Time to unhold a privilege

From this week’s reading, I would like to come up with the concept of selective exposure. With increased control over information on the Internet, individuals can see what they want to see and read what they want to read, meaning selectively exposure themselves to information or news.

This new media circumstances, which is represented as an increased selectivity of users derived by digital media and media abundance, strengthens the importance of individuals’ needs and gratification obtained from media use. As mentioned in a textbook, “the goal of consumer is assumed to be to maximize his or her utility (or satisfaction) from consumption subject to the constraint arising from a limited income or budget” and “a consumer is in equilibrium when his or her limited budget is allocated to purchases of goods and services in such a way that utility is maximized” (p. 62). This is very similar to the insights of the uses and gratifications approach. With a limited budget (this could be time to spend on media consumption or access or money), people are more likely to consume media contents with which they would obtain gratification the most.

This indicates that news media organization try to satisfy media consumers who have a greater selectivity of choosing news than ever before. This is not to say journalists don’t need to do anything but to say it’s more about a matter of management. As illustrated, journalists still have some advantages such as strong credibility and brand presence; and “what has changed profoundly is not the role of journalists – as trusted monitors, watchdogs and guides – but their position” because information is still invaluable. News organization now in crisis to maintain a monopoly status that they have been holding and get into a limitless competition market just like other industry where the limitless competition has already been started since neo-liberalism. And I think it’s about time news organization starts survival game to satisfy news consumers’ needs. (This may be the reason MEDIA economics developed and is increasingly popular; of course this is just a part of the field, which is about micro- and competition in media system.)

Yonghwan's response

This chapter is helpful in understanding of what are the causes of a change in demand/supply and how markets work. I think the concept of elasticity of demand is interesting and has some applications to media economics because it depends on the nature of goods.

We may raise questions regarding media products such as how the concept of elasticity of demand works when it comes to new media (e.g., online news media or other online services like blogs); and further, is media we are using normal good or inferior good? Dr. Chyi (forthcoming?) proposes a question, “is online news an inferior good?” and contends that online news is an inferior good based on a theoretical framework (normal vs. inferior goods) that “when income increases, the demand for an inferior good decreases; when income decreases, the demand for an inferior good increases, other things being equal”. It seems interesting that hypothesis was supported even after controlling for other media use (newspaper, television news, and radio news). Regarding this study, I’d like to talk more about why online news is an inferior good; what about other newly emerging media; and other possibilities regarding this.

As of other possibilities affecting the result that online news is an inferior good, we might think characteristics of market. In other words, whether online news is an inferior good or not may depend on the nature of markets. For example, to what extent people consume online news may differ in geographic characteristics of market (e.g., distance or market segment) and systems of market (regulatory system).