The emergence of a few powerful individuals in control of large sections of mass communications industries has coincided with world-wide media deregulation. In this book, the authors take a close look at media moguls as a species, portray them as own-and-operate entrepreneurs who specialize in acquiring other media companies. They look at moguls based in France, Germany, Italy, Britain and the US - individuals such as Berlusconi, Hersant, Murdoch and Maxwell - and show how they adopt an idiosyncratic personal style involving the acceptance of risk and debt to retain control, and use political partizanship and alliances to further their business interests. The book considers other, non-mogul trends: the gradual integration of a world media industry, both across the Atlantic and the Pacific, the emergence of a west European media policy strongly influenced by the advertising lobby and other media industry lobbies and the transformation of Reuters into a super-agency handling both news and financial data. This book should be of interest to students and lecturers of media and communication studies as well as journalists and practitioners within the media industry.

Written for communications specialists and policy makers, this book is a penetrating examination into the rapidly changing approach of states to telecommunications regulation and planning since the divestiture of AT&T in January, 1984. The editors place particular emphasis on the conjunction between the increasing state role in developing and implementing telecommunications policy and a new interest in economic development on the part of state governments. Following a discussion of the major issues surrounding telecommunications regulation and an exploration of the links between telecommunications and economic development, the experiences of nine states are considered in separate chapters. The contributors also consider telecommunications applications for improving efficiency in state government. The result is a comprehensive look at existing trends in state telecommunications regulation that will be invaluable not only to officials and legislators, but also to students of communications policy.

Each of the nine state chapters includes a profile of the state's social and economic makeup, a description of the policy environment, a statement of regulatory policy, and and analysis of the relationship between telecommunications and economic development in that state. A number of chapters also include detailed case studies--among them a study of New York's Teleport, Nebraska's AGNET, and Washington State's 1985 Regulatory Flexibility Act. Based on their in-depth study of the nine states' experiences, the editors argue that states need to become better informed about the changing telecommunications environment and its potenial for improving efficiency in state government. In addition, both planning and regulation must be more related to economic development plans than they are currently in most states. Finally, the editors conclude that traditional state regulation of telecommunications companies is inadequate for establishing policy in this increasingly complex and important area.

Series Information:
Communication and Society

This book aims to feed into the critical debates about media, power and change through the respectful inclusion of a wide variety of critical approaches and traditions. This diversity is simultaneously structured and balanced by a deeply shared set of concerns, that are mobilised to defend core societal values including social justice, equality, fairness, care for the other and humanity. Critical Perspectives on Media, Power and Change raises questions about how the omnipresent media can contribute to the materialisation of these core values, and how it sometimes works against them. Rethinking social change, mediatisation and regulations are thus significant issues - explicitly addressed in this book. In addition the authors show how the role of the critical media and communication scholar merits and requires (self-)reflection; critical voices matter, but they also face structural limitations. This book was originally published as two special issues of Javnost - The Public.

This book focuses on the concept of "brand hate" and consumer negativity in today's digital markets. It explores the emotional detachment consumers generate against valued brands and how negative experiences affect their and other consumers' loyalty. It is almost impossible not to run into hateful language about companies and their brands in today's digital consumption spaces. Consumer hostility and hate is not hidden and silent anymore but is now openly shared on many online anti-brand websites, consumer social networking sites, and complaint and review boards. The book defines consumer brand hate and discusses its dimensions, antecedents, and consequences as well as the semiotics and legality of such brand hate activities based on current brand dilution arguments. It describes the situations which lead to anti-branding and how consumers choose to express their dissatisfaction with a company on individual and social levels. This newly updated edition discusses recent research findings from brand hate literature with new cases and extended managerial analysis. Thus, the book provides strategic perspectives on how to handle such situations to achieve better functioning markets for scholars and practitioners in marketing, psychology, and consumer behavior.

Originally published in 1983. This book presents a description and critical analysis of the communication systems and policy at the time in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, the Federal Republic of Germany, Sweden, Australia and New Zealand. It examines the technological and cultural forces shaping policy and communications development, and begins with a chapter presenting a review of the international context and of the conceptual frameworks suggested by scholars concerned with communication policy. Other chapters highlight the common trends among countries, and analyses the unique nature of policy and communications development in each country based on its cultural foundation. All the contributions reflect a common theme which relates to the two distinct sources from which a nation's communication policy can be studied - official statements about goals and means, and observable results of communication decisions and practices.

Get the most out of ACDs (automatic call distributors) and other complex systems in order to boost customer satisfaction and increase sales Includes three ready to use RFPs (request for proposals) for buying an ACD, computer telephony system, or recording

This book offers a comprehensive overview of Japan's media policies. In light of the attention Japanese media content has attracted in recent years, not only in Japan but also overseas, the book examines the media industry that supports such content. Beginning with the traditional terrestrial broadcasting industry, it also covers cable TV, satellite broadcasting, and over-the-top media services (OTT), as well as media policies for film, animation, games and music. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), a key media industry regulator in Japan, has been developing broadcasting policies for more than 70 years, and while their traditional policies have not changed in principle, the scope of their business sphere has expanded. For instance, major broadcasting stations in Tokyo, known as key stations, have played an important role in filmmaking with the big four film companies, and have started joint ventures with major OTT, such as Hulu. This book allows readers to gain a comprehensive understanding of the changes in the Japanese media industry in general and the related policies in Japan, while also offering insights into developments in the individual sectors.

Specialists in cultural policy draw on many scholarly literatures and traditions, including but not limited to, media and communication studies, history, sociology, politics, arts management, geography, and cultural studies. Now, this new four-volume collection from Routledge brings together the key texts that form the background, context, and basis for a sophisticated understanding of the topic, materials that have hitherto been scattered throughout a variety of specialist journals and books. Cultural Policy offers advanced students and established researchers alike a comprehensive and carefully ordered 'mini library' of the subject's major works.

This collection brings together the work of a range of scholars from around the world with different perspectives on one simple question: How can we assess the value of various entertainment products and forms? Entertainment is everywhere. The industries that produce it earn billions of dollars each year and employ hundreds of thousands of people. Its pervasiveness means almost everyone has something to say about entertainment, too, whether it be our opinion on the latest Hollywood blockbuster, a new celebrity couple, or our concerns over its place in the world of politics. And yet, in spite of its significance, entertainment has too-often been dismissed with surprising ease within the academy as a 'mindless', 'lowbrow' - even 'dangerous' - form of culture, and therefore unworthy of serious appraisal (let alone praise). Entertainment Values, challenges this assumption, offering a better understanding of what entertainment is, why we should take it seriously, as well as helping us to appreciate the significant and complex impact it has on our culture.

From early first-wave programs such as Candid Camera, An American Family, and The Real World to the shows on our television screens and portable devices today, reality television consistently takes us to cities-such as New York, Los Angeles, and Boston-to imagine the place of urbanity in American culture and society. Jon Kraszewski offers the first extended account of this phenomenon, as he makes the politics of urban space the center of his history and theory of reality television. Kraszewski situates reality television in a larger economic transformation that started in the 1980s when America went from an industrial economy, when cities were home to all classes, to its post-industrial economy as cities became key points in a web of global financing, expelling all economic classes except the elite and the poor. Reality television in the industrial era reworked social relationships based on class, race, and gender for liberatory purposes, which resulted in an egalitarian ethos in the genre. However, reality television of the post-industrial era attempts to convince viewers that cities still serve their interests, even though most viewers find city life today economically untenable. Each chapter uses a key theoretical concept from spatial theory-such as power geometries, diasporic nostalgia, orientalism, the imagination of social expulsions, and the relationship between the country and the city-to illuminate the way reality television engages this larger transformation of urban space in America.

Food Information, Communication and Education analyses the role of different media in producing and transforming knowledge about food. 'Eating knowledge', or knowledge about food and food practice, is a central theme of cooking classes, the daily press, school textbooks, social media, popular magazines and other media. In addition, a wide variety of actors have taken on the responsibility of informing and educating the public about food, including food producers, advertising agencies, celebrity chefs, teachers, food bloggers and government institutions. Featuring a range of European case studies, this interdisciplinary collection advances our understanding of the processes of mediatization, circulation and reception of knowledge relating to food within specific social environments. Topics covered include: popularized knowledge about food carried over from past to present; the construction of trustworthy knowledge in today's food risk society; critical assessment of nutrition education initiatives for children; and political and ideological implications of food information policy and practice.