Challenges and confusion in media and communication regulation: a four country comparison.

In this chapter we discuss recent developments and challenges in European media and communication policy, focussing on the period since the 2008 global financial crisis. We are especially interested in the implications of the financial crisis and its political repercussions nationally (austerity measures and cuts to public services as well as growing anti-politics sentiments and widespread dissatisfaction with free-market capitalism and representative democracy) for media and communication policy, understood here in a broad sense, so to include all electronic communications, such as the Internet, mobile communications, social media etc. Our overarching concern is with the implications of developments in media and communication policy for the democratic functions of the media in Europe

Spectrum Trading: An Abstracted Bibliography

This document contains a bibliographic list of major papers on spectrum trading and their abstracts. The aim of the list is to offer researchers entering this field a fast panorama of the current literature. The list is continually updated on the webpage \url{http://www.disp.uniroma2.it/users/naldi/Ricspt.html}. Omissions and papers suggested for inclusion may be pointed out to the authors through e-mail (\textit{[email protected]})

Spartan Daily, April 24, 1996

Volume 106, Issue 56https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/8841/thumbnail.jp

Chinese and Japanese: The Changing Values of "Flexible Capital"

Our project hinged on the ability of the undergraduate advanced Chinese and Japanese students at the UIUC to describe, during short interviews, the value of their respective languages in economic terms. We found that the undergraduate students involved in learning third-year Chinese and Japanese were very well aware of the changing economic reasons for learning their languages. Our hypothesis that Japanese students were more motivated by popular Japanese media while the Chinese students were more motivated by economic reasons was borne out by our findings, though to say that our hypothesis was perfect would be a gross generalization not cognizant of the outlying data and the limitations of our project.unpublishe

Internet auctions in marketing: The consumer perspective

Internet auctions for consumer are among the most popular and most successful business models in electronic commerce. Research so far, however, has focused on prerequisites and consequences of auctions as a marketing intstrument of suppliers. Even though it is a key success factor from a marketing perspective, the demand side has not inspired similar attention. This paper focuses on the attitudes, motives, and behavior of auction customers. It shows why ccurrent beliefs about bidder characteristics are myths. Taking these misconceptions as a starting point, the existence of an experiential and a pragmatic type of auction customer is proposed. An explorative empirical study looking for the characteristics of both types of auction customers is described. Results indicate that less than half of auction shoppers in the sudy are experiential oriented. Except substantial additional demand concerning technological and emotional qualities of auctions these shoppers do not differ dramatically from pragmatic oriented shoppers. Both types are open-minded towards further development of consumer auctions to commercial marketplaces. Business models of auctioneers and suppliers should concentrate on the basic utility of the auction algorithm by facilitating individual matchmaking instead of pursuing costly additional utility by promoting the entertainment value of auctions. --

Regulating Habit-Forming Technology

Tech developers, like slot machine designers, strive to maximize the user’s “time on device.” They do so by designing habit-forming products— products that draw consciously on the same behavioral design strategies that the casino industry pioneered. The predictable result is that most tech users spend more time on device than they would like, about five hours of phone time a day, while a substantial minority develop life-changing behavioral problems similar to problem gambling. Other countries have begun to regulate habit-forming tech, and American jurisdictions may soon follow suit. Several state legislatures today are considering bills to regulate “loot boxes,” a highly addictive slot-machine- like mechanic that is common in online video games. The Federal Trade Commission has also announced an investigation into the practice. As public concern mounts, it is surprisingly easy to envision consumer regulation extending beyond video games to other types of apps. Just as tobacco regulations might prohibit brightly colored packaging and fruity flavors, a social media regulation might limit the use of red notification badges or “streaks” that reward users for daily use. It is unclear how much of this regulation could survive First Amendment scrutiny; software, unlike other consumer products, is widely understood as a form of protected “expression.” But it is also unclear whether well-drawn laws to combat compulsive technology use would seriously threaten First Amendment values. At a very low cost to the expressive interests of tech companies, these laws may well enhance the quality and efficacy of online speech by mitigating distraction and promoting deliberation

Consumer-Producer Interaction: A Strategic Analysis of the Market for Customized Products

This paper focuses on the process by which consumers and producers interact to create better value for consumers. This happens in many situations but is arguably most prominent in mass-customization, an area that has recently gained a lot of popularity among manufacturers (Business Week, March 20, 2000). In terms of communications, such interaction entails a shift from the one-way communication (usually from seller to buyer) of traditional markets, to a two-way communication. Specifically, potential producers need to elicit preference (and other) information from consumers. They then have to provide a product that correctly incorporates such information. This brings up many strategic issues. In particular, we are interested in answering the following questions: (1) What is the 'economic value' of consumers' information? (2) Are there any strategic implications for producers, if they depend on consumer input and have to pay for consumers' information? (3) In what way does pricing for customized products differ from pricing for similar standardized products? (4) Is the strategic relationship between consumers and producers different in the market for customized goods as compared to more traditional markets? The main contribution of this paper is to bring into focus the issues surrounding mass-customization via an analysis of consumer-producer interaction, which is the facilitating process. This paper is the first attempt in marketing to analytically model this emerging area and should be of interest to academics. Practitioners should be interested in the marketing and strategic perspective on mass-customization that this paper adopts. The trade press has approached mass-customization from a manufacturing/production cost angle, while its marketing implications have largely been left open (Wind and Rangaswamy, 2000). To answer the above questions we build a game-theoretic model, which analyses the interaction between consumers and producers in an agency-theoretic framework. The main features of our model are the following. Consumers vary in their desire for customization, with some consumers having a higher need for and willingness to pay for customized goods. Producers vary in the ability to 'successfully customize' according to consumer specifications. Producers first solicit consumers' suggestions/preferences and attempt to screen consumers who are willing to pay for customized products (stage 1: 'Information market'). They then try to provide a product, which correctly incorporates consumers' input and set prices for such customized products (stage 2: 'Product market'). The main question for consumers at this stage is whether the producer has been able to successfully incorporate their input given in the first stage. We start first with the monopoly case to isolate the strategic issues in consumer-producer interaction. Later we incorporate competition between firms. In the latter case, both the information market (where firms compete for consumers' information) and the product market (where firms compete to sell the final product) come into their own and have interesting interactions. We find that, in equilibrium, firms will pay consumers for their information in the first stage. Intuitively, consumers provide costly input, but any commitment by the firm to provide surplus through a lower price of the product in the second stage, lacks commitment. Moreover, the producer's payment can act as a signal of high quality for the skillful customizer who tries to separate from a 'ghost firm', which cannot customize well. Under monopoly, the price of customized products is the same as that of non-customized products, contrary to common wisdom as reflected in the trade press (Anderson, 1997). Thus, our analyses could explain why some manufacturers find that they cannot charge a premium for customized products (Wind and Rangaswamy, 2000). We find that equilibrium prices of customized products are at the high end of the price range for similar non-customized products, consistent with casual observation.Under duopoly, when firms compete for consumers' information, the prices of customized products are in fact less than the price of non-customized products. This counter-intuitive result occurs because firms try to avoid being heldup by consumers who may withhold purchase, after first getting the firm to produce a very individually tailored product which the firm might not be able to sell to other consumers. Since, first stage competition for information gives consumers a high price for their information, it increases their incentive to holdup the firm. The firm, therefore, has to charge a lower price to induce consumers to purchase the product.Finally, we show that, in the market for customized goods (stage 2), consumers can be better off with less competition between firms. When firms compete in the product market in the second stage, they earn less equilibrium profits. Thus, they compensate consumers less for their information in the first stage, and this may yield consumers less overall utility. This finding could be of interest to manufacturers who increasingly attempt to build deep, long lasting ties with consumers. Often such ties are perceived as conflicting with the consumers' desire to retain the flexibility to compare and opt for the offerings of different producers. Our results suggest that such misalignment of interests need not exist, at least in the market for customized goods