Jyotika Ramaprasad

Standardized Multinational Advertising: The Influencing Factors

Advertising for multinational products uses standardization most often in strategy, less often in executions, and least often in language. This studys international sample of advertising agency executives considers creative impact the most important and pressure (from time, client, etc.) the least important reason to use some form of standardized advertising. Despite this, it is views on client pressure which explain most of the variance in views on future use of standardization. That is, those respondents who believe that client pressure is increasing also believe that overall use of standardization will increase. A separate sample of agency executives reinforced some of these findings, particularly the role of the successful, big idea and client pressure in making the decision to standardize. Copy research also plays a role in standardization recommendations, but it is not used as extensively as might be necessary.

Reporting the News from the World's Rooftop: A Survey of Nepalese Journalists

Modeled partly after Weaver and Wilhoits study of the American journalist, this study provides a profile of Nepalese journalists at an interesting time in Nepals history, when democracy has been restored and media freedom has been prevalent for almost a decade. The profile covers demographic, work-related and attitudinal variables from a convenience sample of 132 journalists in Kathmandu and Pokhara representing all the major newspapers and radio stations and the government television station. The questionnaire was borrowed from an earlier study carried out in post-independence Tanzania because of its fit to Nepals media context. A quantitative analysis of the roles the journalists perceived for themselves revealed four factors: development journalism (positive coverage of leaders, country, events); citizen education (inform and educate public on political matters); public advocate (investigate leaders and give voice to people); and culture (entertain, provide cultural fare). Another interpretation of development journalism (focus on development projects and welfare of diverse oppressed groups) emerged as a role in answers to an open-ended question about other functions of the press. As Nepalese society is in transition from a monarchy with a government-controlled press that defined a role for the media in national development to a multi-party democracy with a free press, its journalists are balancing the roles that they have been socialized in with those of a free press.

Framing Beijing Dominant Ideological Influences on the American Press Coverage of the Fourth UN Conference on Women and the NGO Forum

This study examined framing in the American press coverage of the Fourth UN Conference and the NGO Forum in Beijing as a means of (1) assessing the coverage of this event and the extent to which its critical areas of concern were communicated, and (2) exploring the influence of dominant ideology on framing in the news. Employing qualitative and quantitative methods, the study found evidence of an anti-communist as well as an anti-feminist frame. Under the influence of dominant ideology, the newspaper coverage of the conference focused considerably on an extended criticism of China as a communist nation. The study found that the goals of the global feminist movement and their critical areas of concern held far less immediacy and salience for the American press than the need to assert dominant American values.

Functions of Egyptian Journalists Perceived Importance and Actual Performance

This study reports on Egyptian journalists’ rating of various journalistic functions in terms of both importance and ability to perform these functions. The functions, rated for importance, coalesced into four factors, Sustain Democracy, Support Arabism/Values, Support Government and Provide Entertainment. Egyptian journalists gave prime importance to supporting Arabism/values and also performed this function most often. They considered democracy-sustaining functions second in importance, but were able to perform them least often, at about the average level. For all function factors, perceived importance was discrepant with actual amount of performance, with the latter always being lower. The study’s contribution lies in (1) the quantitative benchmarks it establishes for Egyptian journalism practice, (2) its inclusion of functions specific to Egyptian society and press as culled from the literature and (3) its finding of the prime placement by Egyptian journalists of the function support for the Palestinian cause in terms of both importance of the function and how often they performed it. This finding may be useful in creating an understanding in the non-western world of how critical this issue is to the press and possibly therefore to the Egyptian public.

An Analysis of Japanese Television Commercials

Content analysis of 410 prime time television commercials sampled from four Japanese television stations finds that, at all product involvement levels, Japanese commercials use the emotional appeal more than the informational appeal, sometimes with very indirect product selling approaches. At the same time, only a small percentage of these commercials do not use information cues at all. In the sample, the modal length was 15 seconds and the modal product was food/drinks. Also, Western influence was evident: a majority of the commercials used spoken and written English and about a sixth used Western music and non-Japanese (particularly Western) characters; the Japanese attach attributes such as modernism and value to Western symbols.

Tradition with a Twist A Survey of Bangladeshi Journalists

Modeled partly after American journalist surveys, this study taps Bangladeshi journalists’ perceptions of the importance of certain libertarian and development press functions as well as their actual practice of these functions. It also puts to empirical test ‘theoretic’ factors of libertarian and development functions suggested by Ramaprasad and Kelly to assess their reproducibility in Bangladesh. The study finds that Bangladeshi journalists consider libertarian functions more important than development functions and that there is a gap between perceived importance and actual practice for most functions. The ‘theoretic’ factors replicate quite well and where they are different they provide an opportunity to refine press theory.

Rational Integrative Model of Online Consumer Decision Making

ABSTRACT Based on traditional rational consumer theories about beliefs preceding intent to act and knowledge preceding behavior, this study proposed, and empirically tested, a hierarchical path model of decision making in the online environment, focusing on the Internet’s role in two decision stages: pre-purchase search and evaluation, and actual purchase. Both direct and indirect effects were posited in the sequential model using four Internet related variables: pre-purchase search beliefs, purchase beliefs, actual pre-purchase search, and actual purchase. The empirical test was conducted among consumers in the United States and India with 291 respondents taking the online survey (186 for the United States, 105 for India). For both U.S. and Indian respondents, each conceptualized stage of online decision making was significantly impacted by the stages preceding it, either directly or indirectly. In terms of direct effects, an antecedent Internet belief variable (pre-purchase search beliefs) impacted a consequent belief variable (purchase beliefs), and an antecedent action variable (pre-purchase search) impacted a consequent action variable (purchase). Further, the consequent belief variable (purchase beliefs) impacted the immediately following antecedent action variable (pre-purchase search). In terms of indirect effects, all antecedent variables impacted consequent variables at each stage of the model.

The private and government sides of Tanzanian journalists

This article presents the evolution of Tanzania’s media with particular focus on the period of indigenous government control before the recent shift from such control to private ownership. While the history of the media is interesting in and of itself, it is presented to establish the journalistic ideology into which Tanzanian media practitioners were socialized as the result of the country’s adoption, upon receiving independence, of a one-party political system and a socialist economic system. This media history serves as a backdrop for the empirical portion of this paper. Using type of ownership (government, party, and private) as a classifying variable, the empirical study then captures Tanzanian journalists’ opinion profile with regard to private and government media traits. The journalistic ideology of the controlled period, wherein media played a role in national development, is apparent particularly in journalists’ attribution of traits to government and private media: The former will unify and develop the country; the latter will develop an informed citizenry but also be sensationalistic and unethical. Not surprisingly, in some instances, the assignment of traits to government and private media was related to ownership of place of employment of the respondents.

Informational Content of American and Japanese Television Commercials

This study compares the information content of American and Japanese television commercials, particularly by strategy, within the context of the standardization debate. Most American and Japanese commercials used information cues, emphasizing similar kinds of information. But they differed in the average number of cues employed in some product and strategy categories. If standardization implies universality in advertising strategy and tactics, findings of this study suggest caution in trying to use the same advertising approaches in both the United States and Japan.

Halo effect: Conceptual definition and empirical exploration with regard to South Korean subsidiaries of US and Japanese multinational corporations

Evaluation literature has found a halo effect wherein raters allow overall or trait impressions to colour the evaluation of other traits of the ratee. Despite some conceptual and operational issues with halo, the study of halo is prevalent in many fields from job performance to marketing. This paper attempts to clarify definitions of halo, paring them down to overall impression halo, salient‐trait, and inter‐trait halo, and argues that reasons for halo should not become or be incorporated into definitions of halo. It also argues for and uses an operationalisation for the measurement of halo that considers trait evaluations in light of overall impression and therefore is in line with the original definition of halo. Finally, it applies halo to international public relations by studying its effect in the evaluation of South Korean subsidiaries of Sony, Japan and Coca‐Cola, USA. The study finds overall and salient‐trait halo for both subsidiaries in a convenience sample of residents of Seoul, South Korea.