Media Management and Economics 2016 Abstracts
Starting up the news: The impact of venture capital on the digital news media ecosystem • Allie Kosterich, Rutgers University; Matthew Weber • Startup digital news media organizations continue to gain traction in the wake of the turbulence and rapid evolution that marked the news industry over the past few decades. The disruption of the news industry helped to generate a need for innovation and for new business models. In turn, venture capital funding proved critical to the growth of new entrants seeking to gain a foothold in the news media industry. This research explores the interaction between legacy and startup news media organizations as they struggle for scarce resources and seek to grow in the face of a changing marketplace. A rich dataset tracking key legacy and startup news media organizations in the news media industry is used to map funding activity in an effort to analyze resource allocation within the digital news media space. The insights gleaned from the analyses further understanding of the potential consequences of competition by organizations, especially regarding key questions for the business of journalism, such as factors that impact organization founding and potential triggers of organizational failure.
Expanding TV’s Measurement Monopoly: Nielsen’s Inclusion of New Media Subfields • Andrew Yost; Harsh Taneja, University of Missouri • Audience measurement markets tend to be monopolies. With audiences migrating to digital platforms conventional television audience measurement is under pressure to change. Such situations, which could lead to new niches emerging in audience measurement markets, challenge their monopolistic structure. We examine Nielsen’s response to recent development in US television through a historical institutional analysis of the trade press. We find that despite changes in audience measurement, Nielsen actually enhanced its monopoly in the digital space.
Why Are News Media on Social Media?: Explaining News Engagement on Tumblr and Digital Traffic to News Websites • Dam Hee Kim, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; Meera Desai, University of Michigan • In a digital era, news organizations, despite their financial sufferings, have been quick to embrace social media with dual purposes: to engage users with their content and to drive traffic to websites. By analyzing digital traffic of top 50 news organizations and 230,375 Tumblr posts made by these organizations, this paper examines the relationships between features of news posts and users’ engagement with news posts, and between news organizations’ activities on Tumblr and digital traffic.
Why do journalists resist change? Sense-making and change-communication in managing organizational crises • DHIMAN CHATTOPADHYAY, Bowling Green State University • “Resistance to change and innovation at the workplace is not a new phenomenon. Scholars however, have traditionally studied such developments from a top-down perspective, where resistance is presumed to be a negative force that needs to be eliminated. This study attempts instead to understand why employees, specifically journalists resist change at the workplace, how they use sense-making as a tool to negotiate meanings and resolve conflicts and the role that change-communication plays in the process. Findings indicate sense-making is used as a tool to both heighten a crisis and resolve a conflict. Further, quality of change communication (QCC) and participation in decision making (PDM) has a positive impact on reducing strategic, structural and job-related uncertainties during change processes. Implications for the field are indicated.
Integrating Data Journalism into the Newsroom: Four Phases of Organizational Restructuring • Jan Lauren Boyles, Iowa State University; Eric Meyer, Iowa State University • Similar to prior cycles of professional specialization, news organizations are encountering challenges in managing the talents and expertise of data journalists. Based upon in-depth interviews, this study identifies four phases of organizational restructuring related to the infusion of data newswork. This research finds that as practitioner specialization and task uncertainty increases, news organizations grow in structural complexity. The research also highlights the challenges and best practices related to restructuring newsrooms to promote data journalism.
Innovators or Entrepreneurs? How Students and Instructors View Entrepreneurial Journalism • Jane B. Singer, City University London; Marcel Broersma, University of Groningen • Efforts to prepare students for contemporary media work have led a growing number of universities to add entrepreneurial journalism to the curriculum. This study explores how journalism students and educators in two European countries think about entrepreneurialism. Findings suggest that while “innovation” is a more broadly palatable term, neither students nor staff are resistant to such fundamental entrepreneurial concepts as focusing on the audience, knowing about competitors, or even being savvy about business matters.
Video Game Entrepreneurship: Success Factors in Crowdfunding Campaigns for Video Games • Jiyoung Cha, San Francisco State University • Crowdfunding has become an important funding method for video game developments in the U.S. Interestingly, video game crowdfunding projects have significantly lower success rates compared to other product categories. Recognizing this challenge, this study examines factors influencing the success of crowdfunding campaigns for video games. The analysis of 447 crowdfunding campaigns suggests that human capital, geography, media choice, and the intensity of media use influence the success of crowdfunding for video games.
The Attitudinal Model of Media Firm CSR:A Focus on Additional Values, Emotional Responses to a Parent Brand, Extended Brands Attitude, and Content use Intention • Jong Woo Jun; Jungyun Won, University of Florida; Il Young Ju, University of Florida • This study investigates roles of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) images and perceptions on additional values and emotional responses to Disney and Disney Media Company. Relationships among beliefs (additional values), emotional response to the parent brand of Disney, attitudes toward extended brands of Disney, and behavioral intention related to the parent brand (content use intention) were also explored. By using four dimensions of CSR, this study tries to model the relationship with attitudinal variables of audience.
Pledge Now (To Benefit Yourself)! A Content Analysis of Pubic Radio Fundraising • Joshua Bentley, Texas Christian University • Public radio management involves fundraising management. This study uses a content analysis of a public radio pledge on two statewide networks to analyze the way public radio stations appeal to different donor motivations. The study finds that appeals to self-interest are the most common, and appeals to altruism are the least common. Also, when the programming content is news or talk, appeals tend to be more rational than when the programming content is music.
The Labor Market for University Journalism and Mass Communication Graduates: The Role of the Media Industries • Lee Becker, University of Georgia; C. Ann Hollifield, University of Georgia; Tudor Vlad, University of Georgia • The value of news content is determined by the knowledge, experience and talent of the individuals producing it. This paper examines changes in the labor market for journalists across a crucial period and concludes that the labor market from which media industries draw is largely a reflection of the overall economy. Changes in the size of the workforce, the revenue media organizations receive, and the supply of workers by educational institutions also are important forces.
A cross-country analysis of tablet PC diffusion • Sangwon Lee, Kyung Hee University; Seonmi Lee, KT Corporation; Sylvia Chan-Olmsted, University of Florida • Employing the Gompertz model, this study examines macro-level factors influencing tablet PC diffusion in 43 countries. The results suggest that tablet PC is a complement to smartphone in early diffusion of smart device; lower tablet PC price contributes to tablet PC diffusion; and high levels of social network penetration and income are drivers of initial tablet PC diffusion. The country-level study also found that tablets and smartphones are likely substitutes for traditional PCs.
The Effects of Native Advertising on Journalism Values • Seunghyun Kim, University of Oklahoma; Jocelyn Pedersen, Swansea University; Doyle Yoon, University of Oklahoma; Nazmul Rony, University of Oklahoma; Rahnuma Ahmed, University of Oklahoma • This study examined the effects of native advertising on new and traditional online news sites in terms of audience perceptions of journalism values. In addition, this study examined the moderating effects of tone of negativity on journalism values. This study found native advertising has a greater negative influence on news credibility and online news site evaluation than banner advertising when native advertising is presented adjacent to negative editorial content about sponsored brands in the new-online-news-sites condition.
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