Patrick Rademacher

Brand Identity-Driven Decision Making by Journalists and Media Managers—The MBAC Model as a Theoretical Framework

Commercialization of the media refers to the increasing importance of market considerations in the daily work of media professionals. Media organizations need to find ways to maintain the quality promise of their brands as an economically successful business. The increasing market orientation of media companies challenges their dedication to good journalism. The media brand identity approach is a good starting point from which to analyze this decision making in a commercialized and complex environment. By introducing the MBAC (“media, brands, actors, and communication”) model, a new approach is offered toward better theoretical understanding of brand identity-driven decision making. Responsibilities and tensions between the journalistic and the business side of news production are presented, and the complex environment in which decisions are made, implemented, and defended are elaborated on.

The Future of TV Commercials: Not as Bleak as Proclaimed

Abstract Changes in the TV industry and usage patterns create the necessity to reevaluate the production and insertion of commercials into the program. We analyze how industry professionals value the effectiveness of traditional TV commercials and examine if increasingly hybrid advertising formats integrating the commercial message into the editorial content are chosen. Contrary to the common assumption that the classical TV commercial is about to disappear, our structured interviews reveal that it is still considered the most important advertising format and cannot be substituted. The future is seen in integrated intra- and inter-medial campaigns using both traditional and hybrid advertising formats.

Neue Erlösformen für Publikumszeitschriften — Kaufpreis und Medienmarke als Erfolgsfaktoren für Paid Content

Der Beitrag geht der Frage nach, fur welche Art von Online-Angeboten von Publikumszeitschriften Nutzer bereit waren zu zahlen und auf welche Aspekte sich entsprechende Geschaftsmodelle stutzen mussen. Basis hierfur sind eigene theoretische Erwagungen sowie eine Sekundarauswertung empirischer Studien. Im Beitrag werden zunachst erforderliche Voraussetzungen skizziert, bevor theoretische Grundlagen fur das Entscheidungsverhalten der Internetnutzer erlautert werden. Darauf aufbauend werden die Bedeutung des Kaufpreises und der Medienmarke diskutiert. Der Beitrag schliest mit konkreten Handlungsempfehlungen fur Online-Angebote von Publikumszeitschriften.

Design of the Study: An Integrated Approach

In the recent decades different complementary approaches to capturing the effects of political campaigns have been offered (for an overview see Brady and Johnston 2006; Goldstein and Ridout 2004, Iyengar and Simon 2000). Without doubt, one of the strongest approaches to investigating the effects of mediated political campaigns is the analysis of longitudinal data from panel designs (e.g. Bartels 2006). However, even studies relying on panel data are plagued with the problem of drawing causal inferences about campaign effects because little is known about the content of the press releases, the political advertisements or the news media. This shortcoming is addressed in the present study by using an integrated approach. We explicitly attempt to integrate data collection and data analyses of the strategies of political and media actors an analysis of their impact on the opinion formation of voters. Figure 1.1 in Chapter 1 illustrates the integrated design of the present study: It highlights the three types of actors involved in the political communication process – politicians, the news media and citizens – and the decisions and processes taking place at the site of each one of these actors, as well as the sets of reciprocal processes linking each pair of them.

Media Organizations in Direct-Democratic Campaigns

Media are a crucial actor in direct-democratic societies. In the political communication process, as we saw in Chapter 1 (see also Buchanan 2001), media basically transport political messages from political actors to citizens. Media thus serve democracy as an important and indispensable instrument. However, commercialization of the media, a shift from the dominance of journalistic values to the dominance of financial considerations, and a shift from citizen orientation to consumer orientation, puts in danger the democratic functions of the media.