Growth and Upheaval in the Network Media Economy, 1984-2018

This report examines the development of the media economy over the past thirtyfour years. Since beginning this project nearly a decade ago, we have focused on as comprehensive as possible selection of the biggest telecoms, internet and media industries (based on revenue), including: mobile wireless and wireline telecoms; internet access; cable, satellite & IPTV; broadcast television, specialty and pay television services and over-the-internet video subscription and download services; radio; newspapers; magazines; music; internet advertising; social media; operating systems; browsers, etc. This year, we have made some fairly dramatic changes in terms of what we cover, and the breadth of our analysis. For the first time, this report takes some preliminary steps to capture a broader range of audiovisual media services that are delivered over the internet beyond online video subscription and download services and internet advertising, including: online gaming, app store and music downloads

Mobile Wireless in Canada: Recognizing the Problems and Approaching Solutions

The Canadian Media Concentration Research Project is releasing the final iteration of this report on the state of mobile wireless markets in Canada. The first draft was presented at a panel on “The State of Competition in Canada ’ s Telecommunications Sector ” at the International Institute of Communications (IIC)/Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA) conference on November 17 and 18 th at the Ottawa Conference centre. W e we re delighted to offer our views and to debate the issue of wheth er mobile wireless markets in Canada are highly competitive or badly concentrated at the conferen c e . We arg u e in favour of the latter claim . This report offer s a fairly comprehensive, long -­‐ term body of data that places trends in Canada in a comparative i nternational context. It shows that Canada shares a similar condition with many, indeed, almost all countries that we have studied: high levels of concentration in mobile wireless markets. Canada is not unusual in this regard, and indeed no matter whether we look at things from the perspective of 19 countries , the 34 OECD countrie

Growth and Upheaval in the Network Media Economy in Canada, 1984-2019

This report examines the development of the media economy over the past thirty-five years. Since beginning this proje

Growth of the Network Media Economy in Canada, 1984-2017

The report examines the development of the media economy over the past thirty-three years. We do so by examining a dozen or so of the biggest telecoms, internet and media industries in Canada, based on revenue. These include: mobile wireless and wireline telecoms; internet access; cable, satellite & IPTV; broad- cast, specialty, pay and over-the-top TV; radio; newspapers; magazines; music; and internet advertising. We call the total of these sectors “the network media economy”. Our method is simple: we begin by collecting, organizing, and making available stand-alone data for each media industry individually. We then group related, comparable industry sectors into three higher level categories: the “network media” (e.g. mobile wireless, internet access, broadcast distribution), the “content media” (e.g. television, newspapers, magazines, etc.) and “internet media” (e.g. internet advertising, search, internet news sources). Ultimately, we combine them all together to get a bird’s-eye view of the network media economy. We call this the scaffolding approach

Media and Internet Concentration in Canada 1984 – 2017

This report examines the state of competition in the mobile wireless market, internet access, broadcast, pay and streaming TV services, internet advertising, advertising across all media, newspapers, browsers, online news sources, search, social media, operating systems, etc. in Canada over the period from 1984 until 2017. We call the sum-total of these media “the network media economy”. We then use two common metrics—Concentration Ratios and the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI)—to determine whether these markets—individually and collectively—are competitive or concentrated

Critical media and communication studies today. A conversation

This article documents a conversation between us that was first published in parallel on our two blogs http://dwmw.wordpress.com and http://fuchs.uti.at/blog. The conversation deals with our assessments of the status of Critical Media and Communication Studies today. We discuss the work of Dallas Smythe, how to study and assess Google, research dimensions of Critical Political Economy of the Media, how important each of these dimensions should be, the role of ideology critique for Critical Political Economy of the Media, the commonalities and differences between Political Economies of the Media and Critical Political Economy of the Media/Critique of the Political Economy of the Media, the role of Karl Marx for Political Economies of the Media, Nicholas Garnham's recent comments on the field of Critical Political Economy of the Media, neoliberalism and capitalist crisis as contexts for Political Economies of the Media. Comments are very welcome on our blogs, URLs to the specific blog postings can be found in the article section

Critical media and communication studies today. A conversation

This article documents a conversation between us that was first published in parallel on our two blogs http://dwmw.wordpress.com and http://fuchs.uti.at/blog. The conversation deals with our assessments of the status of Critical Media and Communication Studies today. We discuss the work of Dallas Smythe, how to study and assess Google, research dimensions of Critical Political Economy of the Media, how important each of these dimensions should be, the role of ideology critique for Critical Political Economy of the Media, the commonalities and differences between Political Economies of the Media and Critical Political Economy of the Media/Critique of the Political Economy of the Media, the role of Karl Marx for Political Economies of the Media, Nicholas Garnham's recent comments on the field of Critical Political Economy of the Media, neoliberalism and capitalist crisis as contexts for Political Economies of the Media. (Publisher summary

Access to Infrastructure

Access to infrastructure is a perennial issue in the field of communication, which started in the era of postal services and continues to the present era of broadband networks. As infrastructures, or large-scale systems, information and communication technologies (ICTs) are central to citizens’ political, economic, and social lives. Historically and today, a variety of factors such as political and regulatory decisions impact access to infrastructure. Current concerns about equitable access include the network neutrality

Surveillance in ubiquitous network societies: Normative conflicts related to the consumer in-store supermarket experience in the context of the Internet of Things

Peer-reviewed journal articleThe Internet of Things (IoT) is an emerging global infrastructure that employs wireless sensors to collect, store, and exchange data. Increasingly, applications for marketing and advertising have been articulated as a means to enhance the consumer shopping experience, in addition to improving efficiency. However, privacy advocates have challenged the mass aggregation of personally identifiable information in databases and geotracking, the use of location-based services to identify one’s precise location over time. This paper employs the framework of contextual integrity related to privacy developed by Nissenbaum (Privacy in context: technology, policy, and the integrity of social life. Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2010) as a tool to understand citizen response to implementation IoT-related technology in the supermarket. The purpose of the study was to identify and understand specific changes in information practices brought about by the IoT that may be perceived as privacy violations. Citizens were interviewed, read a scenario of near-term IoT implementation, and were asked to reflect on changes in the key actors involved, information attributes, and principles of transmission. Areas where new practices may occur with the IoT were then highlighted as potential problems (privacy violations). Issues identified included the mining of medical data, invasive targeted advertising, and loss of autonomy through marketing profiles or personal affect monitoring. While there were numerous aspects deemed desirable by the participants, some developments appeared to tip the balance between consumer benefit and corporate gain. This surveillance power creates an imbalance between the consumer and the corporation that may also impact individual autonomy. The ethical dimensions of this problem are discussed