Public service broadcasting,children’s television,and market failure: The case of the United Kingdom

Domestically produced children’s television is frequently highlighted as both an area of market failure, and also as an area where children’s changing consumption habits necessitate new and different ways of thinking about funding children’s content across a range of platforms. In the light of a recent U.K. proposal to set up a Public Service Content Fund to support “genres” under threat, including children’s programming, this article considers how you fund diverse high-quality children’s content in a more challenging media environment where children’s content is arguably still a market failure “genre.” The first part of the article provides context by outlining the market failure characteristics of children’s content as a framework for analyzing the validity of market failure arguments across a range of platforms. It then investigates the causes of perceived market failure in the U.K. children’s television production market. The final part examines the implications of recent U.K. policy responses to provision for children that seek to address market failure through (1) the possible introduction of a contestable fund for public service content; (2) more stringent obligations on the British Broadcasting Corporation; and (3) the re-imposition of quotas on commercially funded public service broadcastings (ITV, Channel 4, Five). Drawing on regulatory and stakeholder responses, it concludes that attempts to overcome market failure in U.K. children’s television appear unsuited for funding the longer-term curation, distribution, and discovery of new types of content on platforms other than broadcasting.     

Public service operational efficiency and blockchain – A case study of Companies House,UK

Despite the increasing interest and exploration of the use of blockchain technology in public service organisations (PSOs), academic understanding of its transformative impact on the operational excellence of PSOs remains limited. This study adopts an action design science research methodology to develop a proof of concept (POC) blockchain based application for Companies House, a government agency that is registering companies across UK. The application addresses the operational challenges of Companies House as well as issues citizens face when accessing its services. We draw from the public value framework proposed by Twizeyimana and Andersson (2019) and demonstrate the significance of the emerging blockchain technology in relation to their democratic practices based on six dimensions. We further discuss the related challenges and barriers for its implementation and evaluate the POC with the stakeholders of Companies House. We also present an illustrative case study, where we explored the appropriateness of the POC in relation to the draft legislation, “Registration of Overseas Entities and Beneficial Owners” (ROEBO) bill which proposes the introduction of a register of the beneficial owners of overseas legal entities that own real estate in the UK. Our research is one of the few studies that will provide in-depth empirical insights about the relationship between blockchain and operational excellence of PSOs.     

A closer look at the non‐television household

The growth in percentage of American homes with television over the past dozen years has outstripped even the adjectives used to describe the phenomenon. Although the period of greatest growth was between 1950 and 1955, the proportion of U.S. homes with television has climbed from two out of every three in June of 1955 to nine out of ten today.

The non‐television owner has become something of a rare bird, not necessarily needing sanctuary, but certainly worthy of study. At the time this research was performed, the Census Bureau reported 85% set ownership in the sample area (a figure in excellent agreement with findings in the present study).

This study was financed in part by a grant‐in‐aid from the National Educational Television and Radio Center. Field work was conducted by students of Professor Ralph O. Nafziger. Dr. Richard F. Carter, now of Stanford University, also contributed to the study.     

European public service television and the cultural‐educational logic: A comparative analysis of children's and youth programming

One of the most recurrent themes in studies on European television trends, is that the policies of liberalization and deregulation have caused the industry to follow a more market‐oriented or crass commercial logic. New technologies and policies have led to an explosion in the number of commercial channels; new financial, organizational and programming strategies; increasing pressure from advertising and multinationals; and a decreasing role of the state in production and distribution.

This paper looks at how such pressures have affected the policies of European public service broadcasters (PSBs), by concentrating on their traditional commitment to education in an analysis of children's and youth programmes as an index of this change.     

Walking the talk: Using digital media to develop distance learners’ digital citizenship at the Open University (UK)

ABSTRACT

This article describes the approaches that the Library at the Open University has taken to ensure that distance learning students develop digital and information literacy skills for study, work and lifelong learning. Librarians create learning objects and work with academics to embed them into the online curriculum. They also deliver a program of live online training and pilot new approaches to engage with the student community.     

Faculty–library collaborations in digital history: A case study of the travel journal of Cornelius B. Gold

ABSTRACT

In this article, the authors present a case study on a teaching and learning initiative in digital humanities at Connecticut College. The article outlines a project in which students in a midlevel history course collaborated with library staff and faculty to develop a digital exhibition on a nineteenth-century journal in the College's collection. The cooperative approach and institutional support that the team received provided an effective and flexible means for achieving common goals. As students applied emergent technologies to college collections, they were able to conduct meaningful research and bring archival resources to new audiences.     

At the crossroads of terrestrial and ET whither Malaysian TV broadcasting?

This article focuses on the rapid technological changes in telecommunications, and how these advances are affecting the Malaysian broadcasting industry, a relatively mature industry that is compelled to innovate or become destabilized. It traces the growth and development of broadcasting and telecommunications, and discusses the implications of the privatization policy on the changing industry and for the country.     

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.     

Marginalia in the digital age: Are digital reading devices meeting the needs of today's readers?

For centuries, readers have added marginal commentary to books for a variety of personal and public purposes. Historians have mined the marginalia of important historical figures to observe their sometimes raw, immediate responses to texts. Now, reading and annotation practices are changing with the migration of content to electronic books. A survey of reader attitudes and behavior related to marginalia for print and electronic books reveals that the majority of readers write in their books and want e-readers to support this feature. However, many readers report that annotating electronic books is too difficult, time-consuming, or awkward with current technology. In addition, the way readers annotate books depends on whether they are reading for pleasure or for work or education. These findings can guide the development of future devices to better satisfy reader needs.     

Are Information Seekers and Users Among the General Public at a Crossroads?

Abstract

Presently, eating disorders affect millions of people. Today, the media and the Internet are major publishing channels for consumer health information. Much research has found that the media may offer insufficient information on eating disorders. This research examines the quantity of adult consumer health publications on eating disorders in magazine articles and on the Internet in 1998 and investigates the effectiveness of Internet search engines. The results indicate that the resources found in popular magazines and on the Internet are not adequate, and that the Internet search engines are not effective in searching for information.     

No more “Magic Aprons”: Longitudinal assessment and continuous improvement of customer service at the University of North Dakota libraries

The University of North Dakota (UND) Libraries have developed a multi-award winning Customer Service Program (CSP) involving longitudinal assessment and continuous improvement. The CSP consists of iterative training modules; constant reinforcement of Customer Service Principles with multiple communication strategies and tools, and incentives that boost morale and foster not only compliance, but initiative-taking and innovation. The CSP became a widely adopted part of campus-wide assessment, beyond the libraries. Subsequent presentations at conferences led to multiple requests and implementation at other libraries.     

The digital cage: Administrative exclusion through information architecture – The case of the Dutch civil registry's master data management system

This article analyses the unintended consequences of master data management systems in the administrative state for the access of citizens to public services and benefits. We analyse the case of the Dutch civil registry, in which hundreds of (semi-)public organisations use the information from the civil registry to determine whether people are eligible for their services. We use the framework of administrative burdens and administrative exclusion to show that this system turns the consequences of mutations in registration into a black box, produces legal contamination by forcing its own address definition upon user organisations, reduces the discretionary space of street-level bureaucrats to handle social complexity and unintended consequences of the system, and creates a behavioural incentive in which municipalities are pushed into the role of enforcers rather than registers. The result is a ‘digital cage’: an exclusionary infrastructure that hinges on information architecture instead of Weberian rules and procedures. These findings increase our understanding of master data management systems, emphasise the importance of understanding information architecture as an ethical issue, and help us develop a new vocabulary for understanding and studying administrative burdens as part of a bureaucratic infrastructure.     

A “white elephant” in the library: a case study on loss of space from the Arizona Health Sciences Library at the University of Arizona

The Arizona Health Sciences Library is housed in a 4-story building that serves 4 University of Arizona colleges in Tucson. In October 2005, the dean of the college of medicine informed the library director that one floor of the library had to be converted to open classroom space by June 2006. Library staff planned and participated in the conversion of the space. Twenty thousand seven hundred square feet of library space (34% of public space in the building) was used briefly for large classes but is now rarely used. The space is now largely open and contains a variety of moveable seating and tables not suited for quiet study.     

Can Inoculation Work Against the Spiral of Silence? A Study of Public Opinion on the Future of Taiwan

This study explores the relationships between inoculation andthe spiral of silence theories. Inoculation strategies wereemployed to mitigate the process of the spiral of silence, especiallyfocusing on resistance to counter-attitudinal attack, attitudinalconfidence, willingness to speak out, fear of isolation, andchange of attitude. A field experiment was conducted in a two-wavesurvey of randomly sampled citizens in Taiwan. The issue employedwas Taiwan's political future in relation to the People's Republicof China. Results are consistent with major inoculation findingsand support the study's core hypotheses: Inoculation treatmentsenhanced people's resistance to attitude change. People whoreceived an inoculation pre-treatment, as compared with thosewho did not, became more confident in their attitude over time,more willing to speak out on behalf of one's attitudes, andmore likely to overtly resist the counter-attitudinal attemptsof others to influence oneself. Received for publication November 21, 2002. Revision received August 14, 2006. Accepted for publication November 28, 2004.     

Gender differences in television use: An exploration of the instrumental‐expressive dichotomy

This study applied an interpersonal approach to understand gender differences in television use. Research shows that males are socialized to be instrumental in communication while females are socialized to be expressive, or focused on relationships. We expected this instrumental‐expressive dichotomy to emerge in television use. In two studies we found limited support that males had an instrumental viewing style, with goal‐directed reasons for watching and intentional, concentrated, and selective use of television. Females had a relationship‐oriented approach to television similar to the expressive orientation. These findings are linked to prior research on the uses of television.