New Media, Professional Sport and Political Economy

New media technologies are seen to be changing the production, delivery and consumption of professional sports and creating a new dynamic between sports fans, athletes, clubs, governing bodies and the mainstream media. However, as Bellamy and McChesney (2011) have pointed out, advances in digital technologies are taking place within social, political, and economic contexts that are strongly conditioning the course and shape of this communication revolution. This essay assesses the first wave of research on professional sport and new media technologies and concludes that early trends indicate the continuation of existing neoliberal capitalist tendencies within professional sport. Using the concept of political economy, the essay explores issues of ownership, structure, production and delivery of sport. Discussion focuses on the opportunities sports fans now have available to them and how sports organization and media corporations shifted from an initial position of uncertainty, that bordered on hostility, to one which has seen them embrace new media technologies as powerful marketing tools. The essay concludes by stating as fundamental the issues of ownership and control and advocates that greater cognizance be accorded to underlying economic structures and the enduring, all-pervasive power of neoliberal capitalism and its impact in professional sport

Sport and the Media

A new chapter on Sport and the Media covering why media sport matters, the political economy of media sport, representation and meaning in media sport and sports journalism and issues of communication power. This is the third edition of a highly respected collection of essays on sport and society

The Emergence of Community Radio in the United States: A Historical Examination of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, 1970 to 1990

The National Federation of Community Broadcasters is the oldest and largest organization of community-oriented, nonprofit radio stations in the United States. Nevertheless, only a handful of scholars have considered the NFCB and its place in the history of mass media in the U.S. In the years leading up to and following the establishment of the NFCB in 1975, the public policy environment that guided the activities noncommercial radio, and all of American mass media, changed dramatically. This study provides a historical account of the NFCB during these formative years, and examines the political, economic, and social forces that propelled the organization during this period. The study examines the conflicts of idealism and realism, intention and action that shaped the NFCB in its first years, and delineates the relationship of the NFCB to the political economy of mass communications media in the U.S. The study explores the role of dissent in the prevailing political economy of communication, and demonstrates how issues of power unfolded in one sector of American broadcasting. The study relies on qualitative and historical methods, employing a combination of document analysis and in-depth interviews to gain a broad understanding of the origins and evolution of the NFCB. The study demonstrates the decisive power and control over the political economy of public broadcasting in the United States held by the U.S. Congress, and the efficacy of the open marketplace for public radio programming envisioned by the founders of the NFCB. The study addresses one of the significant historical controversies in American community radio, finding that contemporary Low Power FM radio services have benefited from the policies advocated by the NFCB in the 1980s. The study concludes that community broadcasters provided the talents, knowledge, skills, and abilities to push public radio in new directions, to become more open to change and more responsive to listeners. In the process, the National Federation of Community Broadcasters moved from the margins to the mainstream of public radio policymaking in the United States

Economic Inequalities and Mediated Communication

One of the most significant economic developments over the past decades has been the rise in income and wealth inequality. After decades of benign neglect, the issues of economic and social inequalities have reentered the stage of mainstream political attention in the Western heartland over the past couple of years. This is due, in part, to the high public profile of publications by Thomas Piketty and Tony Atkinson. In line with the growing significance of deepening economic inequalities, this Special Section engages with two broad, if overlapping, questions: (1) How do new forms of economic inequality, power, and privilege relate to relevant theories and conceptualizations of the media and institutions of public communication, whether in the fields of communication studies or political economy? (2) What role do the new forms of economic inequality play today in the typical narratives of mediated communication, and how is such inequality framed and discussed

The Digital Yuan and the BeiDou Satellite System: China’s Increasing Structural Power in an Interdependent World

For decades, concerns over a rise of a powerful China have dominated mainstream media. China\u27s unprecedented economic ascent, growing voice in global decisions, and publicized industrial plans like Made in China 2025, have propelled the nation to the center of the world stage. In my thesis, I break down this subject to examine how China is attempting to increase its structural power and create new interdependencies through the buildup of certain networked technologies. Guided by foundational international political economy literature regarding structural power and interdependence, I explore the implications of two technological advancements: China\u27s digital yuan (DCEP), and the BeiDou satellite system on global interdependency structures. Although faced with limitations regarding international buy-in, China\u27s use of both the BeiDou satellite system and the DCEP systems poses credible threats to the postwar power systems dominated by the United States and could redistribute global power

Media, Journalism, and the Public Sphere in Private Family Ownership: On the Critique of the Political Economy of Capitalist Media Enterprises

In the context of a Critique of the Political Economy of the Media, this article exemplifies the fundamental effects of the globally dominant capitalist private ownership of media companies on media development, journalism, and the public sphere. Selected works by Marx and Engels as well as works from developments of the approaches of the "New Reading of Marx" and "Western Marxism" form the theoretical-methodological basis. Characteristic of capitalism is a mutually conditioning relationship between the socio-economic base and the political-legal superstructure, which makes the "abolition" of private property and the associated relations of domination and power almost impossible. Therefore, possibilities of a de-capitalisation and de-commodification of journalism and the public sphere based on non-capitalist forms of ownership will be discussed. A special chance of realisation is seen for academic publications without capitalist publishing houses that is feasible because knowledge production takes place at public universities. Finally, a change of strategy is suggested that takes us out of the bourgeois-liberal trap of criticism and hope towards the development of media and social theories as well as humans' active participation in the organisation of an independent content-based media praxis, which can be conducive to a transformation towards a socialist societal formation

Proletariat Digital dalam Citizen Journalism: Kasus Kompasiana

The trend of citizen journalism in Indonesia has increased since the emergence of amateur videos of the Aceh tsunami in 2004. This is considered as a momentum of new democracy in media because it allows public to independently produce and disseminate information without being intervened by agendasetting of mainstream media. The power of publication was seen to shift from mainstream media to personal ones. However, this trend of citizen journalism changed as it begun to be co-opted by mainstream media in the form of a user-generated content platform in 2008. This paper examines changes in citizen journalism which is managed by mainstream media by focusing on Kompasiana of Kompas Gramedia Group as its unit of analysis. Using Van Djik’s Critical Discourse Analysis and Marxist political economy of media as theoretical approach, it shows that the involvement of mainstream media in citizen journalism is not only seen as a collaboration, but also construction of digital labor. This can be explained by looking at three aspects of Kompasiana commodification practices: regulations, wages, and working hours

Small Words, Weighty Matters: Gossip, Knowledge and Libel in Early Republican China, 1916-1928

In the years following the death of the autocratic ruler Yuan Shikai (1859-1916), the flow of gossip surrounding political leaders in China’s urban spheres revealed an open, disorderly yet robust arena full of competing voices, agendas, and manipulations. My dissertation examines gossip as both a new body of public political knowledge and a means of popular participation in this politically-fragmented and transitional era. On the one hand, this body of political knowledge engaged a wide spectrum of Chinese society engaged with this body of political knowledge, and which fostered an uncontrolled playful citizenship in China’s urban spaces. On the other hand, this new civic participation prompted the fledging Republican state to curb the dissemination of information through censorship, legal avenues and political propaganda. I argue that political gossip played a constructive role in forming a participatory political culture, in developing state mechanisms to discipline popular knowledge, and in transforming shaping legal categories of defamation. Different fromAs opposed to other studies that analyze the formation of Chinese citizenship in the process of nation-building, my project contextualizes the popular political participation in the Republican era within a broader shift in political culture that was increasingly shaped by the entertainment media. Lower- class information traders and a commoner audience dominated in the gossip economy by actively producing and consuming narratives and opinions, without being restricted by state education and elite activism. My research thus offers a brand new bottom-up perspective in the studyies of Republican Chinese political culture. Chapter 1 examines the commercialization of “trivial information” by focusing on the rise of a commercially driven and professionalized group of gossipmongers across varying social-economic strata in the late 1910s and the early 1920s. The expansion of the community affected both the practice and mindset of gossipmongers in the industry. Chapter 2 shows how the entertainment interplayed with political significance in the early Republican gossip publications to involve more commoner readers in both knowledge production and consumption in this gossip economy. This unique mode challenged conventional top-down knowledge transmission and the sense of exclusivity in the field of knowledge production. Chapter 3 illuminates the state’s efforts at developing a new censorship system and tactics of moral persuasion for re-building knowledge and establishing moral authority in the late 1910s. I show that the central government was a functional authority in the cultural realm during the period of chaotic and fragmentation. Chapter 4 turns to the relationship between the mass media and the defamation law. It focuses on a 1919 case in which the Beijing government sued the Republican Daily for insulting the President. Although the state attempted to use the legal instrument to fix a boundary between playful and serious political discussion, the Press’ commercial pursuit and insistence on autonomy gradually transformed this means of taming into a mechanism of publicity. The last chapter analyzes the politics of visibility from the aspect perspective of political leaders who also drew on the discursive power of gossip by examining Jiang Jieshi’s coordinated effort to take control publicity surrounding his romantic life and wedding ceremony in 1927. In this new form of official political communication, a striking tension persisted between the attempts of to use the form and dissemination power of gossip as an effective technique of social influence and the unruly commercial adaptation of media narratives

Assessing the New Abe Administration in Japan

Former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi left a lasting impression as he left office earlier this year. He shook up the status quo in the political world by shifting the power from the Liberal Democratic Party headquarters to the prime minister's office, decentralized the LDP power base, and forced out any potential threat to his throne. These moves were perhaps needed, but also left the new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, on a path that has never been taken before. Everyone agrees that Prime Minister Abe has some large shoes to fill. Does he have the same charisma that Koizumi displayed to continue with reforms, political, economic, or otherwise? Does his choice of cabinet members show what kind of leader he will be? With both the domestic and international media touting him as a nationalist, how will he fare in foreign diplomacy? The answers are still quite vague and more will be known next year. That said, Gerald L. Curtis, Burgess Professor of Political Science, Columbia University, shared his insight on Prime Minister Abe and his administration to a packed audience on September 26. Professor Curtis was joined by the moderator, Hugh Patrick, Director of the Center on Japanese Economy and Business and R.D. Calkins Professor of International Business Emeritus, Columbia Business School. This reports the highlights of Professor Curtis' speech and the following discussion with audience members. The program was presented in partnership by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and the Center on Japanese Economy and Business, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary