"With more than 190 million inhabitants and over 36 million households, the Arab world’s strong population growth combined with continued economic development make it a highly attractive market for broadcasters. Arab countries have more than 150 free-to-air television channels available to most ho
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mes. Multichannel free-to-air television reaches 35 percent of households in Egypt and up to 90 percent in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. At the same time, the Arab world’s pay-TV industry is also rapidly expanding, with subscriber growth averaging 40 percent per year over the past several years. Pay-TV penetration is still low, however, varying from 5 percent in Egypt to 29 percent in the UAE. Demand for and consumption of television broadcasting is significantly stronger in the Arab world than in most other developing countries. Close family ties combined with often harsh weather conditions, low literacy rates, and a culture of oral communication have made television the centerpiece of family life in many Arab countries. Demand for audiovisual content is not, however, homogenous across countries. Although all the countries in the region share a common language and the majority a common religion, there are differences in culture, television consumption, and viewing preferences across demographic segments and countries. In addition, television preferences are rapidly changing and fragmenting, particularly among age and socioeconomic groups, and competition for viewers' attention is very strong and growing." (Page 69)
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"BBC listenership in Afghanistan remains strong and the station has retained a strong brand presence. BBC radio is among the most listened to stations in Afghanistan. Over half (57%) of adults had listened within the past week at the time of the survey in January 2008. 75% of the population claimed
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to have heard it at some point. Eighty-nine percent of Afghans who have ever used BBC radio or TV indicated they will continue to use the BBC in the future and over three-quarters (76%) say they will recommend the BBC to others. BBC Afghanistan is the service most people still turn to for news and it is the most trusted source of news on TV or radio. Ninety-percent of BBC listeners feel they can trust the information provided by the BBC. People respect the service for being relevant, unbiased and educational [...] Afghans have a strong desire for news and information. The vast majority of Afghans (92%) think it is important to stay informed about current events in Afghanistan. The internal situation remains fluid, and this is a country going through a tumultuous social, economic, and political transformation. Afghans are also keen to stay informed about daily security threats to hear about the continuing struggle between the Afghan government and the anti-government elements, in particular the Taliban, for control over the future of the country." (Executive summary, pages 4-5)
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"This book explores people's everyday experience of the media in Asian countries in confrontation with huge social change and transition and the need to understand this phenomenon as it intersects with the media. It argues for the centrality of the media to Asian transformations in the era of global
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ization. The profusion of the media today, with new imaginations, new choices and contradictions, generates a critical condition for reflexivity engaging everyday people to have a resource for the learning of self, culture and society in a new light. Media culture is creating new connections, new desires and threats, and the identities of people are being reworked at individual, national, regional and global levels. Within historically specific social conditions and contexts of the everyday, the chapters seek to provide a diversity of experiences and understandings of the place of the media in different Asian locations. This book considers the emerging consequences of media consumption in people's everyday life at a time when the political, socio-economic and cultural forces by which the media operate are rapidly globalizing in Asia." (Publisher description)
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"This textbook is an excellent introduction to quantitative audience measurement, especially to sampling and designing questionnaires. In addition, qualitative research, data analysis and the follow-up ("how research is used [...] understanding audiences [...] strategic research") are handled as wel
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l. The author, a former head of audience research for BBC World Service, combines the discussion of methods and cientific background with concrete examples in developing countries. Why is it important to train the interviewers? How to avoid mistakes by translating the questionnaires in indigenous languages? How to organize focus groups? How to interpret ratings? This publication is a gold mine of experience for anybody who needs to know more about his audience and to reflect on the own research practice." (CAMECO Update 1-2008)
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"This Nationwide Media Audience Survey 2006 is the most comprehensive and representative media survey carried out in Papua New Guinea to date. Regular media surveys for commercial purposes have been carried out, concentrating on urban and peri-urban samples in the five most-developed major centres.
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Whilst their design is well suited to their objectives, the results are by no means representative of the population at large and the findings of this NMAS are obviously at considerable variance with such urban-centred surveys. This NMAS was designed to provide a more accurate ‘warts and all’ model of media reception, perceptions and attitudes across the nation. The sampling system catered for the majority rural population and less-developed provinces and districts. This NMAS clearly reveals the patterns of media gradients and the extent to which the majority rural populations are disadvantaged in receiving mass-media communications (and in interacting with the media)." (Executive summary, page 9)
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"This thesis provides, firstly, an analysis of the interplay of transnational media corporations, particularly Rupert Murdoch's Star TV, in their pursuit of creating profitable national consumer markets, preferably in a democracy like India, with the anti-minority politics, modes of popular/populist
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mobilisation and discursive strategies of Hindu nationalism. It looks at the economic, technological, medial, political, social, visual/iconographic and legal aspects of this interplay and delineates their concrete manifestations in news as well as in entertainment programming of everyday television (particularly in very popular shows and channels at the time). These aspects are set into the larger framework of globalisation, privatisation, commercialisation and neo-liberal policies, the related thrusts of social upward mobility (especially in the new middle classes), ‘good governance’ (instead of socio-economic justice) and shifting class-, caste-, majority-minority and national-regional relations in the context of a re-formulation of nation and state that defines and legitimises new logics of inclusion and exclusion. Secondly, this work is a study of "Indianisation" and lingual/representational politics in the context of the growing precariousness of the liberal-secular discourse and of democratic, independent mass media in India. Especially English-language journalists, whose largely critical coverage of the anti-Muslim violence experienced an hitherto unknown rejection on the part of TV audiences (and consequently produced a slump in advertising revenues), turned with the Gujarat crisis out to epitomise the ambivalence of challenging the definitional power of a privileged postcolonial class: its rightful critique carries the danger of vindicating and naturalising anti-minority cultural nationalism. The study follows and examines, before the background of a normative construction of a Hindi-speaking, ‘authentic’ media consumer, the changing position of both English and Hindi-producing journalists and producers, their respective perceptions of alienation, speechlessness and empowerment, their unwanted role as activists in the context of shifting meanings of 'neutrality' and 'objectivity', their difficulties or agility in assessing their options and maintaining, changing or even developing their convictions, and the strategies they find or reject for adapting to the circumstances." (Abstract)
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"Für Studenten sollte nachvollziehbar sein, wie man von bestehenden Ergebnissen zu einer Forschungsidee, von dieser zu theoriengestützten Untersuchungsstrategien und durch diese über die Interpretation der Ergebnisse zu einem mehr oder weniger konsistenten Erkl/irungsmodell kommt. Aus diesem Grun
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d beginnt der Text mit der Darstellung von Ergebnissen aus einem spezifischen Forschungsbereich, nämlich der "Vielseherforschung". Diese Ergebnisse werden mit Theorien und Konstrukten aus einem bisher damit nicht in Verbindung gebrachten Forschungsgebiet der Sozialpsychologie verglichen und die dabei aufgedeckten Übereinstimmungen zur Grundlage neuer Forschungsstrategien gemacht. Die immer wieder "eingestreuten" (insgesamt sechs) empirischen Untersuchungen haben die Aufgabe, den roten Faden einer Forschungsstrategie zu demonstrieren und die theoretischen und methodischen Schwierigkeiten exakter empirischer Forschung auf diesem Gebiet darzustellen. Von Untersuchung zu Untersuchung wird - unter Einbeziehung weiterführender, theoretischer Ansätze - das Forschungskonzept erweitert, bis hin zum Versuch der Konstruktion eines erklärenden, interaktiven Modells. Ausgangspunkt der dargestellten Gedankengänge ist ein kommunikationstheoretisches Paradoxon. Während die miniaturisierende Elektronik und die Satellitentechnologie es ermöglicht, mobil und von jedem Ort der Welt aus Informationen in unser Wohnzimmer zu senden, betreiben immer mehr Rezipienten Informationsabwehr und ziehen sich auf klischeehafte und stereotype Unterhaltungsformen -dieses Mediums- zurück. Selbst die Information wird zum "Infotainment" und übernimmt die formalen Strukturen der Unterhaltungssendungen. Im vorliegenden Text wird der Versuch gemacht nachzuweisen, dass Fernsehkonsum nur ein spezifischer Aspekt der generellen Auseinandersetzung eines Individuums mit seiner Umwelt ist. Der Stil und die Strategie dieser Auseinandersetzung wird durch die Sozialisation des Individuums bestimmend geprägt. Kompliziert wird die Angelegenheit durch die Tatsache der Mutation des Fernsehens selbst (neben Eltern, Schule und Gleichaltrigen) zum Sozialisationsfaktor." (Vorbemerkung, Seite 11-12)
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