"In Europe, Germany and France are ahead in digitally embracing trade books, notably !ction, yet are clearly behind the US and UK. But countries as diverse as Austria, Italy, Poland, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden have recently seen the implementation of an ebook distribution infrastructure, and at lea
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st the largest publishing groups are broadly releasing their new titles as ebooks, aside from print. With retail prices on average significantly higher, as in the English language, and VAT discriminating against ebooks in favor of print, the initial momentum of growth still confronts an environment that is di"cult for early adopters. Yet as Amazon, Apple, Sony, and Kobo have started to roll out localized versions of their online selling platforms and devices, with Google expected to follow soon, significant momentum is building up, and future projections see a double digit market share for ebooks for 2015 in most European markets. In China and Brazil, distinct local factors set those developments clearly apart. In China, mobile is the preferred platform, while “online literature,” often as a serialized stream of content, provides a channel for the dissemination of bookish content well apart from the traditional format of the “book.” In Brazil, educational content may become the main driver for digital." (Executive summary)
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"This article examines the changing ways in which intelligence about the BBC’s international audiences has been gathered and used since the advent of the Empire Service in 1932. It is written from the perspective of a former Head of Audience Research (1982-96) at the BBC World Service. In BBC dome
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stic broadcasting, the appointment of Robert Silvey in 1936 led to the daily collection throughout the UK of the most comprehensive national audience data anywhere in the world. For international broadcasting such systematic detail and regularity was out of the question. The listeners were widely scattered and thinly spread. Survey research of any kind was difficult, expensive or impossible. Moreover, many parts of the world to which the BBC World Service (BBCWS) broadcast were closed to any systematic local research, either because no local facilities to do research existed or because of legal or governmental prohibitions. At the start of BBC Empire Service spontaneous feedback from listeners’ letters was the main source of information. Research was also carried out using questionnaires sent by international mail to listeners who had written to the BBC. Face to face surveys in target areas were conducted from 1944, but coverage was patchy and limited by lack of resources. During the 1970s and 1980s it was conclusively shown that letter writers are unrepresentative of the whole audience. The need to have more representative data about audiences led to a massive increase in funding for quantitative research, especially under John Tusa, the Managing Director of the World Service from 1986 to 1992. Tusa increased the amount available to spend on research more than twenty-fold. As well as quantitative research using surveys of adult populations in all parts of the world (only a tiny number of countries today remain closed to all research) qualitative work is now also regularly commissioned. The global success of the BBC World Service is a result of the fact that it developed better intelligence about audiences than all other international broadcasters." (Abstract)
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"How could Western broadcasters during the Cold War learn about their audiences in the USSR when they were denied the possibility of conducting surveys within the country? In response to this quandary, second-best approaches were developed at Radio Liberty employing interviews with travellers outsid
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e the country and a sophisticated computer simulation program to draw estimates on audience size, composition and behaviour. In time, it became possible to validate the success of this approach through comparisons with internal survey work, both before and after the breakup of the Soviet Union. This paper overviews the methodology used and a sample of the findings." (Summary)
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"Los lectores encontrarán en un primer momento el bosquejo de los objetivos de la investigación con una descripción de la metodología del trabajo de campo. Este segmento nos permite argumentar por qué nos hemos decantado por un estudio cualitativo que permite indagar sobre los detalles de los d
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iscursos, de las construcciones enunciativas sobre las prácticas culturales. Nos interesan las concordancias, pero también las discordancias [...] En el segundo capítulo desarrollamos un breve repaso de los estudios más destacados sobre las diásporas contemporáneas y los medios de comunicación [...] Nos detenemos en los apuntes sobre Colombia y Ecuador, países en los que hemos centrado nuestra atención para intentar comprender las tendencias en los comportamientos cotidianos, la comunicación directa y mediada y, sobre todo, las relaciones familiares directas y transnacionales. En el tercer capítulo se realiza un repaso de todos aquellos estudios que han aportado pistas sobre la inmigración latinoamericana y el consumo cultural. Desde encuestas, sondeos y estudios cualitativos, aportamos el telón de fondo sobre el que descansa este trabajo exploratorio: desde la centralidad de los medios y los usos de las nuevas tecnologías, pasando por la convivencia en el hogar, los envíos de remesas y la participación en actividades deportivas, culturales y asociativas. El cuarto capítulo lo constituye el análisis de los discursos de nuestros informantes. A partir de la elaboración de los grupos de discusión y las entrevistas en profundidad nos proponemos aportar nuevos hallazgos sobre los usos y los consumos culturales y mediáticos. Hemos querido escuchar las voces de los migrantes latinoamericanos internacionales desde sus percepciones individuales hasta las estrategias identitarias colectivas, pasando por la evaluación crítica sobre la oferta y la demanda de los medios producidos por y para inmigrantes latinoamericanos y para la sociedad española en general. Hemos explorado el valor que tienen la música, la influencia de los amigos y la familia y los lazos afectivos y tecnológicos con las “comunidades imaginadas”: aquellas que se quedaron en el lugar de origen y aquellas que se construyen en el limbo o entre las dos orillas. Finalmente, los lectores encontrarán algunas ideas a modo de conclusión y propuestas de acción." (Introducción, página 6-7)
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"Building on rigorous research by the world-renowned Glasgow University Media Group, 'More Bad News From Israel' examines media coverage of the current conflict in the Middle East and the impact it has on public opinion. The book brings together senior journalists and ordinary viewers to examine how
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audiences understand the news and how their views are shaped by media reporting. In the largest study ever undertaken in this area, the authors focus on television news. They illustrate major differences in the way Israelis and Palestinians are represented, including how casualties are shown and the presentation of the motives and rationales of both sides. They combine this with extensive audience research involving hundreds of participants from the USA, Britain and Germany. It shows extraordinary differences in levels of knowledge and understanding, especially amongst young people from these countries." (Publisher description)
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"Im gegenwärtigen Globalisierungszeitalter betreffen Nachrichten aus dem Ausland die Bürger in Deutschland oftmals ebenso direkt oder indirekt, wie Nachrichten aus dem eigenen Land. Deshalb sollte der Auslandsberichterstattung in den öffentlich-rechtlichen Sendern ein hoher Stellenwert eingeräum
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t werden. Doch da auf Seiten der Sender befürchtet wird, mit hintergründiger Auslandsberichterstattung keine großen Marktanteile zu erzielen, wird dieses journalistische Themenfeld im Kontext der öffentlich-rechtlichen Programme fast zur Gänze vernachlässigt: Weder die Auslandsberichterstattung des ZDF noch die der ARD wird, so die Haupterkenntnis dieser Arbeit, den durch die voranschreitende Globalisierung aller Lebensbereiche entstandenen Anforderungen gerecht." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"An examination of the development of local radio broadcasting and the trend for locally-owned, locally-originated and locally-accountable commercial radio stations to fall into the hands of national and international media groups. Starkey traces the early development of local radio through to prese
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nt-day digital environments." (Publisher description)
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"A través de un estudio sistemático basado en el monitoreo de las producciones de ficción televisiva, este anuario presenta y analiza datos de producción, circulación, distribución y consumo de programas de ficción exhibidos en el 2010 y presenta una síntesis comparativa de lo que fue el añ
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o en términos de ficción televisiva." (Contratapa)
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"This report presents the findings of a systematic study of the value of the services that libraries in the UK provide to researchers, and of the contributions that libraries from a wide range of institutions make to institutional research performance. The aim was to identify the key characteristics
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of library provision to support research in successful UK universities and departments. The approach comprised two main elements: quantitative analysis of statistics – from SCONUL, HESA, and the RAE, along with bibliometric data - to investigate correlations between the characteristics and behaviours of libraries in 67 UK HE institutions, and the research performance of those institutions; and gathering and analysing a large tranche of qualitative information from nine institutions with a range of characteristics." (Executive summary)
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"Based on CommGAP’s interactions with the global anticorruption community as well as earlier research, we were able to collate 18 representative instances (case studies) from around the world, with real-life examples of citizens coming together to speak up against corruption and social norms vis-
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-vis corruption or to change public services affected by corrupt practices. This report is a “one-step-up” analysis of the collated case studies, which is intended to shed light on practical approaches, tools, and techniques that have been successful in bringing citizens together to stand against the daunting phenomenon of corruption." (Page 1)
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"With three notable exceptions—Belarus, Russia, and Uzbekistan—the media sector in the countries included in the first edition of the MSI in 2001 have over time either improved overall or stayed more or less the same. But, a review of overall MSI scores is just one way to use the MSI to see how
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the media situation has changed [...] Another is to compare the qualitative characterizations made by panelists in 2001 to those they are making today. In a similar vein, IREX includes a summary of how the Internet was viewed in 2001 and how it is described today as a way to look at the impact of new media on dissemination of information, public dialogue, and citizen access to timely news and information. IREX this year employed an updated methodology to prepare the reports [...] IREX added two new indicators. One assesses a media sector’s ability to report on local, regional, national, and international news in a way that meets the needs of citizens in all corners of a country." (Executive summary, page 9)
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"The number of foreigners in Hungary (as a proportion of the total population) is a negligible two percent. The majority of immigrants are Hungarian nationals coming from the neighbouring countries. Given to the low number of foreign citizens, the ‘man in the street’ in Hungary relatively rarely
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meets an immigrant or asylum seeker. The attitude of Hungarians is nevertheless negative toward foreign citizens who are not Hungarian nationals. The average Hungarian despises the Roma even more. Members of this community encounter widespread discrimination and occasional physical violence. One of the media’s roles might be to foster social cohesion and the integration of minorities. These roles might be enhanced by programming from public service broadcasters, balanced news coverage from commercial media outlets, media content produced by members of the minority, and media campaigns which aim to integrate minorities. The public service broadcasters satisfy their legal obligations by way of providing programming for and about the national and the ethnic minorities. Though the length of the broadcasts in lower-reach periods is not proportionate to the size of the given national or ethnic minorities as compared to the total population, these programmes constitute the only fora where the average Hungarian can encounter these minorities. Several commercial media outlets have adopted codes of ethics, and our findings confirm that most of these include provisions on how the minorities should be portrayed. However, various studies on the media representation of minorities find that in the Hungarian media, the voice of the depicted minorities can hardly ever be heard in the news, with coverage generally focusing on problems and conflicts, and the context of events being covered superficially." (Summary and conclusion)
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"Since the beginning of the 1970s, the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung has taken a holistic approach to its support of the media in its international and European cooperation efforts. What started as individual training projects for senior journalists and the support of communications studies in Latin Amer
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ica then became a range of activities within the regional media programme for Latin America at the beginning of the 1990s. The transnational approach was so successful from the start that the foundation started another media programme in Asia in 1996. The programmes in sub-Saharan Africa and in Southeast Europe followed in 2002 and 2007. Free and independent media are central to any democratic system. Promoting them is the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung’s mission and responsibility. We hope to contribute to ensuring that the media perform their role in the development and stabilisation of democracy worldwide, and live up to their political responsibility." (Foreword, page 3)
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"This paper offers an overview of Bulgaria’s media landscape, putting it into its demographic, economic and political context. It gives a basic overview of the country’s media structure, including details on media markets; media regulation and regulatory authorities; and journalism culture." (Pa
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ge 1)
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