Philip M. Napoli

The Emerging Mobile Internet Underclass: A Critique of Mobile Internet Access

This article provides a critical comparative analysis of mobile versus personal computer (PC)-based forms of Internet access. Drawing from an interdisciplinary body of literature, it illustrates a wide range of ways in which mobile Internet access offers lower levels of functionality and content availability; operates on less open and flexible platforms; and contributes to diminished levels of user engagement, content creation, and information seeking. At a time when a growing proportion of the online population is “mobile only,” these disparities have created what is termed here a mobile Internet underclass. The implications of this argument for digital divide policymaking and, more broadly, for the evolutionary trajectory of the Internet and the dynamics of Internet usage are discussed.

On making public policy with publicly available data: The case of U.S. communications policymaking☆

Abstract A fundamental principle of public policymaking should be that public policy must be made with publicly available data. This article develops this position and applies it to an assessment of the current state of communications policymaking, a policy area in which controversies surrounding the transparency of policy research and the accessibility of policy-relevant data have been both common and extremely contentious in recent years. This article provides a detailed assessment of the challenges confronting greater transparency and accessibility of communications policy-relevant data, as well as a detailed set of proposals for improving the current situation, in an effort to build towards an environment in which public policy is made with publicly available data.

Audience Valuation and Minority Media: An Analysis of the Determinants of the Value of Radio Audiences

This study examines the factors that affect the value of radio station audiences, with an emphasis on whether, and to what extent, minority composition affects the value of radio audiences. The results indicate that the prominence of minorities (both African-American and Hispanic) is negatively related to the value of radio station audiences. These results suggest that policymakers seeking to promote source and content diversity may need to look beyond seeking means of promoting the establishment of new minority media outlets and also consider means of preserving the viability of existing media outlets.

A Principal-Agent Approach to the Study of Media Organizations: Toward a Theory of the Media Firm

Media organizations are both political and economic actors They have the ability to influence public opinion voting behavior and government policy At the same time they tend to be motivated primarily by profit maximizing goals Agency theory also called the principal-agent approach has been useful for understanding the behavior of individuals in profit seeking organizations as well as individuals in political organizations such as legislatures and regulatory agencies Applying principles from the agency theory framework to the behav ior of individuals at various hierarchical levels of the mass media firm reveals important variables such as monitoring costs individual motivations and im plicit organizational control mechanisms that may significantly impact media content Focusing on these variables can help explain variability in media con tent across different media organizations

The Audience Product and the New Media Environment: Implications for the Economics of Media Industries

Audiences are the primary product manufactured and sold by advertisersupported media. In selling audiences to advertisers, media firms deal in human attention, which resists the type of exact verification and quantification typical of transactions in other industries (Napoli forthcoming). Verifying the presence of human attention to media generally requires entering people’s living rooms, bedrooms and cars, and monitoring their behaviour. For such monitoring to be maximally effective requires audience members’ explicit permission and cooperation to turn something as abstract as attention into tangible data that can be sold in the marketplace. In addition, the audience product is produced from raw materials (consumers) that the producers (media organizations and audience measurement firms) can not control (Berry & Waldfogel 1999). Since the production of audiences is not controlled by the manufacturers, any efforts to bring predictability and rationality to the process of producing audiences must draw upon a sophisticated understanding of the essentially uncontrollable, yet somewhat predictable, behaviour of media audiences. Thus, the economics of advertising-supported media revolve around efforts to predict and measure the behaviour of media consumers. Such efforts persist because greater effectiveness in audience prediction and audience measurement brings greater efficiency and greater revenues to the audience marketplace (Barnes & Thomson 1988, 1994; Fournier & Martin 1983). By the same token, conditions that undermine such efforts damage the audience marketplace. Ongoing changes in the media environment have the potential to cause such damage. The purpose of this article is to identify the key means by which the new media environment is threatening to undermine the audience marketplace. By focusing on such issues, this article is intended to serve as a counterweight to the prominent discourse emphasizing the opportunities and benefits the new media environment offers advertisers and content providers. This analysis is organized around a conceptual model in which the audience product is separated into three interrelated components: (a) the predicted audience; (b) the measured audience; and (c) the actual audience. As this article will illustrate, the new media environment is increasing the disconnects between these components of the audience product.

Audience Measurement and Media Policy: Audience Economics, the Diversity Principle, and the Local People Meter

Nielsen Media Researchs introduction of the local people meter (LPM) audience measurement service has encountered substantial resistance from industry stakeholders, politicians and sectors of the minority advocacy community. Much of this resistance has focused on the issue of the possible impact of audience measurement on the diversity of sources and content available to the television audience. This article examines the diversity policy concerns surrounding Nielsen Media Researchs introduction of the LPM. The article explores whether the LPM represents a legitimate threat to source and content diversity, or whether the diversity principle has been largely co-opted in support of other economic and policy considerations of certain industry stakeholders.

The Unpredictable Audience: An Exploratory Analysis of Forecasting Error for New Prime-Time Network Television Programs

Abstract This article investigates possible determinants of forecasting error for new prime-time network television programs. Each season, advertising industry forecasters attempt to predict the audience shares for new fall programs. Advertising expenditures are made on the basis of these projections, though historically these forecasts have been very inaccurate. Through an integration of audience behavior theory and decision—making theory, this paper attempts to identify factors that explain the magnitude of uncertainty, and hence the magnitude of forecasting error, surrounding the predictions for new programs. The results indicate that the presence of a returning network lead-in or lead-out significantly reduces the amount of forecasting error. In addition, the results indicate that forecasting error has increased significantly over time. The overall explanatory power of the model suggests that content and audience characteristics must be incorporated into the analytical framework as well.

The Unique Nature of Communications Regulation: Evidence and Implications for Communications Policy Analysis

The numerous policy changes taking place following the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 necessitate an examination of the nature of communications regulation. Specifically, it is necessary to reexamine whether the prevailing analytic perspective adequately accounts for the fundamental differences between communications regulation and the regulation of other industries. This article outlines three fundamental differences and discusses their implications for effective communications policy analysis.

Audience Evolution and the Future of Audience Research

This article considers how changes in audience behaviors and in audience information systems are affecting the future of academic audience research. This article first illustrates how changes in the media environment are undermining traditional approaches to audience research while also giving rise to alternative analytical approaches. This article then outlines the contours of a next-generation audience research agenda that reflects these ongoing conceptual and methodological developments. Reflecting these developments, this article next argues for a definition of ratings analysis that focuses not on a particular aspect of audience behavior (i.e., exposure), but on whatever forms of currency are employed in the audience marketplace. From this standpoint, the new media environment provides new forms of “ratings” that exist alongside—and integrate with—the old, and that can renew and revitalize the field of ratings analysis.

Changing Market Information Regimes: A Case Study of the Transition to the BookScan Audience Measurement System in the U.S. Book Publishing Industry

This article presents a case study of the transition to a new market information regime, via an analysis of the transition to the BookScan system of measuring book sales and the potential impact of this new measurement system on how publishing industry decision makers perceive—and respond to—their competitive environment. This study critically examines the traditional systems of audience measurement—and their uses—in book publishing, as well as the diffusion process for the BookScan system. This study finds many similarities between the introduction and potential impact of BookScan and the introduction and impact of new audience measurement systems in other media, such as stronger resistance from content producers (e.g., publishers) than from other stakeholders (e.g., agents, retailers), as well as a likelihood that widespread usage of the new measurement system will contribute to greater fragmentation and greater volatility of the measured industry.