Rating the Audience : the Business of Media

Knowing, measuring and understanding media audiences have become a multi-billion dollar business. But the convention that underpins that business, audience ratings, is in crisis. Rating the Audience is the first book to show why and how audience ratings research became a convention, an agreement, and the first to interrogate the ways that agreement is now under threat. Taking a historical approach, the book looks at the evolution of audience ratings and the survey industry. It goes on to analyse today's media environment, looking at the role of the internet and the increased difficulties it presents for measuring audiences. The book covers all the major players and controversies, such as Facebook's privacy rulings and Google's alliance with Nielsen. Offering the first real comparative study, it will be critical for media students and professionals.

Interaction between a strategic mass media firm and a government

Resumen: Este artículo intenta teorizar acerca de la dinámica entre los medios masivos de comunicación y los gobiernos de los países latinoamericanos. Si bien en la última década los gobiernos atacaron públicamente a los medios de comunicación, se afirma que no se dio por las razones que dicen, sino más bien por asuntos económicos. Por lo tanto, se ha diseñado un modelo utilizando el método de “principal” vs “incumbente”, donde se alcanzará un equilibrio de Nash perfecto en subjuegos. Además de esto, se realiza un repaso por la literatura conocida, y concluye señalando las fortalezas y debilidades del modelo propuesto.

Cultural citizenship and its implications for citizenship education: Chinese university students’ civic experience in relation to mass media and the university citizenship curriculum

A growing body of research has argued that university citizenship curricula are inefficient in promoting civic participation, while there is a tendency towards a broader citizenship understanding and new forms of civic engagements and citizenship learning in everyday life. The notion of cultural citizenship in this thesis concentrates on media practices’ relation to civic expression and civic engagement. This research thus argues that not enough attention has been paid to the effects of citizenship education policy on students and students’ active citizenship learning in China. This thesis examines the civic experience of university students in China in the parallel contexts of widespread adoption of mass media and of university citizenship education courses, which have been explicitly mandatory for promoting civic morality education in Chinese universities since 2007. This research project raises significant questions about the meditating influences of these two contexts on students’ perceptions of civic knowledge and civic participation, with particular interest to examine whether and how the notion of cultural citizenship could be applied in the Chinese context and whether it could provide certain implications for citizenship education in China. University students in one university in Beijing contributed to this research by providing both quantitative and qualitative data collected from mixed-methods research. 212 participants contributed to the questionnaire data collection and 12 students took part in interviews. Guided by the theoretical framework of cultural citizenship, a central focus of this study is to explore whether new forms of civic engagement and civic learning and a new direction of citizenship understanding can be identified among university students’ mass media use. The study examines the patterns of students’ mass media use and its relationship to civic participation, and also explores the ways in which mass media shape students and how they interact and perform through the media use. In addition, this study discusses questions about how national context, citizenship tradition and civic education curricula relate to students’ civic perceptions, civic participation and civic motivation in their enactment of cultural citizenship. It thus tries to provide insights and identify problems associated with citizenship courses in Chinese universities. The research finds that Chinese university students can also identify civic issues and engage in civic participation through the influence of mass media, thus indicating the application of cultural citizenship in the wider higher education arena in China. In particular, the findings demonstrate that students’ citizenship knowledge has been influenced by their entertainment experiences with TV programs, social networks and movies. However, the study argues that the full enactment of cultural citizenship in China is conditional with regards to characteristics related to two prerequisites: the quality of participation and the influence of the public sphere in the Chinese context. Most students in the study are found to be inactive civic participants in their everyday lives, especially in political participation. Students express their willingness to take part in civic activities, but they feel constrained by both the current citizenship education curriculum in universities and the strict national policy framework. They mainly choose to accept ideological and political education for the sake of personal development rather than to actively resist it, however, they employ creative ways online to express civic opinions and conduct civic discussion. This can be conceptualised as the cultural dimension of citizenship observed from students who are not passively prescribed by traditional citizenship but who have opportunities to build their own civic understanding in everyday life. These findings lead to the conclusion that the notion of cultural citizenship not only provides a new mode of civic learning for Chinese students but also offers a new direction for configuring citizenship in China. This study enriches the existing global literature on cultural citizenship by providing contemporary evidence from China which is a developing democratic country, as well as offering useful information for Chinese university practitioners, policy makers and citizenship researchers on possible directions for citizenship understanding and citizenship education. In particular, it indicates that it is important for efforts to be made to generate a culture of authentic civic participation for students in the university as well as to promote the development of the public sphere in the community and the country generally.

Europe and the Media: Building a new kind of Europe; is mass media the key?

The book is a joint effort of eight academics and journalists, Europe specialists from six countries (Australia, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, the United Kingdom and the United States). They give sometimes divergent views on the future of the so-called “European Project”, for building a common European economy and society, but agree that cultural changes, especially changes experienced through mass media, are rapidly taking place. One of the central interests of the book is the operation of the large media centre located at the European Commission in Brussels – the world’s largest gallery of permanently accredited correspondents. Jacket notes: The Lisbon Treaty of December 2009 is the latest success of the European Union’s drive to restructure and expand; yet questions persist about how democratic this new Europe might be. Will Brussels’ promotion of the “European idea” produce a common European culture and society? The authors consider it might, as a culture of everyday shared experience, though old ways are cherished, citizens forever thinking twice about committing to an uncertain future. The book focuses on mass media , as a prime agent of change, sometimes used deliberately to promote a “European project”; sometimes acting more naturally as a medium for new agendas. It looks at proposed media models for Europe, ranging from not very successful pan-European television, to the potentials of media systems based on national markets, and new media based on digital formats. It also studies the Brussels media service, the centre operated by the European Commission, which is the world’s largest concentration of journalists; and ways that dominant national media may come to serve the interests of communities now extending across frontiers. Europe and the Media notes change especially as encountered by new EU member countries of central and eastern Europe.

New media services : ratings and recommendations websites in the travel and tourism industry

The travel and hospitality industry is one which relies especially crucially on word of mouth, both at the level of overall destinations (Australia, Queensland, Brisbane) and at the level of travellers’ individual choices of hotels, restaurants, sights during their trips. The provision of such word-of-mouth information has been revolutionised over the past decade by the rise of community-based Websites which allow their users to share information about their past and future trips and advise one another on what to do or what to avoid during their travels. Indeed, the impact of such user-generated reviews, ratings, and recommendations sites has been such that established commercial travel advisory publishers such as Lonely Planet have experienced a pronounced downturn in sales ¬– unless they have managed to develop their own ways of incorporating user feedback and contributions into their publications. This report examines the overall significance of ratings and recommendation sites to the travel industry, and explores the community, structural, and business models of a selection of relevant ratings and recommendations sites. We identify a range of approaches which are appropriate to the respective target markets and business aims of these organisations, and conclude that there remain significant opportunities for further operators especially if they aim to cater for communities which are not yet appropriately served by specific existing sites. Additionally, we also point to the increasing importance of connecting stand-alone ratings and recommendations sites with general social media spaces like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and of providing mobile interfaces which enable users to provide updates and ratings directly from the locations they happen to be visiting. In this report, we profile the following sites: * TripAdvisor, the international market leader for travel ratings and recommendations sites, with a membership of some 11 million users; * IgoUgo, the other leading site in this field, which aims to distinguish itself from the market leader by emphasising the quality of its content; * Zagat, a long-established publisher of restaurant guides which has translated its crowdsourcing model from the offline to the online world; * Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree site, which attempts to respond to the rise of these travel communities by similarly harnessing user-generated content; * Stayz, which attempts to enhance its accommodation search and booking services by incorporating ratings and reviews functionality; and * BigVillage, an Australian-based site attempting to cater for a particularly discerning niche of travellers; * Dopplr, which connects travel and social networking in a bid to pursue the lucrative market of frequent and business travellers; * Foursquare, which builds on its mobile application to generate a steady stream of ‘check-ins’ and recommendations for hospitality and other services around the world; * Suite 101, which uses a revenue-sharing model to encourage freelance writers to contribute travel writing (amongst other genres of writing); * Yelp, the global leader in general user-generated product review and recommendation services. In combination, these profiles provide an overview of current developments in the travel ratings and recommendations space (and beyond), and offer an outlook for further possibilities. While no doubt affected by the global financial downturn and the reduction in travel that it has caused, travel ratings and recommendations remain important – perhaps even more so if a reduction in disposable income has resulted in consumers becoming more critical and discerning. The aggregated word of mouth from many tens of thousands of travellers which these sites provide certainly has a substantial influence on their users. Using these sites to research travel options has now become an activity which has spread well beyond the digirati. The same is true also for many other consumer industries, especially where there is a significant variety of different products available – and so, this report may also be read as a case study whose findings are able to be translated, mutatis mutandis, to purchasing decisions from household goods through consumer electronics to automobiles.

Socioeconomic position and mass media campaigns to prevent chronic disease

This cross-sectional study of a 45 to 60 year old Brisbane population examined socioeconomic differences in campaign reach, understanding of health language, and effectiveness, of a recent mass media health promotion campaign. Lower socioeconomic groups were reached significantly less and understood significantly less of the health language than higher socioeconomic groups thus contributing to the widening of the health inequality gap.

The importance of science fiction and other STEM-related mass media in young people’s decisions to enrol in university STEM courses

This paper presents Australian results from the Interests and Recruitment in Science (IRIS) study with respect to the influence of STEM-related mass media, including science fiction, on students’ decisions to enrol in university STEM courses. The study found that across the full cohort (N=2999), students tended to attribute far greater influence to science-related documentaries/channels such as Life on Earth and the Discovery Channel, etc. than to science-fiction movies or STEM-related TV dramas. Males were more inclined than females to consider science fiction/fantasy books and films and popular science books/magazines as having been important in their decisions. Students taking physics/astronomy tended to rate the importance of science fiction/fantasy books and films higher than students in other courses. The implications of these results for our understanding of influences on STEM enrolments are discussed.

Mass media and polarisation processes in the bounded confidence model of opinion dynamics

This paper presents a social simulation in which we add an additional layer of mass media communication to the social network 'bounded confidence' model of Deffuant et al (2000). A population of agents on a lattice with continuous opinions and bounded confidence adjust their opinions on the basis of binary social network interactions between neighbours or communication with a fixed opinion. There are two mechanisms for interaction. 'Social interaction' occurs between neighbours on a lattice and 'mass communication' adjusts opinions based on an agent interacting with a fixed opinion. Two new variables are added, polarisation: the degree to which two mass media opinions differ, and broadcast ratio: the number of social interactions for each mass media communication. Four dynamical regimes are observed, fragmented, double extreme convergence, a state of persistent opinion exchange leading to single extreme convergence and a disordered state. Double extreme convergence is found where agents are less willing to change opinion and mass media communications are common or where there is moderate willingness to change opinion and a high frequency of mass media communications. Single extreme convergence is found where there is moderate willingness to change opinion and a lower frequency of mass media communication. A period of persistent opinion exchange precedes single extreme convergence, it is characterized by the formation of two opposing groups of opinion separated by a gradient of opinion exchange. With even very low frequencies of mass media communications this results in a move to central opinions followed by a global drift to one extreme as one of the opposing groups of opinion dominates. A similar pattern of findings is observed for Neumann and Moore neighbourhoods.

Decisionmaking in a glass house : mass media, public opinion, and American and European foreign policy in the 21st century

"Decisionmaking in a Glass House: Mass Media, Public Opinion, and American and European Foreign Policy in the 21st Century" edited by Brigitte L. Nacos, Robert Y. Shapiro and Pierangelo Isernia is reviewed.

Do mass media campaigns capture and describe the experience of stroke symptoms?

Introduction: In 2006, the National Stroke Foundation of Australia launched the FAST (Face, Arm, Speech)/ Signs of Stroke (SOS) (5 symptom categories) campaigns designed to improve public awareness of stroke symptoms and the sense of urgency to present to hospital. However, there is little published review of how well such campaigns capture and describe the experience of stroke. This study aims to examine the awareness, content and language of the FAST/SOS campaigns by those experiencing stroke symptoms.
Methods: Interviews were conducted with either the stroke patient or a witness (incapacitated patients) whilst an inpatient at Box Hill or Maroondah Hospitals between August 2006 through April 2008. They were asked to describe awareness of campaigns, symptoms experienced (recorded verbatim and coded into campaign symptom categories) and to evaluate the descriptions of “Signs of Stroke” against their own experience (exact, somewhat, or not at all).
Results: Of 239 eligible stroke cases, 167 (70%) were interviewed (100 patients and 67 witnesses). Few (n= 20, 12%) were aware of the FAST campaign and only 16% recalled all three symptoms. Most recalled that it was “something” to do with the face, however facial droop (n=6) was less commonly experienced compared to speech impairments (n=16) and arm drift (n=13). FAST symptoms detected 84% (patients 77% and witnesses 94%) and SOS symptoms 100% of stroke patients. Patients not describing a FAST symptom (n=27) described: arm or hand numbness; hand incoordination; leg impairments; vision disturbances; or collapse. Approximately, half of patients and witnesses thought the SOS descriptions of the most commonly detected symptoms (arm/leg/face weakness or paralysis or numbness and speech impairments) exactly described the experience. Common language used to describe symptoms were: incoordination of hands or limbs; sudden difficulty walking; drooped/dropped face or mouth; slurred or loss of speech; pins and needles or tingling.
Conclusion: Both campaigns identified symptoms most commonly detected in those experiencing and reacting to symptoms. Both campaigns could portray symptoms more realistically using common descriptors without impacting on the simplicity of the messages