The regulation of professional advertising practices in Spain, 1988–2013

From the perspective of the sociology of professions, every professional activity should have its own clearly circumscribed and regulated sphere of action. Such an articulation facilitates the regulation of the production of a given profession as well as the way in which it is practiced. The purpose of the research reported here was to provide a comprehensive review and evaluation of the regulatory framework governing the advertising sector in Spain. To this end, the authors analysed external regulatory legislation and self-regulatory codes extracted from the data base of the Asociación para la Autoregulación de la Comunicación Comercial (Autocontrol) that had been enacted or adopted between 1988, the year that Law 11/1998 on General Telecommunications entered into force, and 2003 as well as other relevant documents retrieved from the Boletin Oficial del Estado (BOE) pertaining to the same period. Findings indicate that although there has been a groundswell of legislation governing advertising practices in Spain since 1988, especially at the regional level, lawmakers have focused on the content of advertising messages and shown very little interest in regulating the professions of advertising and public relations. Furthermore, Spanish legislation enacted in 2003 and EU policies appear to have encouraged the adoption of voluntary codes of ethics. Sectors traditionally subject to mandatory advertising regulation, either due to the vulnerability of their target audiences or the potential impact of their commercial messages on public health or the environment, are more likely to develop self-regulatory codes of conduct than others

Newspaper production techniques : an aid in preparing and designing a modern publication /

Bibliography: p. 45-47.

Spatial distribution and morphometric analysis of thermokarst lakes and other water bodies : Case study from the sporadic permafrost region, Tavvavuoma, Sweden

Projected air and ground temperatures are expected to be higher in Arctic and sub-Arcticlatitudes and with temperatures already close to the limit where permafrost can exist,resistance against degradation is low. With thawing permafrost, the landscape is modifiedwith depression in which thermokarst lakes emerge. In permafrost soils a considerableamount of soil organic carbon is stored, with the potential of altering climate even furtherif expansion and formation of new thermokarst lakes emerge, as decay releasesgreenhouse gases (C02 and CH4) to the atmosphere. Analyzing the spatial distribution andmorphometry over time of thermokarst lakes and other water bodies, is of importance inaccurately predict carbon budget and feedback mechanisms, as well as to assess futurelandscape layout and these features interaction. Different types of high-spatial resolutionaerial and satellite imageries from 1963, 1975, 2003, 2010 and 2015, were used in bothpre- and post-classification change detection analyses. Using object oriented segmentationin eCognition combined with manual adjustments, resulted in digitalized water bodies>28m2 from which direction of change and morphometric values were extracted. Thequantity of thermokarst lakes and other water bodies was in 1963 n=92, with succeedingyears as a trend decreased in numbers, until 2010-2015 when eleven water bodies wereadded in 2015 (n=74 to n=85). In 1963-2003, area of these water bodies decreased with50 651m2 (189 446-138 795m2) and continued to decrease in 2003-2015 ending at 129337m2. Limnicity decreased from 19.9% in 1963 to 14.6% in 2003 (-5.3%). In 2010 and2015 13.7-13.6%. The late increase in water bodies differs from an earlier hypothesis thatsporadic permafrost regions experience decrease in both area and quantity of thermokarstlakes and water bodies. During 1963-2015, land gain has been in dominance of the ratiobetween the two competing processes of expansion and drainage. In 1963-1975, 55/45%,followed by 90/10% in 1975-2003. After major drainage events, land loss increased to62/38% in 2010-2015. Drainage and infilling rates, calculated for 15 shorelines werevaried across both landscape and parts of shorelines, with in average 0.17/0.15/0.14m/yr.Except for 1963-1975 when rate of change in average was in opposite direction (-0.09m/yr.), likely due to evident expansion of a large thermokarst lake. Using a squaregrid, distribution of water bodies was determined, with an indistinct cluster located in NEand central parts. Especially for water bodies <250m2, which is the dominant area classthroughout 1963-2015 ranging from n=39-51. With a heterogeneous composition of bothsmall and large thermokarst lakes, and with both expansion and drainage altering thelandscape in Tavvavuoma, both positive and negative climate feedback mechanisms are inplay - given that sporadic permafrost still exist.

Precolonial agricultural terracing in Bokoni, South Africa : Typology and an exploratory excavation

Earlier work on the terraced settlements of the Bokoni area (16th to 19th century, Mpumalanga province, South Africa) focussed on the homesteads, their contents, layout and chronology. This paper suggests a terminology and typology of agrarian structures in Bokoni in order to improve comparative approaches in Africa and beyond. The typology and an excavation of the terracing have made possible preliminary conclusions relevant for the further analysis of the terracing and stone-walling in Bokoni. The terracing developed incrementally, whereby cultivation, stone-clearing and terracing were intermixed processes. This is supported both by the organic content in a section of a terrace and by a phytolith analysis. The phytolith analysis furthermore indicated that maize was cultivated on the terraces, but this should be seen as a pilot study only, and presence of maize in Bokoni must be tested with other archaeobotanical methods.

Why do firms invest in consumer advertising with limited sales response? A shareholder perspective

Marketing managers increasingly recognize the need to measure and communicate the impact of their actions on shareholder returns. This study focuses on the shareholder value effects of pharmaceutical direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) and direct-to-physician (DTP) marketing efforts. Although DTCA has moderate effects on brand sales and market share, companies invest vast amounts of money in it. Relying on Kalman filtering, the authors develop a methodology to assess the effects from DTCA and DTP on three components of shareholder value: stock return, systematic risk, and idiosyncratic risk. Investors value DTCA positively because it leads to higher stock returns and lower systematic risk. Furthermore, DTCA increases idiosyncratic risk, which does not affect investors who maintain well-diversified portfolios. In contrast, DTP marketing has modest positive effects on stock returns and idiosyncratic risk. The outcomes indicate that evaluations of marketing expenditures should include a consideration of the effects of marketing on multiple stakeholders, not just the sales effects on consumers.

O2 v Hutchison 3G comparative advertising:European trade mark law beyond compare?

Legislation: Directive 89/104 on trade marks art.5 Directive 84/450 on misleading advertising Directive 97/55 amending Directive 84/450 concerning misleading advertising so as to include comparative advertising Case: O2 Holdings Ltd v Hutchison 3G UK Ltd (C-533/06) [2008] E.C.R. I-4231 (ECJ (1st Chamber)) *Comms. L. 155 Long, long ago a trade mark allowed a craftsman to be identified and held accountable for shoddy goods. Today in the era of the ‘Lovemark,’1 due to extensive advertising hopes and aspirations a lifestyle can be purchased with a brand. For many products a trademark is no longer merely a badge of origin but has a commercial value of its own. Through advertising an emotional attachment is created in the heart of the consumer for particular brands. Brand owners are determined that the value of this attachment be preserved and protected against any encroachment into the aura that has been painstakingly created. Comparative advertising, the allusive use of a mark, is seen by the owners of such emotive brands as likely to jeopardise the character of the brand that they have so carefully nurtured. As they have invested so heavily in creating their concept these owners want to control its use by others. There is an issue however as to how far this control ought to extend when the image is used in the marketing of a rival's goods or services.

Optimization of Advertising Resources over Time: A Strategic Analysis

AMS subject classification: 90B60, 90B50, 90A80.

A content analysis of food and nutrition television advertisements

Television (TV) reaches more people than any other medium which makes it an important source of health information. Since TV ads often offer information obliquely, this study investigated implied health messages found in food and nutrition TV ads. The goals were to determine the proportion of food and nutrition ads among all TV advertising and to use content analysis to identify their implied messages and health claims. A randomly selected sample of TV ads were collected over a 28-day period beginning May 8, 1987. The sample contained 3547 ads; 725 (20%) were food-related. All were analyzed. About 10% of food-related TV ads contained a health claim. Twenty-five representative ads of the 725 food ads were also reviewed by 10 dietitians to test the reliability of the instrument. Although the dietitians agreed upon whether a health claim existed in a televised food ad, their agreement was poor when evaluating the accuracy of the claim. The number of food-related ads dropped significantly on Saturday, but the number of alcohol ads rose sharply on Saturday and Sunday. Snack ads were shown more often on Thursday, but snack commercials were also numerous on Saturday morning and afternoon, as were cereal ads. Ads for snack foods accounted for the greatest proportion of ads (20%) while fast food accounted for only 7%. Alcohol constituted about 9% of all food and nutrition ads.

Demonstration against Olivetti because of sexist advertising against women

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Demonstration against Olivetti because of sexist advertising against women

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

The Material Dynamics of a London-French Blog: A Multimodal Reading of Migrant Habitus

Through a fine-grained reading of a London-French blog, this article aims to shed light on the lived experience of the French community in London. The ethnosemiotic conceptual framework brings together ethnographic and semiotic schools of thought, focusing in particular on Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus and Gunther Kress’s multimodal social semiotic analytical model. Habitus is broken down into its material manifestations of habitat, habit and habituation, all displayed in the blog and revealing of the blogger’s identity and positioning within the migration setting. As all modes are considered to be of equal semiotic potential, equivalent emphasis is placed on the multiple modes of meaning-making present in the blog, such as layout, colour, typography and language. By examining the dynamic relationships between blogger and audience, subjectivity and objectivity, on-line and on-land habitus, and intermodal dynamics themselves, through the prism of multimodality, hidden facets of the blogger’s cultural identity and sense of community belonging within the diasporic context begin to materialise.

Non-conventional advertising formats in television versus spots: An analysis based on the generated recall

Advertising investment and audience figures indicate that television continues to lead as a mass advertising medium. However, its effectiveness is questioned due to problems such as zapping, saturation and audience fragmentation. This has favoured the development of non-conventional advertising formats. This study provides empirical evidence for the theoretical development. This investigation analyzes the recall generated by four non-conventional advertising formats in a real environment: short programme (branded content), television sponsorship, internal and external telepromotion versus the more conventional spot. The methodology employed has integrated secondary data with primary data from computer assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) were performed ad-hoc on a sample of 2000 individuals, aged 16 to 65, representative of the total television audience. Our findings show that non-conventional advertising formats are more effective at a cognitive level, as they generate higher levels of both unaided and aided recall, in all analyzed formats when compared to the spot.

Machine learning classification of surgical pathology reports and chunk recognition for information extraction noise reduction

Background and aims: Machine learning techniques for the text mining of cancer-related clinical documents have not been sufficiently explored. Here some techniques are presented for the pre-processing of free-text breast cancer pathology reports, with the aim of facilitating the extraction of information relevant to cancer staging.

Materials and methods: The first technique was implemented using the freely available software RapidMiner to classify the reports according to their general layout: ‘semi-structured’ and ‘unstructured’. The second technique was developed using the open source language engineering framework GATE and aimed at the prediction of chunks of the report text containing information pertaining to the cancer morphology, the tumour size, its hormone receptor status and the number of positive nodes. The classifiers were trained and tested respectively on sets of 635 and 163 manually classified or annotated reports, from the Northern Ireland Cancer Registry.

Results: The best result of 99.4% accuracy – which included only one semi-structured report predicted as unstructured – was produced by the layout classifier with the k nearest algorithm, using the binary term occurrence word vector type with stopword filter and pruning. For chunk recognition, the best results were found using the PAUM algorithm with the same parameters for all cases, except for the prediction of chunks containing cancer morphology. For semi-structured reports the performance ranged from 0.97 to 0.94 and from 0.92 to 0.83 in precision and recall, while for unstructured reports performance ranged from 0.91 to 0.64 and from 0.68 to 0.41 in precision and recall. Poor results were found when the classifier was trained on semi-structured reports but tested on unstructured.

Conclusions: These results show that it is possible and beneficial to predict the layout of reports and that the accuracy of prediction of which segments of a report may contain certain information is sensitive to the report layout and the type of information sought.

Web Knowledge and Web Governance: WAIS PhD Research Reports

Abstract This seminar consists of two very different research reports by PhD students in WAIS. Hypertext Engineering, Fettling or Tinkering (Mark Anderson): Contributors to a public hypertext such as Wikipedia do not necessarily record their maintenance activities, but some specific hypertext features - such transclusion - could indicate deliberate editing with a mind to the hypertext’s long-term use. The MediaWiki software used to create Wikipedia supports transclusion, a deliberately hypertextual form of content creation which aids long terms consistency. This discusses the evidence of the use of hypertext transclusion in Wikipedia, and its implications for the coherence and stability of Wikipedia. Designing a Public Intervention - Towards a Sociotechnical Approach to Web Governance (Faranak Hardcastle): In this talk I introduce a critical and speculative design for a socio-technical intervention -called TATE (Transparency and Accountability Tracking Extension)- that aims to enhance transparency and accountability in Online Behavioural Tracking and Advertising mechanisms and practices.