James W. Seiler of the American Research Bureau

This article explores the contributions of one of the pioneers of ratings research, James W. Seiler, the founder of the American Research Bureau (ARB), the forerunner of Arbitron. Seiler and his small management team filled a small but productive window of time as the youthful ARB rode the crest of a giddy but short-lived success during the ‘50s and early ‘60s. The ARB was responsible for a number of leaps in product design-including popularizing the diary method, first for television and then radio, extending the number of weeks of measurement from one to four, measuring all U.S. T.V. markets at the same time (known as sweeps, which was to lead to first extended measurement of TV viewing beyond metropolitan areas), and using the first meter to capture audience viewing in real time (called Arbitron). It emerged as the key competitor against the Nielsen service in the battle to measure the local market for television until it withdrew from TV measurement in the ‘90s. Arbitron's success led it to monopolize the measurement of radio audiences, a position it currently holds.     

Robert S. Fortner,Radio Morality and Culture: Britain,Canada, and the United States, 1919�1945

Three pioneer radio rating services contributed to the development of basic audience measurement concepts, which have become part of a standardized ratings vocabulary. Archibald Crossley gave to radio and, later TV measurement, its most basic term, rating. Claude E. Hooper made Hooperatings a part of the nation's vocabulary and contributed the available audience base and the average minute rating. Arthur Nielsen Sr., designed the first probability sample. In the long term, Nielsen's most important innovation was his projectable ratings. As a result, Nielsen championed CPM theory, which tied advertising prices to audience size. Nielsen also was the first to provide a wealth of analytical detail, such as reach, frequency, and audience flow.     

Comment on “the policy of exclusive franchising in cable television”

Nielsen ratings data from sixty markets were analyzed to determine whether factors traditionally thought to influence program ratings continue to do so in the face of affiliation change. Overall, the study concludes that they do. Affiliation change was less significant in predicting ratings than several other variables, suggesting that the audience does indeed watch programs, not stations and will find preferred programs even if they move from one station to another.     

A Network Analytic Approach to Audience Behavior and Market Structure: The Case of China and the United States

This study adopts a network analytic approach to understand media audiences in relation to media markets, bridging the literature on audience behavior and media economics. Using audience data in the Chinese and U.S. markets, we apply multi-level measures to compare audience fragmentation patterns, a key indicator of market structure, across television channels. Drawing on McQuail's four–stage fragmentation model, we find the Chinese television market exhibits the Core-Peripheral model where a few channels dominate the marketplace and the rest are viewed by niche segments of the audience. In contrast, the U.S. market represents the Pluralism model with extremely high levels of audience duplication across channels, suggesting overlapping patterns of exposure throughout the market rather than isolated segments.     

The Hidden Radio Audience in Spain: Study on Children's Relationship with the Radio

The arbitration imposed in the audience measurement systems used in Spain excludes a major swath of the population as soon as it segments the potential radio audience starting at the age of 14. Thus, the child-listener is ignored by both programming and advertising strategies. However, is this marginalisation fair? The purpose of this article is to answer this and other questions and to demonstrate to what extent the existence of the child-listener is a sufficient condition to seek mechanisms that include children in radio audience measurement systems.     

Determining Librarian Research Preferences: A Comparison Survey of Web-Scale Discovery Systems and Subject Databases

The success or failure of any tool, service or system used in a library is predicated on the audience it finds. While web-scale discovery systems have developed widespread adoption in academic libraries, there is a sense from librarians that they continue to be in search of their true audience. Librarians play a key role in the utilization of web-scale discovery systems, and their experiences as an end user of these systems may influence their attitudes in many ways. The survey discussed in this article looks at the attitudes librarians have toward web-scale discovery systems when using them for their personal research, including feature preferences and inquiries into opinions regarding strengths and weaknesses of the system. The results of this survey provide some insights into why some librarians struggle with the idea using of web-scale discovery systems by themselves and by the patrons with which they work.     

Audience Currencies in the Age of Big Data

ABSTRACT

Audience ratings data have long occupied the attention of marketers and media managers. These are the “currencies” that support the operation of commercial media. Today, metrics can be derived from many large datasets, raising the possibility that new kinds of currencies might emerge. We argue that data on exposure are the most likely to support currencies, and that these might well go beyond traditional measures of audience size and composition. We explore the relationship between the most plausible contenders for audience currencies: size and engagement as measured by time spent. Contrary to the “Law of Double Jeopardy,” we find these metrics to be uncorrelated in an online environment, suggesting that each might have a role to play as a currency. We conclude with a discussion of how the political economy of audience measurement is likely to affect audience currencies in the age of big data.     

论市场经济与出版伦理

随着社会主义市场经济的逐步确立,作者认为,只有坚持市场价值取向和伦理价值取向的结合才是出版改革的合理思路。强调出版伦理,是由于出版物的内在属性。作为商品,出版物必须进入商品市场,转移它的使用价值,才能实现它的价值,但作为特殊商品,它有不同于一般商品的丰富的伦理价值。为了满足人民大众正当的精神消费需要而生产的出版物,都是正当的,是符合道德的,就必定有它相应的市场。只有基于市场的、又是基于道德的努力才能建立有中国特色的完善的社会主义出版市场。     

高校图书馆信息服务的营销策略研究

本文用产品营销、服务营销等市场营销学理论,将高校图书馆服务范围拓展为内部（校内）、社会（校外）两个市场,阐述了细分社会（校外）市场、选择市场定位的方法;对信息服务营销策略制定作了详细论述,提出了高校图书馆应将信息服务营销贯穿于自身建设、管理、经营和服务全过程,象企业追求经营利润一样,追求社会效益,树立全新的社会形象的新理念。     

The Case for Audience Isolation: Language and Culture as Predictors of Advertiser Investment

Abstract

In what has become an increasingly multilingual United States, growing numbers of television advertisers have begun targeting foreign language speakers. Because of the increased cost and effort in crafting unique ad campaigns, however, the factors behind this investment decision are explored. Using an online survey, advertisers (N?=?1,150) were asked how they valued various demographic audience traits as they considered potential target markets. T tests revealed significant differences between foreign language and non-foreign language advertisers' audience preferences. Logistic regression showed that, contrary to previous audience valuation findings, household income was not a primary factor in foreign language audience investment decisions. Rather, advertisers who valued household income more were less likely to invest in foreign language audiences in the United States, with language dependency and cultural traits predicting a greater likelihood of investment. The Audience Investment by Isolation Model is offered, which can help explain the investment decision-making process by advertisers as they weigh demographic audience traits, audience isolation strategies, and costs.     

Price Discrimination and Audience Composition in Advertising-Based Broadcasting

In this article, a model is introduced that has 2 distinguishing features. First, the multidimensional nature of competition in media markets characterized by free access and advertising is acknowledged, through explicit modeling of vertical and horizontal differentiation. Second, the price of advertising depends on the expected audience composition, not simply on its magnitude, and the amount of price discrimination. It is found that market equilibria depend on a number of critical factors: the amount and type of price discrimination in advertising, the correlation between formats and audience composition, the relative profitability of the different market segments, and diseconomies of scale in program quality. For a variety of market structures, the ability to discriminate on the price of advertising encourages a higher level of quality in broadcast media.     

Economic and Cultural Influences on the Theatrical Consumption of Foreign Films in Singapore

This study investigates audience acceptance of foreign movies in an import-dominated exhibition market—Singapore. The characteristics of home cinema markets and the cultural distances of the film-exporting countries are operationalized in an empirical model to explain the highly varied demand in this import market for international films from various sources. We show that during 2002–2004 release frequencies and box-office performance for films originating in different countries are significantly accounted for by both economic and cultural factors. Films from countries with larger domestic markets and from countries culturally more similar to Singapore experience greater box-office success. Furthermore, an individual foreign film's Singapore box-office performance is explained by its box-office success in its home market and the intercountry cultural distance.     

Perceived Message Effectiveness Measures in Tobacco Education Campaigns: A Systematic Review

ABSTRACT

Target audience ratings of the likely impact of persuasive messages, known as perceived message effectiveness (PME), are commonly used during message development and selection. PME is also used to examine receptivity of messages after they are fully developed or deployed. Despite this, we know little about the conceptual and methodological characteristics of extant PME measures used in the literature. We conducted a systematic review of tobacco education video, print, and audio campaign studies to examine conceptual and methodological characteristics of PME measures. One hundred twenty-six PME measures from 75 studies conducted in 21 countries with more than 61,000 participants were reviewed. Results indicated considerable variability in measures’ focus on general perceptions of a message (i.e., message perceptions) vs. perceptions of expected message effects (i.e., effects perceptions). Considerable variability was also found on underlying persuasive constructs, use of referents, and referencing of behavior in PME items and measures. We conclude with several recommendations for future research on PME measurement and validation.     

Organizing official statistics for the 21st century

Official statistical offices are often included in government moves to charge users for services. In New Zealand, the change from operating a public statistical service fully funded by government to competing in a contestable economic market has presented a wide range of challenges. Statistics New Zealand—the country's national statistics office—has found that this change has tested its ability to provide services that users will pay for. It has also caused the service to look closely at the interaction between the commercial market and the other, more traditional markets of the service. It is the government and public markets that drive the values of national statistical offices throughout the world. However, it is the move into the commercial market that is now leading to greater consumer responsiveness in both commercial and publicly-funded services, more effective rationing by price and other determinants, and greater promotion of services.     

英国报业大数据应用探究

英国报业面对销量与收入的整体下滑,在实施裁员、减少印刷成本等措施的同时,加大了数字新闻市场的开拓力度.其中,大数据技术在新闻生产、受众服务和广告开拓方面得到广泛应用.在新闻内容生产方面,体现为新闻信息源的大数据甄别、新闻写作的人工智能应用和新闻作品的可视化呈现;在报业受众服务方面,体现为利用大数据强化社交媒体的充分运用和付费墙的不断调整;在商业运营方面,体现为广告市场的精准服务和数据资源的深层加工.     

Fan mail to Liberace

Although stations, networks and advertisers spend hundreds of thousands of dollars annually on various rating services and audience measurement surveys, they often overlook a gold mine of voluntarily submitted feedback from their audience: the fan letter. It is true that the “pan” letter condemning a program often gets inordinate attention on decision‐making levels, but the run‐of‐the‐mill fan letter, if properly analyzed, can provide a wealth of information about the effect of a program upon its audience. Charles Winick is author of Taste and the Censor in Television (an Occasional Paper for the Fund for the Republic) and numerous articles in publications dealing with the mass media, such as Gazette, and the Journal op Broadcasting (“Censor and Sensibility,” Spring, 1962). Dr. Winick is a research psychologist and children's television program consultant at NBC who has taught and conducted research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Columbia University and New York University.     

Integrating the imposed query into the evaluation of reference service: A dichotomous analysis of user ratings

A secondary analysis of a user survey administered in 13 public libraries examined user ratings of reference services by transaction type. Transaction type is defined dichotomously as self-generated (users transacting questions they have determined for themselves) or imposed (agent users in the library seeking information on behalf of someone else). Users with self-generated questions rated library services lower than did users with imposed questions. Both groups rated the library experience lower than their reference desk experience, and imposed queries were responsible for proportionately higher “first time” use of the reference desk. No significant difference existed between groups for ratings of finding useful information in the library, finding everything wanted in the library visit, frequency of library use, or levels of attained formal education. There were significant differences found for ratings of the reference librarian's service behaviors, user satisfaction with reference service, and frequency of reference desk use.     

Sesame Street and the Reform of Children's Television

Television inheritance effects, inordinately high levels of audience duplication between programs scheduled back-to-back, have helped broadcasters manage audience flow for decades. This study uses 2004 national peoplemeter data collected by Nielsen to replicate a study of inheritance effects done 20 years earlier. It finds the same predictors explain either 96% or 58% of variance in the duplicated audience, depending upon the measure of duplication that is used. The research resolves discrepancies in the literature on inheritance effects and casts serious doubt on the common practice of inferring audience duplication from the strength of correlations between lead-in and lead-out program ratings.     

网络舆情场中观点簇丛的情感极化度测算

[目的/意义] 提出网络舆情场内观点簇丛的情感极化度测算方法，为量化舆情受众情感态势和识别极化群体提供依据。[方法/过程] 首先明确舆情受众情感极化的条件，再通过设置条件阈值筛选出满足条件的观点簇丛，在此基础上引入3个极化指标（受众吸引率、极端受众增长率、极化情感增长率）描述观点簇丛在测度时间窗口内的情感发酵程度。最后利用平滑权值，对观点簇丛在不同测度阶段的情感表现进行加权综合，得出其整体情感极化程度值。[结果/结论] 观点簇丛在每个时间窗口的情感表现能为阶段性的舆情受众情感极化干预提供判断依据，而综合的情感极化度有助于准确识别场域内的敏感话题及群体，便于网络舆情的精准管控。     

论数字图书馆和知识商品市场运行机制

知识商品市场是实现知识商品有效配置和交易的场合，是整个社会市场体系的重要组成部分。数字图书馆作为高效的知识组织、管理与应用体系，具有明显的知识市场特征和完备的功能。数字图书馆知识市场的运行机制包括知识产权保护机制、竞争机制、供求机制、风险机制等，它们相互联系、相互制约，并在政府宏观调控的作用下，共同保证市场的健康发展。