of variations in disposable personal income and the passage of time. During the entire 27-year period, U.K. consumers spent a relatively stable share of their disposable personal income on mass media. A separate analysis of data from 1980 to 1989 also reveals that they devoted an increasing share of their income to mass media in the last decade, largely because of the introduction of video hardware and software.     

News in an Age of Competition: The Case of Sensationalism in Dutch Television News, 1995–2001

Recent years have seen changing and shifting technologies as well as an uncertain economic climate. This research focuses on how audiences have reacted to these shifts, using a number of different sources of data to test hypotheses related to spending time and money on media. We suggest that previous studies examining audience expenditures and diffusion of new technologies may have overlooked the stressful economic conditions surrounding diffusion of some of those technologies. We find an increase in entertainment technology purchases as well as time spent with new and traditional media during recession years, beyond that indicated by the longer term trends. While there is a general decrease in coviewing behavior in recent years, the recession years reversed the trend. Results are discussed in terms of the constancy hypothesis and our hypothesis that the media provide outlets for reducing stress during difficult economic times.     

Relative Constancy Hypothesis,Structural Pluralism,and National Advertising Expenditures

I studied the development of advertising within the national economy. Contrary to the relative constancy hypothesis, time-series analysis of aggregate-level data generally support my hypotheses that expenditures on advertising as a proportion of the national income increased from the 19th to the 20th century and that structural pluralism, not just national income, predicts absolute changes in advertising expenditures. I argue that the need for information and advertising grows as a social system becomes more structurally pluralistic and that general economic conditions (i.e., national income) alone are insufficient to explain changes in relative and absolute spending.     

Integrating Social Media Into the Workplace: A Study of Shifting Technology Use Repertoires

Research indicates that people are increasingly spending time with social media and other information communication technology. However, scholars have not fully examined how employees as holistic media consumers utilize social media in multiple contexts. Through in-depth interviews (N = 29), this study demonstrates that even as social media are embedded in organizational media use routines, employees question this technology for 2 reasons: It distracts from tasks and threatens personal privacy. These concerns often, but not exclusively, relate to employee age and the amount of time they have worked for the company. The study concludes by arguing that social media’s arrival in the workplace may exacerbate tensions and problems that are associated with presence-creep and the distortion of the work-life balance.     

The Failure of Project Eyeball: A Case of Product Overpricing or Market Overcrowding?

The closure in mid-2001 by Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) of its experimental tabloid newspaper, Project Eyeball, after less than 1 year of publication, was popularly attributed to a pair of market factors: its 80-cent cover price and competition from a pair of free tabloids that entered the market hot on its heels. Although pricing and competition were doubtless important contributing factors to Project Eyeball's rapid demise, a pair of additional economic concepts emerges on closer examination of the newspaper's brief history and may provide additional clues to its failure. One is the principle of relative constancy, which held, until it was disproved in the 1980s, that the level of expenditures on media remained fairly constant as a percentage of the overall economy. The other is the influence on management practices of share prices of publicly traded newspaper companies, into which category SPH falls. Considering these factors in addition to price and competition helps to better explain the rapid demise of Project Eyeball.     

Revisiting Schramm's Radiotown: Media Displacement and Saturation

In 1959 Wilbur Schramm collected data on the media use behavior of children in what he believed was the last remaining town in North America to have radio as its only electronic mass media, and he concluded the primary impact of new media was the displacement of incumbent media. This research returns to Schramm's “Radiotown” for two follow-up studies to assess the validity of displacement as a mechanism for understanding long-term changes in media use. The first study is a qualitative data collection among a convenience sample (n = 28) of the now-adult participants of the 1959 study. The second study quantitatively tests the conclusions of the first study among the youth of Radiotown (n = 263). Among both adults and youth, radio remains a primary mass media device, with adults using more radio now than in 1959. Three principles of media use are proposed: the ubiquity of mass media devices in the household, the proximity of media devices, and the constancy of media use. Implications for the displacement hypothesis are discussed.     

A test of competing models of the influence of social support on school engagement in the presence of neighborhood danger

This study compared self‐reports of speech preparation activities of students exposed to visualization with the self‐reports of the preparation activities of those in placebo and control groups. Interestingly, these three groups did not differ in overall preparation time, but they did apportion that time in somewhat different ways. Those exposed to visualization reported spending less time preparing speaking notes, more audience analyses time, more time rehearsing in front of an audience, and received slightly higher grades than did those in the placebo and control groups. As is to be expected, students exposed to visualization also reported less trait and state communication apprehension (CA) than those in the placebo and control groups. These findings and their implications are discussed at the conclusion of this report.     

Not like me: Self vs. other distinctions in first‐person perception

The third‐person perception hypothesis posits that people believe others are more influenced by media messages than they are. The existing literature consistently documents that individuals make self vs. other distinctions when assessing media effects, but not how such distinctions are made. The current study sought to document the self/ other distinction in third‐person perception and to assess differences in how individuals separate their own personal risk from that of others. Findings of a survey of 180 urban minority youth confirm the presence of third‐person perception and significant self/other distinctions in media effects. A clear split between cognitive and social predictors emerged when assessing differences in self/other distinctions. Participants relied on cognitive factors when assessing their own risk, while relying more heavily on self‐esteem when assessing the relative risk of others. Liking and trust of the media was the only shared correlate of self/other distinctions in third‐person perception.     

Find Your Niches: A Guide for Managing Intermedia Effects Among Content Distribution Channels

Abstract

This empirical study examines potential size effects in the US media and communications industry. Motivated by investors’ demand for continuous profit growth, media and communications executives attempt to leverage size effects, be it by growing the core business or by diversifying into other media segments, thereby exploiting cross‐media synergies. However, contrary to conventional wisdom, the authors could not find a general correlation between size and diversification on the one hand and performance on the other hand. The authors’ reason that exploiting size effects in the media and communications industry is far from simplistic and cross‐media synergies may take more time and effort to leverage than assumed. Therefore, research is recommended to focus on the operational level of size effects and their development over time. For media managers, the findings imply that more emphasis should be placed on strategy implementation and operational effectiveness, rather than on sophisticated M&A and growth initiatives.     

VCR use in Hong Kong 1

The VCR has long been viewed as a potential threat to conventional broadcast television and movie attendance, but research findings on this issue are somewhat mixed, A growing body of research suggests that a “complementarity principle” is at work—that is to say, the VCR is an extension and a reflection of older audio‐visual media—and this study seeks to explore that role in Southeast Asia.

Hong Kong was considered an appropriate site for the study because Hong Kong is typical of many small, developing nations with a rapidly growing middle class and a new‐found prosperity. Its differences from Western nations notwithstanding, Hong Kong bears many similarities to the West, especially in terms of economic and social indicators. Research from the West is thus used as a starting point for the formulation of hypotheses in this study.

Data were collected as part of Hong Kong's 1990 Indicators of Social Development study. This study confirms research in Western nations indicating that he VCR does not compete with cinema‐going and TV viewing, but complements these activities. In other words, the “complementarity principle” was sustained. On the other hand, some interesting deviations from Western patterns of VCR use also are noted.     

马叙伦《说文解字研究法》版本述略

《说文解字研究法》为马叙伦全面研究《说文解字》的著作之一。由于学术需要,该书自一九二九年商务印书馆出版以来,两岸三地八家出版社先后重印、翻印过二十余次。各本虽皆保持原版式样,但由于各种原因,除了装帧形式不同外,其作者项题名和书中内容也略有差异。今作梳理,以供研究者使用。     

Parties,media and public opinion: A study of media's legitimation of party politics in Hong Kong

Political groups have long existed in Hong Kong since 1949. The ‘consultative government’ was hostile towards groups which were critical of government policies. Before the 1980s, in a minimally‐integrated media‐political system, mass media, in compliance with the government served to undermine their legitimacy. Party politics and political parties were framed as ‘dirty polities’. However, the move towards a representative government since the 1980s in face of the power transfer to China, together with the 4 June incident, have transformed the public's stance towards the newly established democratic groups. In response to the changing public opinion, the media started in the late 1980s to give consent to the emergence of party politics in the democratic system. In the first direct Legislative Council in 1991, mass media ‘incorporated’ party politics as part the local political system.     

Whose interactive' channel? Exploring the concept of interactivity defined in Taiwan's 2000 presidential election online campaigns

This study bases on two theorized aspects of web interactivity, human‐to‐online‐media interaction, and human‐to‐human‐via‐online‐media interaction, aiming to explore how the concept of ‘interactivity’ was defined and realized by primary candidates' websites in Taiwan's 2000 presidential election. Measured by an Interactivity Index Scale developed in this study, the research findings indicate that candidates' websites performed better in offering human‐to‐online‐media interaction; however, the human‐to‐human interaction via online media was not realized as the primary objective of the online campaigns. Further analysis revealed that even in the perspectives of human‐to‐online media interaction, candidates tended to define web interactivity in terms of working towards their interest, not towards those of the voters. The implication of such findings is provided for future studies on online political communication.     

再论个人数字图书馆

作者在历时5年、建成容量60个G的多媒体个人数字图书馆的实践基础上，论述了个人数字图书馆的类型、特性、必要性、可行性及其对图书馆学研究和高校文献检索课的影响。     

The role of China's English‐language scientific journals in scientific communication

Between 1929 and 2002 over 200 English‐language scientific journals were founded in China. The number of China's English edition journals in each discipline is, however, not correlated to the corresponding output of China's articles listed in the ISI's Science Citation Index. Clearly, the goal of these journals is to be internationally recognized. It is shown that this goal is rarely achieved. We think that lack of good‐quality papers, low international visibility and a citation ‘Matthew effect’ are the main causes for the small role played by China's English‐language journals.     

Economic Growth and Advertising Expenditures in Different Media in Different Countries

Newspaper advertising expenditures depend more strongly on economic development than advertising spent in other media. Gross domestic product (GDP), therefore, predicts ad spending better in countries where newspapers are an important advertising medium. GDP also predicts ad spending better in countries where a larger proportion of GDP is spent on advertising. Intermedia competition, on the other hand, has little impact. In conclusion, the authors propose to distinguish three advertising cultures where ad spending follows economic development in different ways.     

The OPAC is Dead: Managing the Virtual Library

Changing trends in library use and management of e-resources were discussed by Jane Burke from ProQuest/Serials Solutions. A paradigm shift in library collections has occurred in which e‐resources are now the major component of new library materials, requiring new ways to manage and display them. The use of e‐resource access and management services was discussed as a helpful tool, along with federated searching. Burke suggested that by spending less time processing print materials and ending bibliographic instruction, more time will be available for librarians to market and manage e-resources, which will be of greater benefit to today's library users.     

Theatrical Feature Film Trade in the United States,Europe, and Japan Since the 1950s: An Empirical Study of the Home Market Effect

Abstract

This article reviews the test of a home market model of international trade in media products using a movie industry database covering 6 major countries (the United States, Japan, Germany, Italy, France, and the United Kingdom) over the 1950 to 2003 period. In support of the model, this study finds a consistently positive relation between domestic theater box-office market shares and various measures of domestic movie spending or domestic movie attendance, and negative relations between domestic movie spending and the market shares of imported American film products. Based on these results, declining domestic film production industries in Europe and Japan after about the 1970s, along with growing dominance of the world film market by the United States, is attributed to a relatively rapid growth of domestic consumer spending on movies in the United States.     

Radio,TV and literacy in Mexico

When radio and television are touted as the “greatest media for education” or the “promoting of social change” that the world has ever known, the need of the developing countries of the world for these media is often cited. It is probable that most citizens of the United States think of “developing nations” as those newly‐formed countries of Asia and Africa whose political, social and economic problems often are featured in the day's news reports. However, there are more than a score of developing nations in the western hemisphere, and one of these is right at the back door of the U. S. This country, Mexico, has been using radio and television effectively for a major literacy program since 1965, and the following article describes that program. Dennis Lowry is a doctoral candidate in mass communication in the University of Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Information for this article was gathered during a six‐week study trip to Mexico in the summer of 1968.