Yonghwan's Results

Yonghwan's results of the investment.

Acer
Before: 81.9 x 50 = 4095
Now : 82 x 50 = 4100

Google
Before: 498.53 x 10 = 4985.3
Now : 589 x 10 = 5890

NYT
Before: 8.39 x 100 = 839
Now : 8.62 x 100 = 862

Total
Before: 9919.3
Now : 10852
---------------
(+) $932.7

I can get a new laptop.

Is online news really an inferior good?

What we have this week seems to reminding me of the concept of elasticity of demand and a question that "is online news an inferior good?".

Here's what I posted at the beginning of the semester:

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).

Now I'm kind of confused.
Is online news really an inferior good? It makes a perpect sense according to Dr. Chyi's article (in terms of theory adapted and method and analysis used).
However, then, is online news's quality really bad/lower compared to traditional forms/platforms news??
Assuming there's no significant difference of quality in between offline vs. online news, can we still say that online news is an inferior good?

Another thing is whether young people who are likely to get information on the Internet (including online news) are going to demand online news less when they get a job and their income increases?

News find audience

It's very interesting to see the law of long tail since it is still a case in the era of media-abundance and seems to be the case forever(?). Even though there are infinite media contents and channels out there, they are still be in long tail in media market and several media companies has high percentage of readership and gets popularity.

Regarding fragmentation of public opinion/audience, this phenomenon can be a explanation that fragmentation won't be the case or at least will be moderate.

But there's several cases some of media which were in long tail group get success in terms of readership and popularity--for instance, see how blogs get popularity and there are several factors leading top-bloggs such as posting original story and ideological stance etc. And this could be lesssons for the new economic models/ways of news media: make a story attracting audience. Yes, again, it's a matter of attention.

Another way of this is "news find audience." Given the ambient-news era, meaning news everywhere, news media companies seem to need to find a way of finding their audience (e.g., by using social media such as Twitter and SNSs).

Does Information Surplus Lead to Fragmentation?

"Information surplus in the digital age" seems very important topic in that this phenomenon raise lots of intriguing questions just as raised by the author.
I am particularily interested in New Questions on Media Effects section in this chapter. In particular, what I am interested in is something like this question, whether and how information surplus influence fragmentation of our society.

With the advent of the Internet, communication scholars have shown interest in and concern about the social impact of this explosion in new media. Among various debates over the role of the Internet in contemporary democratic process, “fragmentation” thesis has been prominent. Because of information surplus or increased media channel and choice, people increasingly tend to give their attention to what they want and what they want to see.

Some are suspicious of this increased control over communication on the Web. They see such power as enhancing selective exposure, and leading to the fragmentation of public opinion and the polarization of politics, all of which may hurts democracy (fragmentation).

This argument is very similar to what has been mentioned in the chapter, "as media content diversifies, the concept of "agenda" could be expanded to incorporate heterogeneous items, such as news as well as non-news items" (p. 102).

Then, does information surplus lead to fragmentation? What do you think?

Here's one of the answers:

Lee, J. (2008). The effect of the internet on homogeneity of the media agenda: A test of the fragmentation thesis, Journalism & Mass communication Quarterly, 84, 745-760.

H1: The rank order of the overall blog agenda will have a positive correlation with that of the mainstream media agenda.

H2a: The rank order of the conservative blog agenda will have a positive correlation with that of the mainstream media agenda.

H2a: The rank order of the liberal blog agenda will have a positive correlation with that of the mainstream media agenda.

(This was what I was planning to talk about last class for my research critique. Sorry for late posting.)

The more, the harder

As we talked about a typology (critical perspectives x tech-savvy), we absolutely want to be type 1, which is tech-savvy with critical veiw. I would admit that poeple (both undergarduate and graduate students) are increasingly getting better at dealing with technological skills and having good eyes on what's going on Web 2.0 era.

But I doubt a notion that "media audiences (expecially students) in general are already extremely capable interpreters of media content, with a critical eye and an understanding of contemporary media techniques." I think it's getting even much harder to have a critical eye on this contemporary media environment where lots of media contents and choices are around us, which may make us tough to have a sort of sense of what's going on behind the scene.

Think of mass media and propaganda era vs. Internet era (let's say Media Studies 1.o vs. 2.o); the power relationship seems simple in Media Studies 1.o (e.g., elite vs. mass audience; producer vs. receiver...), but in MS 2.0, it seems getting more complex to figure out their power relationships among various social agents (e.g., traditional media, user-generated content, political blogger, NGOs, campagins, thousands of social groups online and offline, individuals' multi-level social identities.). See also media companies' business strategies (e.g., their M&A, complex competitions, and so on); do I have a critical eye on this?; one thing sure is it's becoming harder to catch up with it with critical views.

Absolutely, we have to focus both on how to deal with tech and how to read meanings in there. And I believe that we are taking the best of previous approaches and rework them to fit a changing environment, and develop new tools as well; and (hope) we can make it.

Anyway, both technology and research are NOT easy at all...

Should I buy iPhone?

The relationship between media content and advertising has long been a nonstop issue in media industry and among researchers and students who majoring media. It is absolutely true that a factor of advertising revenue are likely to influence the nature of the information and entertainment content provided, which was considered as bad things for journalism values especially when I was in college student.
Now it seems interesting to try to do research, whether and how advertising factor affect diversity of content; for instance, it seems to me that online media or search engine seem to have more advertiser or production-promotion content.

Another thing that I have been interested is social media and advertising.
Increasing attention to how social media (e.g., Twitter) have been used for business strategies:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whzN-7uCiZw

And I've noticed iPhone ads on my facebook that lots of my friends are using it; and it seems cool and even very good comments on it:

Excellent app ! Much improved over the previous versions, I no longer feel as if I am crippled when using the facebook app on the iPhone, The new look and easy navigation is key for this app's success ! 4 out of 5 Stars - 5 Stars when push is available.. Thank you for this app !

Should I buy iPhone? :D

Still hard to pick

Y=Yonghwan
X=My best friend working for a stock company in Korea

(Summarized & translated MSN messages)

Y: I am considering to buy some stocks which are media-related companies. Give me suggestions!
X: There's a sort of the order to take considerations such as law and regulation, trends... %$*^$^% (can not remember)
Y: I have no idea about law and regulations.
X: This is your own money? Why don't you invest that money to me....
Y: That's not real, it's for my class, which.........
X: Sorry, I am busy now... stock market right now....
Y: Ok, man, see you later.

I’ll take 3 companies:

1. NHN, which is the first-ranked search engine in Korea.

Here is what this company about:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NHN

http://www.naver.com/

Noticeable feature: Knowledge Search

Reason I picked: Irrational, Word of mouth: route from people who working for this company that I have known (e.g., invest on Research and new products), Perceived value of the company.

Supporting data (in growth):

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=035420.KS#chart1:symbol=035420.ks;range=1y;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined

2. NYT

To see if how they goes in media market.

3. Google Inc. (GOOG)

Reason I picked: most frequently appeared in news coverage: for example, about releasing new products, which may positively affect their stock value.

Here’s some links:

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/google-buys-service-that-uses-humans-to-digitize-books/?ref=technology

http://seekingalpha.com/article/161999-google-eyes-10-market-share-for-chrome-mac-version-on-the-way?source=yahoo

It is on the way of growing:

http://markets.on.nytimes.com/research/stocks/tools/analysis_tools.asp?symbol=GOOG

Questions:

- How to split my budget: e.g., show us how to calculate.

- Is Acer, which is one of companies I am interested in (as the fourth company), media company? (Noticing increasing market size especially in Netbook, LCD monitor, etc.

About Acer:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acer_Inc.

What media companies should I buy?

According to chapter 9. "Capital markets and media firms," the role of stock makets in media companies' financial issues seems to be increasingly important. The other piece suggests indicators of financial health: sales revenue growth or decline; change in results; debt growth or decline; change in asset value; reinvestment; productivity; capacity utilization; employee turnover; personal skills and knowledge; and resource dependence.

These indicators suggested seem important factors affecting the value of stock of the media companies. But I am wondering if I, "as a soon-to-be consumer buying stocks of media companies for this class," have data about this information, which may affect my personal revenue. If yes, where and how I can get this data and how should I weight among these indicators?
Furthermore, is there any other important considerations when I am about to buy stocks of media companies? (I have no idea at present :D )

How to apply the theory of the firm?

From today’s reading, I would like to discuss The Theory of the Firm, especially about how we apply industrial organization framework to research questions we are interested in; and how we can conceptualize and measure each variables in that model (e.g., structure—market concentration and barriers to entry, conduct—pricing and product strategy, and performance—technological progress.). So my first question is:

Q1. How SCP paradigm (structure  conduct  performance) or IO framework (Industrial Organization) has been applied to research in the field of media economics?

In the case of Google vs. Microsoft, it seems interesting or doable to examine the relationship between market structure and the conduct of the firms by putting market structure as Independent Variable (e.g., perfect competition vs. monopoly (or by national)) and the conduct of the firms as Dependent Variable (War between Google vs. Microsoft). My second question is about this:

Q2-1. Does this research look doable?
Q2-2. If not, what would be possible?
Q2-3. If yes, how can we measure the conduct of the firms? (How the conduct of the firms has been/can be measured in general other than this Google vs. Microsoft case?)

(Continued to the Google vs. Microsoft case) while measuring market structure (IV) seems possible, for instance, by nation, measuring the conduct of firms seems tough (categorized variable for chi-square or logistic regression?).

As mentioned in the textbook, there are limitations in applying the IO framework, for example, data limitations (p. 156). How can we measure technological progress, which is one of the elements of performance? One of the major criticisms of IO framework is that “market performance is a multidimensional concept and therefore very difficult to define and measure for use as a dependent variable in multiple regression analysis (Cable, 1994, p. 3); To overcome some of the problems of the SCP approach, new industrial organization economists have begun to use game theory to develop oligopoly models of the strategic behavior of firms in markets and of individual agents within firms (Dixit, 1979, 1980, 1982; Roberts, 1987; Spence, 1977). (as cited in Wirth & Bloch, 1995).

Q3. What’s game theory and how game theory has been applied in media economics?

Last question is about the role of the individual level of consumer behavior in Figure 7.1 (Industrial Organization Framework). For example,

Q4. How can we explain people’s online news media use with IO framework?

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).