Dysregulating the Media: Digital Redlining, Privacy Erosion, and the Unintentional Deregulation of American Media

Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, and Apple have been joined by Disney+, Twitch, Facebook, and others to supplant the broadcast industry. As the FCC, FTC, and other regulators struggle, a new digital divide has emerged. The current regulatory regime for television is built upon the government’s right to manage over-the-air broadcasting. As content producers shift away from broadcast and cable, much of the government’s regulatory control will end, resulting in new consequences for public policy and new challenges involving privacy, advertising, and antitrust law. Despite the technological change, there are compelling government interests in a healthy media environment. This article explores the constitutionally valid approaches available to discourage discrimination and digital redlining and instead promote the public interest embodied in the Communications Act. Even as broadcast regulation fades away many of the goals should be pursued, including the promotion of diversity of viewpoint, access to news and educational content, and the fostering of cultural content for those without the financial resources to buy broadband access. In addition, the tracking technologies inherent in online media create a compelling need to protect from the heightened risks to personal privacy. The article calls upon the FTC to become the lead regulator, enforcing the Sherman Act, Clayton Act, and the FTC Act’s provisions to assure that competition, online advertising, customer privacy, and the public interest are rigorously enforced

Dysregulating the Media: Digital Redlining, Privacy Erosion, and the Unintentional Deregulation of American Media

Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, and Apple have been joined by Disney+, Twitch, Facebook, and others to supplant the broadcast industry. As the FCC, FTC, and other regulators struggle, a new digital divide has emerged. The current regulatory regime for television is built upon the government’s right to manage over-the-air broadcasting. As content producers shift away from broadcast and cable, much of the government’s regulatory control will end, resulting in new consequences for public policy and new challenges involving privacy, advertising, and antitrust law. Despite the technological change, there are compelling government interests in a healthy media environment. This article explores the constitutionally valid approaches available to discourage discrimination and digital redlining and instead promote the public interest embodied in the Communications Act. Even as broadcast regulation fades away many of the goals should be pursued, including the promotion of diversity of viewpoint, access to news and educational content, and the fostering of cultural content for those without the financial resources to buy broadband access. In addition, the tracking technologies inherent in online media create a compelling need to protect from the heightened risks to personal privacy. The article calls upon the FTC to become the lead regulator, enforcing the Sherman Act, Clayton Act, and the FTC Act’s provisions to assure that competition, online advertising, customer privacy, and the public interest are rigorously enforced

Over-the-Top (OTT) Networks\u27 Influence on Shared Cultural Memory

The digital landscape underwent a profound transformation in the Over-The-Top (OTT) network era, significantly altering media consumption. This study delved into the intricate and multifaceted impact of OTT networks on society, communication theory, and socio-cultural traditions, specifically emphasizing their influence on shared cultural memory. The research was rooted in a robust methodology that combined a Qualtrics online survey disseminated across various social media platforms and in-depth interviews with 25 carefully selected participants. This rigorous approach aimed to shed light on the profound influence of OTT networks on shared cultural memory while investigating how these platforms shaped perceptions, beliefs, attitudes, and values. The findings revealed the ascendant role of OTT networks in shaping shared cultural memory, exerting their influence on individual and collective memories, and fundamentally altering conventional paradigms of media communication. Within this landscape, the pivotal significance of content quality, viewer preferences, and the overarching theme of accessibility emerged as driving forces behind the widespread adoption of OTT services. This study shed light on how OTT networks revolutionized contemporary media consumption, impacted communication theory, and reshaped socio-cultural traditions. It underscored the need for ongoing research to fully grasp the profound implications of this digital revolution in a rapidly evolving technological landscape. OTT networks have revolutionized media consumption and played a pivotal role in shaping society\u27s collective memory in the digital era

Selling The American People: Data, Technology, And The Calculated Transformation Of Advertising

This dissertation tells the history of a future imagined by advertisers as they interpreted and constructed the affordances of digital information technologies. It looks at how related efforts to predict and influence consumer habits and to package and sell audience attention helped orchestrate the marriage of behavioral science and big-data analytics that defines digital marketing today. My research shows how advertising and commercial media industries rebuilt their information infrastructures around electronic data processing, networked computing, and elaborate forms of quantitative analysis, beginning in the 1950s. Advertisers, agencies, and media companies accommodated their activities to increasingly calculated ways of thinking about consumers and audiences, and to more statistical and computational forms of judgement. Responding to existing priorities and challenges, and to perceived opportunities to move closer to underlying ambitions, a variety of actors envisioned the future of marketing and media through a set of possibilities that became central to the commercialization of digital communications. People involved in the television business today use the term “advanced advertising” to describe a set of abilities at the heart of internet and mobile marketing: programmability (automation), addressability (personalization), shoppability (interactive commerce), and accountability (measurement and analytics). In contrast to the perception that these are unique elements of a “new” digital media environment that emerged in the mid-1990s, I find that these themes appear conspicuously in designs for using and shaping information technologies over the course of the past six decades. I use these potential abilities as entry points for analyzing a broader shift in advertising and commercial media that began well before the popular arrival of the internet. Across the second half of the twentieth century, the advertising industry, a major cultural and economic institution, was reconstructed around the goal of expanding its abilities to account for and calculate more of social and personal life. This transformation sits at an intersection where the processing of data, the processing of commerce, and the processing of culture collide

Study on media plurality and diversity online

Published online: 16 September 2022Corporate authors: Centre on Media Pluralism and Media Freedom (CMPF) , CiTiP (Centre for Information Technology and Intellectual Property) of KU Leuven , Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (European Commission) , Institute for Information Law of the University of Amsterdam (IViR/UvA) , Vrije Universiteit Brussels (Studies in Media Innovation and Technology VUB- SMIT)Personal authors: Parcu, Pier Luigi ; Brogi, Elda ; Verza, Sofia ; Da Costa Leite Borges, Danielle ; Carlini, Roberta ; Trevisan, Matteo ; Tambini, Damian ; Mazzoli, Eleonora Maria ; Klimkiewicz, Beata ; Broughton Micova, Sally ; Petković, Brankica ; Rossi, Maria Alessandra ; Stasi, Maria Luisa ; Valcke, Peggy ; Lambrecht, Ingrid ; Irion, Kristina ; Fahy, Ronan ; Idiz, Daphne ; Meiring, Arlette ; Seipp, Theresa ; Poort, Joost ; Ranaivoson, Heritiana ; Afilipoaie, Adelaida ; Domazetovikj, NinoThe Study on Media Plurality and Diversity Online investigates the value of safeguarding media pluralism and diversity online, focusing on (i) the prominence and discoverability of general interest content and services, and on (ii) market plurality and the concentration of economic resources. With a focus on Europe, the project is funded by a tender from the European Commission to produce a study on Media Plurality and Diversity Online and involves four partner universities: CMPF (EUI); CiTiP (Centre for Information Technology and Intellectual Property) of KU Leuven; the Institute for Information Law of the University of Amsterdam (IViR/UvA); imec-SMIT-Vrije Universiteit Brussel. The purpose of the assignment was to describe, analyse and evaluate the existing regulatory and business practices in the two areas mentioned above, and finally to elaborate some policy recommendations. Data were collected from the database of the Media Pluralism Monitor (CMPF) and through desk research, online consultations and interviews with stakeholders. The contractor was able to call on a network of national experts across the Member States to support this work

Supporting collocated and at-a-distance experiences with TV and VR displays

Televisions (TVs) and VR Head-Mounted Displays (VR HMDs) are used in shared and social spaces in the home. This thesis posits that these displays do not sufficiently reflect the collocated, social contexts in which they reside, nor do they sufficiently support shared experiences at-a-distance. This thesis explores how the role of TVs and VR HMDs can go beyond presenting a single entertainment experience, instead supporting social and shared use in both collocated and at-a-distance contexts. For collocated TV, this thesis demonstrates that the TV can be augmented to facilitate multi-user interaction, support shared and independent activities and multi-user use through multi-view display technology, and provide awareness of the multi-screen activity of those in the room, allowing the TV to reflect the social context in which it resides. For at-a-distance TV, existing smart TVs are shown to be capable of supporting synchronous at-a-distance activity, broadening the scope of media consumption beyond the four walls of the home. For VR HMDs, collocated proximate persons can be seamlessly brought into mixed reality VR experiences based on engagement, improving VR HMD usability. Applied to at-a-distance interactions, these shared mixed reality VR experiences can enable more immersive social experiences that approximate viewing together as if in person, compared to at-a-distance TV. Through an examination of TVs and VR HMDs, this thesis demonstrates that consumer display technology can better support users to interact, and share experiences and activities, with those they are close to

COMMODITY AUDIENCE, COMMODITY EVERYTHING: INTERROGATING T-COMMERCE IN THE UNITED STATES CABLE INDUSTRY

This thesis is a theoretical and historical investigation of interactive television commerce (t-commerce). T-commerce lets viewers buy the commodities appearing in advertisements and program content. Additionally, t-commerce utilizes advanced advertising formats that target consumers precisely with customized advertisements. This thesis is grounded in theories of the audience commodity. It is argued that t-commerce is consistent with the historical trajectory of advertiser-supported television in which profits are generated by producing audiences of consumers. The business of commercial television has always been structured to produce consumers as economic and social products. The linchpin of their value as commodities is their capacity to consume. T- commerce increases the value of audiences of consumers by situating viewers in a marketplace that exhorts impulse buying and monitors consumption-related behaviour

Amerikanizace: Americká televizní kultura a její dopad na české vysílání

Tato bakalářská práce se zabývá jevem zvaným "amerikanizace", což může být chápáno jako proces, kdy kultura či životní styl Spojených států amerických proniká do kultur jiných států včetně České republiky. Konkrétně se pak tato práce zaměřuje na jeden z nejvlivnějších a nejvíce ovlivněných druhů kultury, a to televizní vysílání, které Spojené státy americké obohatily o několik nových typů programů a inovací. První část zasazuje amerikanizaci do historického kontextu České republiky a také přibližuje dva v současnosti nejvlivnější prvky americké televize: Nielsenovy ratingy a reality show. Druhá část pak nabízí několik analytických úvah týkajících amerikanizace a zkoumá, jak a do jaké míry ovlivnilo americké televizní vysílání to české.This thesis deals with a phenomenon of 'Americanization', which can be explained as a process when the culture and lifestyle of the United States of America penetrate the culture of other countries. Specifically, the thesis focuses on one of the most influential and the most influenced kind of culture - the television broadcast, which has been enriched by the United States with several new types of programs and innovations. The first part puts Americanization into historical context of the Czech Republic and also describes two of the most influential elements of American TV: Nielsen ratings and reality show. Further, the second part includes several analytical contemplations on Americanization and examines how and to which extent the American broadcast has affected the Czech one.Katedra anglického jazyka a literaturyPedagogická fakultaFaculty of Educatio