Leviathan dreams: State and broadcasting in South America

This article examines different forms of state intervention in the history of broadcasting in South America. In contrast to “media imperialism”; positions, it is argued that the analysis of the evolution of broadcasting systems cannot be restricted to the role of international capital. Nor can the development of broadcasting in the region be understood as completely dominated by market mechanisms. On different occasions and for different reasons, domestic actors coalesced around the state to champion government‐run models against private broadcasting. Statist solutions, however, were ineffectual in changing the fundamental dynamics of the systems in place. Moreover, as they were often implemented by authoritarian governments, state models aggravated the problems for the existence of democratic broadcasting. Amid the hegemony of the private model and the globalization of media economies in the region, the discrediting of statist experiences makes it necessary to rethink alternatives to market‐dominated broadcasting.     

Media,War, and Propaganda: Strategies of Information Management During the 2003 Iraq War

It is now widely acknowledged that the Bush administration used faulty and false information to justify the 2003 war on Iraq, and that the mainstream media, by not adequately investigating the case for war, assisted with the project. In this paper, I outline the particular strategies employed by the media–military industrial complex to ensure a dominance of pro-war arguments in the public sphere. I conclude by arguing that the failure of the media in the US to meet the democratic needs of this society places enormous responsibility on intellectuals to produce scholarship critical of the new imperialism.     

DD and PTV as victims of media globalisation

Mainstream discourses on the globalisation of media that delineate the emergence of privately owned television channels in the periphery country as evening out metropolitan domination are belied by concrete evidence. This essay argues that the rise of southern players has undermined state broadcasting rather than dismantling ‘media imperialism’. Based on two case studies, Pakistan Television (PTV) and Doordarshan (DD), this study demonstrates that the actual, if inadvertent, victim of globalisation has been state broadcasting and an associated developmentist model of television. As a result the decline of state-led television channels has radically transformed television systems in India and Pakistan. While DD and PTV view their audiences as citizens, the globalisation of media has resulted in a commodification of television audiences. Instead of public interest, audience maximisation has become the dominant logic of television systems in both these countries. In the process, developmentist television systems have been replaced by the commercially driven systems.     

网络文化帝国主义:起源、表现及其伦理影响

文章分析了网络文化帝国主义的起源与成因；论述了网络文化帝国主义的主要表现形态；提出了网络文化帝国主义对民族文化伦理发展、网络伦理建设等方面的影响及相应的对策。     

The disavowal of race in communication theory

ABSTRACT

Here, we consider how graduate education in communication fares when it comes to engaging conceptual and theoretical legacies of racial apartheid and modern European and American imperialism. Treating syllabi as a discourse which powerfully represents the field to future scholars, and graduate classrooms as sites of power, we assess foundational theoretical pedagogy through an examination of syllabi from required doctoral seminars across sixteen highly ranked communication, media studies, and mass communication programs in the US. Finding an ongoing disavowal of critical theories of race and imperialism, but hopeful exceptions, we offer recommendations as part of ongoing projects to decolonize university curriculum.     

London Re‐cut: Reclaiming History through the Co‐curated Remixing of Film

Abstract Film archives offer unique opportunities for co‐curation between collections‐based institutions and members of the public. By making available source materials and the tools to manipulate them, institutions can work with the public to develop new interpretations of their collections as well as to tap into the remixing and sharing cultures of social and digital media. Digital co‐curation projects can develop relationships with audiences that many institutions find difficult to engage, developing alternative narratives and reclaimed histories. This paper describes the evolution of an approach to co‐curation and the tools and strategies needed to engage users. It focuses on London Re‐Cut, a project to remix London’s film history, drawing on material from 11 film archives across the city. Projects such as London Recut suggest that audiences have both the enthusiasm and the skills to open up this radical “remix” approach to interpretation.     

REPRESENTING ‘INFORMAL EMPIRE’ IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

This article proposes an approach to media imperialism from the telegraphic news agencies’ point of view. Since the mid-nineteenth century, in fact, Western imperial interests were reflected in the geographical expansion led by the first international news agencies. The War of the Pacific (1879–83) in South America provides an entry point for investigating both the notion of the British ‘informal empire’ and the role of the first telegraphic news agencies in the South American region. The history of the news agency business in the subcontinent from the 1850s onwards helps contextualize the conflict between the South American republics of Bolivia, Chile and Peru as news agencies, newspapers and other information practices of the time revealed this event in Europe and the rest of the world. By the end of the war, Reuters and Havas (the British and the French news agencies), numbered their own casualties as a consequence of their confrontation in an extra-European region.     

Spectacles of Gender and Globalization: Mapping Miss World's Media Event Space in the News

The 1996 Miss World pageant in India turned into a controversial event when activist groups launched protests against globalization and cultural imperialism. Approaching news texts as portals into the larger moral order, this article examines the Times of India’s representations of the Miss World controversy. The newspaper's colorful photographs of Miss World's organizers, sponsors, and beauty contestants resuscitated the hegemonic cultural politics of consumer modernity while the visual imaging of activist groups inscribed protesters within paradigms of delinquency and disorder. The crafting of news through objectivist signifiers of consent for Miss World legitimized the authority of state and consumer discourses, excluded the poor, and marginalized activists’ voices. News stories on Miss World's charitable support for handicapped children inserted institutions of global/local capital into sympathetic templates of Third World salvation. In concluding, the article situates my textual analysis within the economics and professional routines of media production and the discursive inheritances of colonialism.     

MEDIALIZED SCIENCE?

Because the neurosciences affect many areas of society and culture, they receive much public attention. Brain research and other focuses of neuroscience are regularly featured in the mass media, calling on neuroscientists to serve as sources. Based on 30 semi-structured interviews with neuroscientists in the United States and Germany, this article analyzes neuroscientists' motivations to interact with journalists, their perception of problems with the media reporting of neuroscience and media contacts, and the strategies they apply in order to gain some control over the coverage. Results show that most neuroscientists perceive benefits of media coverage and are willing to cooperate with journalists and conform to their expectations, but only to a certain degree. Neuroscientists perceive problems regarding the quality of coverage, risks related to public visibility and negative consequences of being distracted from research and scientific publication because of the time demands of media interactions. The scientists discussed several strategies to improve this perceived cost–benefit ratio.     

Applying the structure‐conduct‐performance framework in the media industry analysis

Abstract

This article reviews the application of the Industrial Organization (10) framework of Structure‐Conduct‐Performance (S‐C‐P) in media market research. The constructs and premises of this economic model are restated, and the orthodox economic notions of market performance and the logic that underlies the model are clarified. Alongside these elucidations, this article discusses common conceptualizations and interpretations found in media market studies. Media issues such as content diversity and media concentration, which are often studied through the S‐C‐P approach, are also re‐examined. These deliberations are intended to contribute toward a more consistent framework for the study of media industries and markets.     

After the spillover effect: news flows and power relations in Chinese mainstream media

Through a case study on the news flow of an online protest in China, this study explores how the power relations among the mainstream media affect, and are affected by, the spillover effect of news. Even though the Internet does serve as a catalyst to initiate alternative voices that otherwise wouldn't be heard in the established media, the results reveal that the power structure inherent in the mainstream media (particularly within their online versions) such as bureaucratic ranks and institutional ties with party organs, plays a significant role in shaping the trajectory of news flow and media framing strategies. The Internet compensates for the disadvantage of the lower-level media that are short of political resources, while the higher-level media tend to rely on the political capital to exercise their influence. At the same time, the media with more political resources have become increasingly intrepid in challenging the state. Such a dynamic takes place in the context of the changing state-media relations that have seen the authoritarian state shift its information control from a totalitarian mode to a practical one, even though the latter may open up a space for flow of information that can sometimes undermine state power.     

Social media strategies: Understanding the differences between North American police departments

Within a short timeframe, social media have become to be widely used in government organizations. Social media gurus assume that the transformational capacities of social media result in similar communication strategies in different organizations. According to them, government is transforming into a user-generated state. This paper investigates this claim empirically by testing the claim of convergence in social media practices in three North-American police departments (Boston, Washington DC and Toronto). The research shows that the social media strategies are widely different: the Boston Police Department has developed a ‘push strategy’ while the Metropolitan Police Department in DC has developed a ‘push and pull strategy and the Toronto Police Service a ‘networking strategy’. The paper concludes that a combination of contextual and path-dependency factors accounts for differences in the emerging social media strategies of government organizations. Social media have a logic of their own but this logic only manifests itself if it lands on fertile soil in a government bureaucracy.     

Taking the third‐person effect outside the laboratory: How an unplanned real world event failed to change the third‐person effect

This study took the form of a pretest posttest nonequivalent natural quasi‐experiment. Despite the fact that previous researchers have indicated that media events are formative in the third‐person effect hypothesis, it was hypothesized that a major media event acting as a secondary stimulus would have no effect on the level of third‐person effect measured in regard to the primary stimulus despite the fact that both pertained to the same topic. This hypothesis was confirmed. This study indicates real world interactions of the third‐person effect hypothesis are complex, and the third‐person effect may operate less in the real world than previous experiments indicate.     

A social media strategy for academic libraries

This study was carried out to analyse strategies regarding the use of social media for academic library services in Ghana. The research design was quantitative and adopted the survey approach. Questionnaires served as the main data collection instrument. The study population comprised of one hundred and ten library staff from public and private universities in Ghana. As indicated by the study results, the library staff agreed that there was a need for a well-formulated social media strategy to help academic libraries identify the most appropriate social media tools, establish contact with targeted audience, and increase engagement rates to enable an effective and efficient distribution of its resources and services. The results also indicated that the academic libraries, however, seem to neglect these strategies which could drive patrons' use of such platforms. Recommendations therefore suggest the need to implement social media plans and policies, user engagement, social media update, and dedicated staff with the requisite skills in the use of social media platforms for library services delivery.     

Alignment 2.0: Strategic use of new internet technologies in government

This paper challenges the view that strategies for using Web 2.0 should primarily be based upon technological characteristics. The value of the organizational strategic alignment approach for developing specific operational Web 2.0 strategies for government organizations is explored both theoretically and empirically. On the basis of a review of the literature we conclude that there are no a priori reasons why the idea of a fit between IT strategy and business strategic orientation cannot be applied to the development of operational Web 2.0 strategies for government organizations. The empirical exploration based on intervention research at the Dutch Department of Education results in the identification of five configurations: organizational transparency, organizational interactions, policy sector transparency, policy sector interactions and process and policy innovation. These configurations are logically consistent with the strategic orientations of the three directorates of the Department of Education. This overview does not pretend to be exhaustive but validates the idea that an alignment approach leads to differences in operational strategies. The configuration approach provides organizations with useful a starting point for developing their Web 2.0 strategies.     

麦克切斯尼:批判学派中的批判者与建构者

传播政治经济学领军人物麦切斯尼是批判学派中少有的批判与建构并行的学者。他运用政治经济学的路径揭示了美国商业化传播体制的种种真相,提出了传播拐点和传播研究革命的论断,并提出了各项媒介改革策略,对我们认识美国式商业化媒介体制多有裨益,对中国传播业和传播研究多有启示。     

Promoting Diversity and Pluralism in Contemporary Communication Policies in the United States and the United Kingdom

Recent revisions of media regulation and legislation have emphasized diversity and pluralism as key objectives. Both the Federal Communication Commission's rewriting of broadcasting ownership rules in 2003 and the United Kingdom government's 2003 Communications Act insist that the public interest is best met through providing a dynamic, market-led approach to communications regulation. This article highlights definitions of diversity and pluralism that are increasingly ubiquitous in legislative and regulatory instruments that seek to "modernize" media systems in our present "communications cornucopia." This approach involves conceptualizing media diversity and media pluralism as twin outcomes of strategies designed to maximize consumer choice and market competition. The article argues that we need to challenge the assumption that meaningful forms of diversity can be brought forth only through market structures and questions the validity of quantitative assessments of media sectors that equate choice and competition with diversity. The article suggests that we need to win back a notion of diversity that is based on citizens' engagement with and interrogation of the world rather than the idea that diversity can be measured simply through the number of organizations and channels in the contemporary media environment.     

Enabling customer relationship management: Multi‐channel content model and management for financial eservices

Abstract

This study examines convergence as both a concept and a process. It examines the current state of convergence, various definitions of convergence, convergence practices, and it identifies Seven Observations of Convergence to be used as a strategy for best practices for organizations to integrate new and old media. Everett Rogers (1995) diffusion of innovations and the five stages of the innovation process in organizations, coupled with innovation management research are theoretical foundations used to examine the infusion of technological changes into business practices in the media industry. The study is based on research conducted during the summer of 2002 that included in‐depth interviews, participation‐observation, and archival documents from three leading corporate media groups and convergence pioneers‐Tribune Company, Media‐General, and Belo Corp at their integrated business units in Chicago, Dallas, and Tampa, Florida. The three organizations were selected for field study because they are convergence pioneers that fell under the grandfather clause of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission 1975 cross‐ownership rule and were allowed to maintain ownership of their television broadcast and newspaper business units in the same market.     

Consumer health information seeking in social media: a literature review

Objective

The objective of this literature review was to summarise current research regarding how consumers seek health‐related information from social media. Primarily, we hope to reveal characteristics of existing studies investigating the health topics that consumers have discussed in social media, ascertaining the roles social media have played in consumers’ information‐seeking processes and discussing the potential benefits and concerns of accessing consumer health information in social media.

Methods

The Web of Science Core Collection database was searched for existing literature on consumer health information seeking in social media. The search returned 214 articles, of which 21 met the eligibility criteria following review of full‐text documents.

Conclusion

Between 2011 and 2016, twenty‐one studies published explored various topics related to consumer information seeking in social media. These ranged from online discussions on specific diseases (e.g. diabetes) to public health concerns (e.g. pesticide residues). Consumers’ information needs vary depending on the health issues of interest. Benefits of health seeking on social media, in addition to filling a need for health information, include the social and emotional support health consumers gain from peer‐to‐peer interactions. These benefits, however, are tempered by concerns of information quality and authority and lead to decreased consumer engagement.     

Reshaping the Borders of Journalism

The Saami and the Roma are both transnational peoples with robust journalistic practices. Although vastly different in socio-economic standing and relationship to the state, both groups choose to develop journalism and journalists to share their perspective of the world; and do so while remaining true to the distinction between journalism and propaganda. This requires access and ability to frame issues and actors, problems and solutions while maintaining professional journalistic standards. Media—both having one's “own” media and creating stories that appear in the “mainstream” media—is key to this practice. Saami and Romani journalists very clearly show there is a way to be objective without being neutral. By interviewing 45 journalists, journalism educators, funders, and evaluators across six countries, as well as examining primary source documents, I show that although emerging from radically different contexts, the Saami and Roma are both distinct nations stretching over two or more states—transnational—which allows, and indeed requires, a unique approach to journalism. I identify two distinct strategies in approaching the goals and practice of, “transnational peoples’ journalism”: nation building/speaking within and intervening/speaking outside.