A look at the constancy principle under changing market conditions

How the principle of relative constancy of media spending has fared across time is explored in this study. The authors use both income‐share and time‐trend regression models to study consumer spending on media in the U.S. since 1929. They conclude that the principle of relative constancy clearly held from 1929 to 1974, but that evidence since that time (which corresponds with the emergence of cable television and VCRs) is unclear, although partially supporting the principle.     

Market Competition and the Media Performance of Taiwan's Cable Television Industry

Using industrial organization as the theoretical framework, this study examines the relation between market competition and the media performance of Taiwan's cable television industry. The media performance of cable television systems is defined as the subscribers' satisfaction with program service, customer service, and community service. A telephone survey was conducted to collect data for the study. This study's findings in general support a positive relation between market competition and media performance, which accords with most previous studies.     

Index to Volume 55, 2011

This article reports a national study of Internet users' usage of cable television Web site features to illustrate the dynamics of cross-media use in electronic media and explore the role of cable television network Web sites in network branding and viewership. Our findings indicate that younger Internet users are much more likely to use television Web sites than older Internet users. Despite the low use of the enhanced features of television Web sites, the increase in the number of Web site feature usage positively predicts viewer loyalty, subscriber loyalty, and to a lesser extent, new subscriber attraction for cable networks.     

Television coverage of the 1995 legislative election in Taiwan: Rise of cable television as a force for balance in media coverage

This research examines how television reported the campaign, parties, and candidates during the 1995 Legislative Election in Taiwan. Results of this study showed that state‐owned broadcast television stations were far more likely than privately owned cable television channels to give greater coverage to the ruling party and its candidates, to use ruling party officials as news sources, and to offer more news coverage favorable to the ruling party than to other parties. We conclude that cable television has become a force for balance in coverage, diluting a pervasive pro‐government party bias. The rise of cable television from virtual “outlaw” status to government‐licensed status appears to have responded to a more liberal society and made a contribution to the development of democracy, as have the expanded elections themselves.     

Media Substitution in Cable Cord-Cutting: The Adoption of Web-Streaming Television

This study sought to better understand what factors best predict consumers’ intention to cut the cord on cable television and adopt video streaming as their primary source of television. Utilizing media substitution theory as the conceptual framework, this study conducted a nationwide survey (N = 200). Findings show that perceived advantages of streaming applications over traditional television best predicted intentions to cut the cord on cable and adopt Web streaming; these perceptions mediated the relation between user frustrations with using older television technology and intentions to cut the cord. Entertainment needs were not significant predictors of cord-cutting intentions.     

The Economics of French Cable Systems as Reflected in Media Policy

The French media are protected by a wide range of legislative and regulatory measures. The intricacies of French media policy--determined by objectives often not imminent to media--are reflected in the development of the French cable systems. Planned as a secondary utilization market for film and television productions increasing the demand for new French works, the development of French cable systems has been ailing economically for a long time. This study sets out to analyze the driving forces of media policy as to cable systems and their economic effects, leading to a long-term evaluation of the efficiency of French cable policy.     

Community television and the vision of media literacy,social action,and empowerment

The vision of empowerment espoused by the community television movement is explored through an interpretive study of producers at a public access cable television facility. The findings address media literacy, the dialectical nature of societal change, and critical pedagogist Paulo Freire's taxonomy of social action. The findings suggest that the application of advanced media technologies to more democratic purposes is possible with a focus on the critical use of the technological tools for social change.     

FROM FEAR OF TELEVISION TO FEAR FOR TELEVISION

New media technologies are often met with political and public ambivalence, as they are perceived to threaten established activities, values and institutions, as well as bring progress and improve political, cultural and social life. Taking the Norwegian history of television as an empirical case study, this article relates to an international research agenda focusing on the cultural political debates in the early phases of broadcast media. The article is structured according to five key conjunctures where significant new media and technologies were introduced with corresponding political debates: the introduction of television (1940s–1950s), of colour television (1960s–1970s), of satellite, cable and commercial television (1980s), of digital distribution (1990s–2000s) and the expansion of television to new platforms (2000s). The article addresses the key arguments and dividing lines in these political debates, as well as the change in the perception of television when the medium is no longer new, but has become an integrated part of people's everyday life.     

Becoming a Broadcasting Leader in 10 Years: A Case Study of Portugal's TVI—Media Capital Group

The main objectives of this article are to analyse (a) some media group strategic corporate management options, especially within the television segment; (b) as well as identify critical success factors to achieve leadership. Some future challenges are also identified within the scope of new broadcasting technologies such as Internet protocol television, cable, satellite, and digital terrestrial television.     

Interactivity in Television: Use and Impact of an Interactive Program Guide

This study is designed to examine the uses and impact of interactive program guides (IPGs), a television technology that enables viewer inter- activity. Data were obtained from a television survey of 365 IPG users in a medium-sized Midwestern community. Results showed that age, premium channel subscribership, perceived IPG utility, and IPG complexity were significant predictors for IPG use. Further, the study found evidence that the IPG has influenced users' viewing behaviors. IPG use was related to watching more television, viewing enriched program types, and having a larger digital cable channel repertoire.     

A Model for Quantitatively Analyzing Representations of Social Class in Screen Media

Content analyses of prime-time television provide a picture of predominant cultural stereotypes and social trends. The present research is a quantitative content analysis of social class in popular broadcast and cable television in the United States. This research advances scholarship by systematically analyzing character class in addition to more commonly examined variables such as race and gender. A model for the operationalization of class for quantitative content analyses of mediated texts is offered. This proof of concept study demonstrates the viability of studying media representations of class quantitatively to systematically document patterns of portrayal.     

The Many Sides of QUBE: Interactive Television and Innovation in Electronic Media, 1977–1983

QUBE was an interactive cable television system that attracted significant attention when it launched in 1977. The service has been deemed a commercial failure, though many of its ideas foreshadowed current television practices. There is however no detailed study of QUBE, and previous scholarship provides limited information. Using Moran’s concept of an “evolution-revolution,” this study analyzes the content offerings of QUBE to reveal how they were similar, and how they differed, from prior practice. This historical inquiry fills a gap in the historical record, while also exploring the complex nature of innovation in the world of electronic media.     

Breaking the structural logjam: The impact of cable on local TV market concentration

The author considers the effect of cable on market concentration in local television markets using different types of market definitions for the analysis. He concludes that cable has introduced competition and that it has lowered concentration levels in local markets, thus altering the structure of television markets put in place by FCC television allocation plans and limits of local economies.     

Extending the Digital Divide Conversation: Examining the Knowledge Gap Through Media Expectancies

As long as scholars have studied media, issues of access have been of great concern. Recent advancements in digital technology have framed disparities in access within the digital divide research and knowledge gap frameworks. While early digital divide research looked at access, more recent research has focused on how media are used differently across populations. The current research extends this literature by examining media expectancies across ethnic subgroups for a broad range of media (i.e., local newspapers, national newspapers, network television, cable television, radio, magazines, and Internet). Data indicate expectancies differ among African Americans, Caucasians, and Hispanics.     

Book Review

Digital cable is a technological innovation featuring interactivity, which is still in its infancy. This study identifies a profile of early digital cable subscribers based on a telephone survey. The study results indicate that digital cable subscribers are more likely to watch television, subscribe to premium services, perceive their cable operator to be technologically progressive, and express greater satisfaction with current cable service compared to analog-only subscribers. It was also found that the more people watch television, have premium channels, and evaluate their cable operator as innovative toward technology, the sooner they can be expected to upgrade to new cable services. Implications for cable service structuring and marketing behaviors are also discussed.     

Competition between the cable and broadcast industries: A niche analysis

The authors show that although there is increasing competition between cable television, broadcast television, and radio, broadcast television remains a strong competitor and has not yet been displaced by cable television in the advertising market. Radio still remains competitive, but not to the degree of broadcast television. The authors suggest that cable television will not rapidly overwhelm and push broadcast industries out of the market.     

A comparison of gratification models of media satisfaction

A largely neglected variable in mass media theory and research is media satisfaction. This is particularly true of uses and gratifications research, where the concept is mentioned frequently but few attempts have been made at operationalization. This study compares the abilities of six alternative gratification/expectancy‐value models to predict satisfaction with television news. The results of correlational and hierarchical regression analysis emphasize the important influence of gratifications obtained from the television news experience on viewer satisfaction levels. They also reveal the weakness of GS‐GO discrepancy models as compared to more straightforward gratification/expectancy‐value models.     

Television and foreign policy us response to the Beijing and Kwangju pro‐democracy movements

This study examines US network television coverage of the 1980 Kwangju and 1989 Beijing‐Tiananmen Square incidents in relation to American policy towards those East Asian nations and the increasingly global impact of television on foreign policy. Both episodes involved pro‐democracy movements, imposition of military force, violence, and implications for US policy. While both were covered by television, Beijing became a global media event while Kwangju was accorded more perfunctory coverage. The study documents heavy reliance on official sources in coverage of both events, but greater attention to pro‐democracy demonstrators in Beijing as more ‘worthy’ victims than those in Kwangju. It also points to the difficulty language poses for Western news organizations in East Asia, and the tendency of television to serve as a reference point for all reporting. The hypothesis that media index their coverage according to mainstream government debate must take into account such factors when being tested in an era of global television. When television is less actively engaged in covering an event, as in Kwangju, policymakers have greater power to shape the public dialogue. A broad question for the future regards the evolution of institutions to promote civil versus statist discourse.     

‘This nation under God’: The broadcast and film commission of the national council of churches and the new medium of television

Throughout American history that form of Protestantism that designates itself and is publicly conceived as “old‐time religion” has regularly been the innovator in the area of media. In stark contrast, its more staid establishment counterpart has tended to be antagonistic to these new media, dismissing them with harsh theological and aesthetic judgments. In this process, the self‐proclaimed theological conservatives actually behaved in remarkably adaptive and imaginative ways, while the self‐proclaimed liberal establishment often acted as the cultural conservator, pressing for the preservation of the status quo. This article seeks to understand why those Protestants who define themselves as “modernist” and “adaptive” have been far less successful in using the media than their conservative “anti‐modernist” counterparts. The focus is upon a case study—the reception of television by the Broadcast and Film Commission of the National Council of Churches. The conclusion is ironic: those Protestants who depended upon “modern,” “social scientific” criterion to guide their television policies fundamentally misunderstood the power of television and its impact upon society.