Media Bureau Releases Updated Version of “The Public and Broadcasting” and Announces That Broadcast Information Specialists Are Available for Public Inquiries (PDF; 152 KB)
Source: Federal Communications Commission

In its recent Report on Broadcast Localism and Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the Commission concluded that the record in the localism proceeding (MB Docket No. 04-233) revealed a substantial need for greater public understanding of broadcaster obligations, and of the procedures by which the Commission enforces those obligations. The Commission expressed its desire to better educate members of the public about the tools available to them, should they believe that their local broadcast stations are not fulfilling their service obligations. To that end, the Commission directed the Media Bureau to update “The Public and Broadcasting,” a publication that all broadcasters must maintain in their public inspection files. The Commission also stated that it would establish a contact point within the agency for public inquiries about broadcast matters.

In response to these Commission directives, today, the Media Bureau has released an updated version of “The Public and Broadcasting.” Including links to places on the FCC’s website that offer additional relevant information as to the matters discussed, this publication provides an overview of the FCC’s regulation of broadcast radio and television licensees, describes how broadcast stations are authorized, and explains the various rules and policies relating to broadcast programming and operations with which stations must comply, including the obligation to serve their local communities. It also explains how members of the public can become involved in assessing whether local broadcast stations are complying with these requirements. The publication is also intended to make the public aware of FCC procedures and the tools at their disposal, in the event that they conclude that any of their local stations do not meet these responsibilities.

+ Full Document (PDF; 283 KB)

Undercover Shoppers Find It Increasingly Difficult for Children to Buy M-Rated Games
Source: Federal Trade Commission

The Federal Trade Commission today released the results of its latest nationwide undercover shop of movie theaters and movie, music, and video game retailers. The FTC conducted a survey with 13-to-16-year-old undercover shoppers to collect data about the extent to which retailers prevent unaccompanied children from buying tickets to R-rated movies, R-rated DVDs, Unrated DVDs of movies that were R-rated in theaters, M-rated video games, and music CDs labeled with a Parental Advisory Label – “PAL” – for explicit content.

The survey found that 20% of underage teenage shoppers were able to buy M-rated video games, a major improvement from all prior surveys, and down from 42% in 2006. While CD and DVD retailers demonstrated some improvement since the 2006 survey, roughly half of the undercover shoppers still were able to purchase R-rated and Unrated movie DVDs and PAL music CDs. The fact that so many children were able to purchase Unrated movie DVDs – some of which contain content that, if rated, might result in an NC-17 rating – indicates that retailers need to re-double their efforts in this area. Although movie theaters have improved since the 2000 shop, they still sold R-rated movie tickets to unaccompanied children 35% of the time, demonstrating no statistically significant improvement in ratings enforcement since 2003.

+ FTC’s Entertainment Ratings site
+ Video Games: Reading the Ratings on the Games People Play

Highbrow Films Gather Dust: A Study of Dynamic Inconsistency and Online DVD Rentals (PDF; 376 KB)
Source: Harvard Business School Working Papers

We report on a field study demonstrating systematic differences between the preferences people anticipate they will have over a series of options in the future and their subsequent revealed preferences over those options. Using a novel panel data set, we analyze the film rental and return patterns of a sample of online DVD rental customers over a period of four months. We predict and find that people are more likely to rent DVDs in one order and return them in the reverse order when should DVDs (e.g., documentaries) are rented before want DVDs (e.g., action films). This effect is sizeable in magnitude, with a 2% increase in the probability of a reversal in preferences (from a baseline rate of 12%) ensuing if the first of two sequentially rented movies has more should and fewer want characteristics than the second film. Similarly, we also predict and find that should DVDs are held significantly longer than want DVDs within-customer. Finally, we find that as the same customers gain more experience with online DVD rentals, their “dynamic inconsistency” is attenuated. We interpret our results as evidence that myopia has a meaningful impact on decisions in the field and that people learn about their myopia with experience, allowing them to curb its influence.

Deterministic Adoption in Movie Industry
Source: Munich Personal RePEc Archive

In this paper, we investigate the decision making process by movie goers. Under incomplete information environment, movie goers will have to learn the quality of the movie from the information relayed by predecessors. The hypothesis is formed by the movie goers when the movie is first released, and it is then compared to information received. In this environment, movie goers will constantly upgrade the belief system, or discard the weaker ones if found to be not consistent with the overall quality information received. Thus, positive news relayed in the initial stage will be magnified to greater importance; the movie becomes a hit. We model this deterministic adoption with first order difference equation. We find that the Hit movies exhibit higher deterministic adoption behavior and the relationship between current and previous adoptions can last longer, than if the movie is a flop. The time path or orbit of the dynamic growth also exhibits non-oscillatory behavior and converge to equilibrium level quickly; when the deterministic adoption mechanism loses its strength, the subsequent adoptions will eventually die off. In other words, the previous adoptions cannot determine the future adoptions. Although this behavior is present in both Hit and Non-hit movies, this diminishing mechanism is triggered in much earlier stage in Non-hit movies than it is in Hit movies.

+ Full Paper (PDF; 186 KB)

Mergers in Two-Sided Markets: An Application to the Canadian Newspaper Industry
Source: Munich Personal RePEc Archive

In this paper we study mergers in two-sided industries. While mergers have been studied extensively in traditional industries, and there is a large and rapidly evolving literature on two-sided markets, there has been little work empirically examining mergers in these markets. We present a model that shows that mergers in two-sided markets may not necessarily lead to higher prices for either side of the market. We test our conclusions by examining a spate of mergers in the Canadian newspaper industry in the late 1990s. Specifically, we analyze prices for both circulation and advertising to try to understand the impact that these mergers had on consumer welfare. We find that greater concentration did not lead to higher prices for either newspaper subscribers or advertisers.

+ Full Paper (PDF; 365 KB)

Targeted Advertising: The Role of Subscriber Characteristics in Media Markets
Source: Munich Personal RePEc Archive

This paper seeks to establish the importance of targeted advertising in media markets. Using zip-code level circulation for US daily newspapers, I show that newspapers facing more competition have lower circulation prices but higher advertising prices than similar newspapers facing little or no competition. I explain this by showing that newspapers in more competitive markets are better able to segment readers according to their location and demographics. This leads to greater homogeneity in the characteristics of subscribers and raises advertisers’ willingness to pay for such readers. The results imply a substantial benefit to advertisers and media firms from targeted advertising.

+ Full Paper (PDF; 292 KB)

The Al-Qaeda Media Machine (PDF; 546 KB)
Source: Military Review

Lacking a tangible homeland—other than, perhaps, scattered outposts in the wilds of Waziristan—Al-Qaeda has established itself as a virtual state that communicates with its “citizens” and cultivates an even larger audience through masterful use of the media, with heavy reliance on the Internet. For every conventional video performance by Bin-Laden that appears on Al-Jazeera and other major television outlets, there are hundreds of online videos that proselytize, recruit, and train the Al-Qaeda constituency.
…
The Al-Qaeda media machine has grown steadily. Qaeda and its jihadist brethren use more than 4,000 web sites to encourage the faithful and threaten their enemies. The Al-Qaeda production company, As-Sahab, released 16 videos during 2005, 58 in 2006, and produced more than 90 in 2007. Like a Hollywood studio, As-Sahab has a carefully honed understanding of what will attract an audience and how to shape the Al-Qaeda message.

Hat tip: Combined Arms Research Library, Command and Staff College

Stealth Campaigns — Part Two: Move-on.org and Freedom’s Watch: The Iraq Ad-War
Source: The Center for Public Integrity

As the 2008 presidential campaign cycle got going, the undisputed leader in the field of independent attack advertising was MoveOn.org, the liberal Democratic group with loads of money, a popular website, and more than 3 million registered members. As MoveOn.org grew in stature and influence, Republicans grew intensely anxious about the power of liberals to raise money, mobilize voters, and influence public opinion – and answered by launching Freedom’s Watch to fight back.

Even before the Democratic nominee has been chosen, the battle of rival independent groups has been joined. Both groups, fed by millions from major partisan donors as well as throngs of small donors, have built complex legal structures with the aims of maximizing the secrecy of their operations and staying beyond the Federal Election Commission’s grasp. And both promise to lead the way as they and similar independent groups bulldoze the political landscape into new shapes on the way to the November election.

See also: Stealth Campaigns (part one)

Freedom of the Press 2008 Survey Release
Source: Freedom House
From press release:

Global press freedom underwent a clear decline in 2007, with journalists struggling to work in increasingly hostile environments in almost every region in the world, according to a new survey released today by Freedom House. The decline in press freedom—which occurred in authoritarian countries and established democracies alike—continues a six-year negative trend.

Freedom House will formally present findings from Freedom of the Press 2008: A Global Survey of Media Independence today at the Newseum in Washington. Freedom House Executive Director Jennifer Windsor will also unveil the Map of Press Freedom 2008, a central exhibit featured in the Newseum’s Time Warner World News Gallery.

While the survey indicated that setbacks in press freedom outnumbered advances two to one globally, there was some improvement in the region with the least amount of press freedom: the Middle East and North Africa. The survey attributes the gains in the Middle East and North Africa to a growing number of journalists who were willing to challenge government restraints, a pushback trend seen in other regions as well.

+ Charts (Word)
+ Tables (PDF; 539 KB)
+ Overview Essay (PDF; 127 KB)
+ Draft Reports (PDF; 1 MB)
+ Methodology (PDF; 31 KB)
+ Map of Press Freedom 2008 (PDF; 1 MB)
+ Historical Trends in Media Freedom

Nieman Reports: Spring 2008 Issue — 21st Century Muckrakers: Who Are They? How Do They Do Their Work?
Source: Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard
From introduction:

In this issue of Nieman Reports, reporters and editors peer into the future of investigative reporting to let us know possibilities they see ahead. For some, their outlook is shaped by their ongoing work in a newspaper’s newsroom or at a TV station. Others speak about what they see through the lens of nonprofit journalism, whether they’ve been there for a few months, as is the case for Paul E. Steiger at ProPublica, or a few decades, as it has been for Charles Lewis. Lewis, founder of the Center for Public Integrity, is now starting a new enterprise, the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University.

Even as they consider the future, they remember the past. The reporting team of Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele observes: “With a few notable exceptions, even in the best of times investigative reporting was little more than window-dressing in the American press …. Investigative stories often were published only when indefatigable reporters spent nights and weekends pursuing leads after covering their regular beats. A favorite line of editors was, ‘Why don’t you spend a little of your time and see what you come up with?’”

Creative Economy Report 2008: The challenge of assessing the creative economy towards informed policy-making
Source: UN Conference on Trade and Development

The so called “Creative economy” is an evolving concept based on the potential of “creative assets” to generate socio-economic growth and development, in a globalized world increasingly dominated by images, sounds, texts and symbols.

At the heart of the creative economy lie the creative industries. Loosely defined, the creative industries are at the crossroads of arts, culture, business and technology and use intellectual capital as their primary input. Today’s creative industries range from folk art, festivals, music, books, newspapers, paintings, sculptures and performing arts to more technology-intensive subsectors such as the film industry, TV and radio broadcasting, digital animation and video games, and more service-oriented fields such as architectural and advertising services.

+ Full Report (PDF; 2.5 MB)

Hat tip: UN Pulse

Why Does Popcorn Cost So Much at the Movies: An Empirical Analysis of Metering Price Discrimination
Source: Stanford Research Paper

Prices for goods such as blades for razors, ink for printers and concessions at movies are often set well above cost. This paper empirically analyzes concession sales data from a chain of Spanish theaters to demonstrate that high prices on concessions reflect a profitable price discrimination strategy often referred to as “metering price discrimination.” Concessions are found to be purchased in greater amounts by customers that place greater value on attending the theater. In other words, the intensity of demand for admission is “metered” by concession sales. This implies that while some consumers’ surplus may be reduced by the high concession prices, surplus of other consumers on the margin of attending may increase from theaters’ decisions to shift their margins away from movies and toward concessions.

+ Full Paper (PDF; 270 KB)

Newspaper Web Sites Attract Record Audiences in First Quarter
Source: Newspaper Association of America

Newspaper Web sites attracted more than 66.4 million unique visitors on average (40.7 percent of all Internet users) in the first quarter of 2008, a record number that represents a 12.3 percent increase over the same period a year ago, according to a custom analysis provided by Nielsen Online for the Newspaper Association of America.

In addition, newspaper Web site visitors generated an average of 3.1 billion page views per month throughout the quarter, compared with slightly less than three billion during the same period last year. The first quarter unique visitor and page view figures are the highest for any quarter since NAA began tracking these numbers in 2004 and the largest increase since the third quarter of 2006.

The first quarter numbers come as new research from Nielsen Online demonstrates that newspaper Web site visitors are more politically engaged than their Internet counterparts. The data also indicates that people who read newspaper Web sites are more affluent and multi-media savvy than the online audience as whole.

+ Full Report (PDF; 36 KB)

The Perils of Mandatory Parental Controls and Restrictive Defaults (PDF; 103 KB)
Source: The Progress & Freedom Foundation
From press release:

Government regulation mandating restrictive parental control defaults for media devices would likely have unintended consequences and would not achieve the goal of better protecting children from objectionable content, explains Adam Thierer in “The Perils of Mandatory Parental Controls and Restrictive Defaults.” In the Progress on Point released today by The Progress & Freedom Foundation, the author warns of unintended incentives for industry to stop investing in parental controls and of creating a false sense of security for consumers. Instead, Thierer explains that increased educational efforts would be more effective in helping parents control their child’s media consumption.

Al-Qaeda Media Nexus: The Virtual Network Behind the Global Message (PDF; 2.2 MB)
Source: Radio Free Europe

Key Findings

+ The ”original” Al-Qaeda led by Osama bin Laden accounts for a mere fraction of jihadist media production.

+ Virtual media production and distribution entities (MPDEs) link varied groups under the general ideological rubric of the global jihadist movement. The same media entities that “brand” jihadist media also create virtual links between the various armed groups that fall into the general category of Al-Qaeda and affiliated movements.

+ Three key entities connect Al-Qaeda and affiliated movements to the outside world through the internet. These three media entities — Fajr, the Global Islamic Media Front, and Sahab — receive materials from more than one armed group and post those materials to the internet.

+ Information operations intended to disrupt or undermine the effectiveness of jihadist media can and should target the media entities that brand these media and act as the virtual connective tissue of the global movement.

+ While video is an important component of jihadist media, text products comprise the bulk of the daily media flow. Within text products, periodicals focused on specific “fronts” of the jihad are an important genre that deserves more attention from researchers.

+ The vast majority of jihadist media products focus on conflict zones: Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia.

+ The priorities of the global jihadist movement, as represented by its media arm, are operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and North Africa.

+ Jihadist media are attempting to mimic a “traditional” structure in order to boost credibility and facilitate message control. While conventional wisdom holds that jihadist media have been quick to exploit technological innovations to advance their cause, they are moving toward a more structured approach based on consistent branding and quasi-official media entities. Their reasons for doing so appear to be a desire to boost the credibility of their products and ensure message control.

+ In line with this strategy, the daily flow of jihadist media that appears on the internet is consistently and systematically branded.