- School of Communication and Information
Rutgers University
4 Huntington St.
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
Philip Napoli
Duke University, Sanford School of Public Policy, Faculty Member
- Mass Communication, Media and Democracy, New Communication Technologies, Media Policy, Media and public policy, Communication in the Public Interest, and 27 moreThe Internet, Broadcast Policy, Media technology, Audience Research, Audience Measurement, Media Institutions, Institutional Theory, Social Media, Big Data, Journalism, Media Impact and Effects and Usages, Online Journalism, Audience and Reception Studies, Sociology of Journalism, Digital Media, New Media, Internet Studies, Media Studies, Internet & Society, Media regulation, Media Industries, Audience Studies, Television Studies, Media Economics, Media, Journalism and Media Studies, and Digital Cultureedit
- I am the James R. Shepley Professor of Public Policy in the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University and Di... moreI am the James R. Shepley Professor of Public Policy in the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University and Director of the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media & Democracy. My research interests focus on media institutions and media policy. My most recent book is Social Media and the Public Interest: Media Regulation in the Disinformation Age (Columbia University Press, 2019). My previous books include Audience Evolution: New Technologies and the Transformation of Media Audiences (Columbia University Press) and Communications Research in Action: Scholar-Activist Collaborations for a Democratic Public Sphere (Fordham University Press), which I co-edited with Minna Aslama.
I have also authored Audience Economics: Media Institutions and the Audience Marketplace (Columbia University Press, 2003) and Foundations of Communications Policy: Principles and Process in the Regulation of Electronic Media (Hampton Press, 2001).edit
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In the United States, debates about political bias in the content curation and moderation practices of social media platforms have spilled over into the policy realm, rekindling conversations about the Fairness Doctrine and its potential... more
In the United States, debates about political bias in the content curation and moderation practices of social media platforms have spilled over into the policy realm, rekindling conversations about the Fairness Doctrine and its potential utility in possible regulatory approaches to social media. This article revisits the history of the Fairness Doctrine and uses this history as a lens for critically examining current proposals for integrating Fairness Doctrine‐like principles into a regulatory framework for social media. In addressing this topic, the first section of this article provides a brief overview of the history of the Fairness Doctrine and how the Doctrine has informed (and misinformed) subsequent media policy debates in the years since its elimination. The second section describes how the Fairness Doctrine is being brought to bear in the contemporary debates around social media regulation. The third section offers a critical analysis of the applicability of the Fairness Do...
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A common position amongst social media platforms and online content aggregators is their resistance to being characterized as media companies. Rather, companies such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter have regularly insisted that they... more
A common position amongst social media platforms and online content aggregators is their resistance to being characterized as media companies. Rather, companies such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter have regularly insisted that they should be thought of purely as technology companies. This paper critiques the position that these platforms are technology companies rather than media companies, explores the underlying rationales, and considers the political, legal, and policy implications associated with accepting or rejecting this position. As this paper illustrates, this is no mere semantic distinction, given the history of the precise classification of communications technologies and services having profound ramifications for how these technologies and services are considered by policy-makers and the courts.
Research Interests: Business, Information Systems, Computer Science, Algorithms, New Media, and 11 moreJournalism, Internet Studies, Politics, Media Industries, Media Policy, Social Media, The Internet, Journalism Studies, Library and Information Studies, Journalism And Mass communication, and Communication and media Studies
Today’s communications economy is fundamentally different from the communications economy that characterized the previous “mass media era” in ways that dramatically affect the production, dissemination, and consumption of news and... more
Today’s communications economy is fundamentally different from the communications economy that characterized the previous “mass media era” in ways that dramatically affect the production, dissemination, and consumption of news and information critical to the effective functioning of democracy. As the traditional news business model has declined, big data, content farms, and new media platforms are serving as increasingly important mechanisms for analyzing, creating, and disseminating news and information. Yet these trends also exacerbate “one-way flows,” single-subject news models, audience fragmentation, and shifting tensions between large and small market journalism. The nature of the technological changes that have affected the news industry are interacting with certain fundamental economic characteristics of news content, news audiences, and the news marketplace as a whole.
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This paper examines the emergence of social TV analytics as an alternative to traditional television ratings. Drawing upon data from three of the leading providers of social TV analytics, this paper investigates the extent to which these... more
This paper examines the emergence of social TV analytics as an alternative to traditional television ratings. Drawing upon data from three of the leading providers of social TV analytics, this paper investigates the extent to which these measurement systems are providing comparable representations of audience engagement with individual television programs and networks. The findings suggest that, across most criteria, these services are providing largely incompatible representations of audience engagement with television. The paper then considers the implications of these findings for the possible institutionalization of social TV metrics as a supplement or alternative to traditional television ratings.
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ABSTRACT 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... more
ABSTRACT 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.
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For an increasing proportion of the population worldwide, mobile-based forms of Internet access represent the primary means of going online. Furthermore, for some sectors, mobile-based forms of Internet access are the only means for... more
For an increasing proportion of the population worldwide, mobile-based forms of Internet access represent the primary means of going online. Furthermore, for some sectors, mobile-based forms of Internet access are the only means for connecting online. Much has been written about the tremendous benefits, and even the transformative capacity, associated with this global mobile diffusion. Though there is much to be gained from what might be called the ongoing mobile conversion, in which mobile Internet access supplants wireline access via PCs/laptops, there are significant drawbacks as well. This paper seeks to offer a somewhat contrarian perspective to the overwhelmingly positive discourse that has accompanied discussions of the rise of mobile Internet access. Specifically, this paper argues that the transition from fixed to mobile forms of Internet access represents an evolutionary regression across some key dimensions. In particular, the mobile conversion brings with it a significant step backwards in terms of the activity and autonomy that the Internet has, to this point, brought to media audiences. It is this re-passification of the audience that is the focal point of this analysis. In addressing these issues, this paper begins with a theoretical grounding in media and audience evolution. Specifically, this paper begins with an examination of the institutional tensions and resistance patterns that have historically characterized the dynamic between media and audiences, with a particular emphasis on the extent to which media systems have facilitated or discouraged audience activity and content creation. Next, this paper examines the evidence that the dynamics of mobile Internet content provision and usage are fundamentally different from the traditional PC-based Internet in ways that represent a regression of the Internet’s capabilities, particularly in terms of facilitating a more active, content-creating and distributing role for the audience. It is suggested that relative to the PC-based model of Internet access and usage, the mobile Internet is, in many ways, a significant step back towards a more passive audience model in which the traditional boundaries between content providers and audiences that the Internet has thus far helped to break down are to some extent being re-established.
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Cultural and media policy have remained largely distinct fields of research, policymaking, and policy advocacy in the United States. There are, however, significant areas of overlap between these two areas that have not been fully... more
Cultural and media policy have remained largely distinct fields of research, policymaking, and policy advocacy in the United States. There are, however, significant areas of overlap between these two areas that have not been fully explored. The author examines the linkages between the two fields, covering the traditional lines of demarcation that have separated them; contemporary developments that compel stronger overlap in terms of their substantive areas of concern; the shared, normative principles between the two areas; the ...
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Technological Visions originated as a series of projects at the Annenberg Schools for Communication at the University of Southern California and the University of Pennsylvania. Both the original projects and the material added for this... more
Technological Visions originated as a series of projects at the Annenberg Schools for Communication at the University of Southern California and the University of Pennsylvania. Both the original projects and the material added for this volume were selected with the aim of presenting a range of perspectives on technological innovation and the strong emotions it engenders in American culture. This works well for the reader seeking a range of viewpoints, but makes it hard on a reviewer trying to tease out themes from among eighteen very different essays. Bearing in mind that any summary must leave out as much as it reveals, I will focus on three issues that come to the fore in many of the contributions: the shock of the new, virtual reality versus “real” reality, and the centrality of specific technologies to our overall vision of technology. The shock that new technology has created and continues to create, despite its importance to American cultural self-definition, is the theme of essays by Langdon Winner and Lynn Speigel. Speigel’s is titled “Portable TV: Studies in Domestic Space Travels.” Winner’s “Sow’s Ears from Silk Purses” addresses the “visionary enthusiasm” (p. 34) that always accompanies new technologies in American culture. Such enthusiasm is aptly demonstrated in the case of Arthur Little, a chemical engineer, who showed that it is indeed possible to make a silk purse from a sow’s ear. The futurist penchant of pundits is addressed in three contributions, David Nye’s “Technological Prediction: A Promethean Problem,” John Perry Barlow’s “The Future of Prediction,” and Wendy Grossman’s “Penguins, Predictions, and Technological Optimism: A Skeptic’s View.” Nye provides a historical critique of futurism, while Grossman takes aim at the capacity of the Internet to generate predictions of its own glorious future. Barlow, in contrast, suggests that predictions of enormous changes wrought by technology have, in fact, come true. That the impact of new technologies continues to vary widely among different ethnic and economic groups is confirmed by Jennifer Gibbs and her coauthors in “The Globalization of Every Day Life,” a study of differing concepts of globalization among seven Los Angeles communities. A second theme in Technological Visions concerns virtual reality. Sherry Turkle’s “Spinning Technology” explores the way in which children make sense of their computer experience by trying to relate it to the values and attitudes present in their upbringing. In “Science Fiction Film and the Technological Imagination,” Vivian Sobchack argues that science fiction owes less to the “objectivity” of science and technology than to the “subjecB O O K R E V I E W S
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Research Interests: Cultural Studies, Computer Science, Communication, New Media, Digital Media, and 11 moreMass Communication, Audience and Reception Studies, Interactive Media, New Communication Technologies, Audience, The Internet, Media Institutions, Mass media, Communication Technology, User Generated Content, and Communication and media Studies
The regulation of media industries is undergoing a period of intense change. New technologies such as direct broadcast satellite, digital television, satellite radio, and the Internet are dramatically changing the competitive landscape... more
The regulation of media industries is undergoing a period of intense change. New technologies such as direct broadcast satellite, digital television, satellite radio, and the Internet are dramatically changing the competitive landscape and placing strains on traditional regulatory models. In many nations, the transition from a government-controlled to a commercial, privatized media system is ongoing. Regulatory philosophies, as well as the processes by which regulatory decisions are made are, in many nations, in a state of flux ...
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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... more
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 ...
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Research Interests: Business, Cultural Studies, Psychology, Social Psychology, Television Studies, and 13 moreCorporate Communication, Media Ethics, Mass-Media Ethics, Consumer Behavior, Advertisement, Socially-responsible Investing, Communication and media Studies, Media and Culture, Consumption Culture, Sociology of Journalism, News Analysis, News ethics, and Commercial broadcasting
This study investigates whether market conditions affect the provision of public affairs programming by television broadcasters. The study examined a random sample of 112 commercial broadcast stations in order to determine whether station... more
This study investigates whether market conditions affect the provision of public affairs programming by television broadcasters. The study examined a random sample of 112 commercial broadcast stations in order to determine whether station characteristics, market size and demographics, and competitive conditions affect the quantity of public affairs programming provided. The results suggest that market conditions have very little effect on the quantity of public affairs programming provided by individual broadcast stations and that if regulators wish to increase the amount of public affairs programming in the digital broadcasting realm, specific government-mandated programming requirements may be necessary.
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This report examines the 2007 Internet Governance Forum, held in November, 2007 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Internet Governance Forum is a UN-sponsored convening that emerged from the UN's World Summit on the Information Society.... more
This report examines the 2007 Internet Governance Forum, held in November, 2007 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Internet Governance Forum is a UN-sponsored convening that emerged from the UN's World Summit on the Information Society. The purpose of the IGF is to provide a multi-stakeholder forum for discussion and debate on the wide range of social, political, and economic issues related to Internet governance. This report first provides background on the events and issues leading up to the creation of the ...
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This paper argues that a fundamental guiding principle for contemporary media policymaking and policy advocacy should be the First Amendment right of access to audiences. That is, as the barriers impeding access to the media drop, it is... more
This paper argues that a fundamental guiding principle for contemporary media policymaking and policy advocacy should be the First Amendment right of access to audiences. That is, as the barriers impeding access to the media drop, it is important for policymakers to consider those remaining barriers that can contribute to disproportionate levels of access to audiences. In addressing this issue, this paper contextualizes the emerging importance of policymaking that emphasizes the right of access to audiences ...
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This article examines public perceptions of the news and information sector in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Since the signing of the Dayton Peace Accord in late 1995, the international community has donated millions of dollars to foster free and... more
This article examines public perceptions of the news and information sector in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Since the signing of the Dayton Peace Accord in late 1995, the international community has donated millions of dollars to foster free and fair media. This research explores the media transition in Bosnia through a four-year longitudinal study. The research design measured public perceptions (N= 1689) of the realism, importance and credibility of news outlets in the two major media centers: Banja Luka and Sarajevo. The ...
Research Interests: Communication, Media Studies, Journalism, Public Opinion, Development communication, and 12 morePolitical Science, Media Education, Media Literacy, Media, Media Research, Social Communication, Credibility, Media Coverage, Media Impact and Effects and Usages, Communication and media Studies, Alternate Media, and Development Communication
Although the rhetoric surrounding the growth of the Internet has emphasized its potential as a revolutionary interactive communications medium, we must also consider the forces contributing to a traditional" mass" media... more
Although the rhetoric surrounding the growth of the Internet has emphasized its potential as a revolutionary interactive communications medium, we must also consider the forces contributing to a traditional" mass" media orientation for this new technology. The three primary forces of" massification" are:(a) audience behavior,(b) media economics, and (c) institutional behavior. Analyzing these forces within the context of recent research and developments regarding the Internet indicates that the process of" massification" of the ...
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Philip Napoli is Professor of Journalism & Media Studies in the School of Communication & Information at Rutgers University, where his research focuses on media institutions and policy. He has provided testimony on media policy issues to... more
Philip Napoli is Professor of Journalism & Media Studies in the School of Communication & Information at Rutgers University, where his research focuses on media institutions and policy. He has provided testimony on media policy issues to the U.S. Senate, the FCC and the FTC as well as being featured in media outlets such as the NBC Nightly News, NPR and the Los Angeles Times. Here he discusses the need for a broader debate about algorithm governance with a more robust notion of the public interest in the digital era.
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The purpose of this Article is to revisit the origins and rationales of the indecency standard in broadcasting and to consider what aspects of the broadcast indecency context can potentially inform current policy deliberations about... more
The purpose of this Article is to revisit the origins and rationales
of the indecency standard in broadcasting and to consider what aspects of the broadcast indecency context can potentially inform current policy
deliberations about whether and how to address disinformation and hate
speech on digital platforms. As is increasingly clear, social media platforms are fundamentally different from broadcast media in as many ways as they are similar. For this reason, there may be more utility than is commonly assumed in revisiting the history, rationales, and implementation of broadcast regulation as a point of reference for considering legal and regulatory approaches to social media platforms.
of the indecency standard in broadcasting and to consider what aspects of the broadcast indecency context can potentially inform current policy
deliberations about whether and how to address disinformation and hate
speech on digital platforms. As is increasingly clear, social media platforms are fundamentally different from broadcast media in as many ways as they are similar. For this reason, there may be more utility than is commonly assumed in revisiting the history, rationales, and implementation of broadcast regulation as a point of reference for considering legal and regulatory approaches to social media platforms.
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the social, political, economic and cultural impact of entertainment on the world. The Lear Center translates its findings into action through testimony, journalism, strategic re-search and innovative public outreach campaigns. On campus,... more
the social, political, economic and cultural impact of entertainment on the world. The Lear Center translates its findings into action through testimony, journalism, strategic re-search and innovative public outreach campaigns. On campus, from its base in the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, the Lear Center builds bridges between schools and disciplines whose faculty study aspects of entertainment, media and culture. Beyond campus, it bridges the gap between the entertainment industry and academia, and between them and the public. Through scholarship and research; through its conferences, public events and publications; through its role in the formu-lation of the academic field of entertainment studies; and in its attempts to illuminate and repair the world, the Norman Lear Center works to be at the forefront of discussion and practice in the field. For more information, visit www.learcenter.org. About the Media Impact Project The Lear Center’s Media Impact Pro...
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Both media and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have important roles to play in the development of civil society across the world. The media provide information about democratic change, champion social and political issues, and their... more
Both media and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have important roles to play in the development of civil society across the world. The media provide information about democratic change, champion social and political issues, and their investigative reporting can expose corruption of political leaders. NGOs also contribute to civil society by advocating for the under-represented, serving marginalized publics, and agenda setting. The purpose of this article is to explore the ways in which Croatian citizens perceive the media's and NGOs' contributions to a civil society as their nation moves toward European Union (EU) accession. It reports the results of a longitudinal case study during a pivotal time in Croatia’s accession process (2000-2002).
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The concept of competitive displacement is central to theories of media evolution, and the threat that the Internet has posed to printed newspapers provides an ongoing case study on the topic. In particular, this situation offers an... more
The concept of competitive displacement is central to theories of media evolution, and the threat that the Internet has posed to printed newspapers provides an ongoing case study on the topic. In particular, this situation offers an opportunity to examine the strategic efforts of print newspapers to prevent competitive displacement, as well as the effectiveness of these strategies. This article addresses these issues through an analysis of a unique data set, constructed from 20 years of newspaper circulation data, as well as data on local market characteristics, newspaper staffing and content variety, and state-level Internet penetration. Specifically, this article examines whether, and to what extent, these competitive strategies impacted local print newspaper circulation trends over this 20-year time period. This analysis focuses on the following strategic responses: (a) newspapers’ launching of online versions (a diversification strategy within the language of media evolution lit...
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A central tenet of First Amendment theory is that more speech is an effective remedy against false speech. This counterspeech doctrine was first explicitly articulated by Justice Louis Brandeis in Whitney v. California (1927), in which he... more
A central tenet of First Amendment theory is that more speech is an effective remedy against false speech. This counterspeech doctrine was first explicitly articulated by Justice Louis Brandeis in Whitney v. California (1927), in which he wrote, “If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.” Since then, the effectiveness of counterspeech has become an integral to most conceptualizations of a functioning marketplace of ideas, in which direct government regulation of speech is minimized in favor of an open and competitive speech environment in which ideas are free to circulate, and in which truthful speech is presumed to be inherently capable of winning out over false speech. This paper seeks to unpack the assumptions about the dynamics of the production, dissemination, and consumption of news that are embedded in the counterspeech doctrine. Thi...
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Research Interests: Cultural Studies, Media Studies, New Media, Media Economics, Political Science, and 12 morePolitics, Media Industries, Political Economy of the Media, Media technology, The Internet, Media Institutions, Mass Communication and New Media, Long Tail, Netflix, Communication and media Studies, Phenomenon, and dozen
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Concerning media diversity, should policymakers be more concerned about the choices consumers of information make than what sources are available to them? Dr. Napoli argues that with all of the information outlets currently available,... more
Concerning media diversity, should policymakers be more concerned about the choices consumers of information make than what sources are available to them? Dr. Napoli argues that with all of the information outlets currently available, focusing on source and content diversity is becoming less important than understanding the information that is actually consumed by media users. If audiences choose to focus their attention selectively on only a few sources that reflect their tastes and preferences, are policy interventions called for? Dr. Napoli discusses the kinds of research needed to begin to answer this question.
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In 2009, The Knight Commission released a report identifying access to credible and relevant information as a key requisite for healthy communities (Knight Commission, 2009). This report subsequently led to a comprehensive assessment by... more
In 2009, The Knight Commission released a report identifying access to credible and relevant information as a key requisite for healthy communities (Knight Commission, 2009). This report subsequently led to a comprehensive assessment by the Federal Communications Commission of how community information needs are being met in the broadband era (Waldman, 2011), as well as further exploration by the Commission into how this issue could be researched in ways that could inform policymaking (Friedland et al., 2012). The present research seeks to continue this line of inquiry by developing and testing a set of scalable performance metrics that could serve as analytical tools for assessing variations in the health of local journalism ecosystems across communities or over time; or as components of more comprehensive assessments of the relationship between the health of local journalism and other vital measures of community health, engagement, and political participation. This research compares online local news ouput for three communities that vary in important ways, such as their average household income, average level of education, and broadband penetration. To assess the health of the local journalism ecosystems, four researchers first identified all possible outlets for journalism (both digital and “traditional”) in each of the three communities. The online presence of each outlet – websites as well as social media – was then determined; virtually all outlets within each community had an online presence. Content from one constructed week of social media (Twitter and Facebook), and one continuous week of website news stories was then coded for several key variables, including: originality, whether it addressed a pre-determined “critical information need” (Friedland et al., 2012), and whether it was about the target community. The quantity of information produced by these outlets was controlled for the size of the population, by calculating for each community the number of journalism stories and social media postings produced in the given week per 10,000 capita; per capita measurements (as well as strict percentages) were also used to assess the outputs according to the key normative criteria outlined above (originality, about community, addressing critical information needs). In addition, output concentration (the extent to which the production of stories/social media posts was concentrated within a limited number of local journalism sources) was computed for each community across all of these categories of journalistic output using the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index. The results show drastic differences in the availability and quality of local online journalism, which seem to mirror existing structural inequalities. The community with higher household income, level of education, and broadband penetration was remarkably better served than the poorest and least educated community. The third community, which falls in the middle in terms of education and wealth, but is markedly more diverse, also fared poorly relative to the highest-income community. These findings point to the possibility of pronounced “digital divides” separating communities of different types in relation to the per capita output of local journalism. The authors recommend several specific ways in which further research could supplement and further validate these results, and discuss the implications for communications policy in the digital age.
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Changes in the ways that audiences use television, and the ways in which such usage can be measured, raise the possibility of a transformation of the audience commodity, and the currency that fuels the audience marketplace. Specifically,... more
Changes in the ways that audiences use television, and the ways in which such usage can be measured, raise the possibility of a transformation of the audience commodity, and the currency that fuels the audience marketplace. Specifically, it appears at this point that social media analytics are beginning to play a role in how television program success is measured, and in how advertising dollars are allocated across programs. Essentially, then, the emergence of social TV analytics represents the possibility of a new market information regime taking hold in the audience marketplace. Working from an institutional theoretical framework, this article uses trade materials as a window into industry dynamics and discourses in an effort to provide an account of the recent emergence and usage of social TV analytics in the U.S. television industry and thus explore the process of institutionalization of a new market information regime.
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This paper examines the wide range of lines of social scientific inquiry raised in the ongoing process of assessing and formulating media ownership policy. Specifically, this paper examines the areas of inquiry raised by the FCC's... more
This paper examines the wide range of lines of social scientific inquiry raised in the ongoing process of assessing and formulating media ownership policy. Specifically, this paper examines the areas of inquiry raised by the FCC's effort to craft an index for assessing viewpoint diversity in local media markets.
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This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Donald McGannon Communication Research Center at DigitalResearch@Fordham. It has been accepted for inclusion in McGannon Center Working Paper Series by an authorized... more
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Donald McGannon Communication Research Center at DigitalResearch@Fordham. It has been accepted for inclusion in McGannon Center Working Paper Series by an authorized administrator of DigitalResearch@Fordham. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ... Recommended Citation Napoli, Philip M., "PARADOXES OF MEDIA POLICY ANALYSIS: IMPLICATIONS FOR PUBLIC INTEREST MEDIA REGULATION" (2008). McGannon Center Working Paper Series. ...
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This paper proposes and develops a model of audience evolution. The concept of audience evolution in this case refers to the notion that the dominant framework employed by media industry stakeholders (content producers, distributors,... more
This paper proposes and develops a model of audience evolution. The concept of audience evolution in this case refers to the notion that the dominant framework employed by media industry stakeholders (content producers, distributors, advertisers, media buyers, etc.) to conceptualize the audience evolves in response to environmental changes. These environmental changes primarily involve technological changes that simultaneously transform the dynamics of media consumption as well as the dynamics of gathering ...
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When the issue of speakers' rights of access arises in media regulation and policy contexts, the focus typically is on the concept of speakers' rights of access “to the media,” or “to the press.” This right usually is premised... more
When the issue of speakers' rights of access arises in media regulation and policy contexts, the focus typically is on the concept of speakers' rights of access “to the media,” or “to the press.” This right usually is premised on the audience's need for access to diverse sources and content. In contrast, in many non-mediated contexts, the concept of speakers' rights of access frequently is defined in terms of the speaker's own First Amendment right of access to audiences. This paper explores the important distinctions between these ...
Research Interests: Constitutional Law, New Media, Law and Society, Political Science, Internet Law, and 12 morePolitical communication, Media Policy, Media and Democracy, Communications law, Electronic Media, Communication in the Public Interest, Media, Social Influence, Policy making, Communication Technology, First Amendment, and Law and Technology
Policy debates and decision making in the communications policy arena increasingly turn on quantitative data analyses.'In this environment, issues of access to data and data quality are central to assessing the integrity of the... more
Policy debates and decision making in the communications policy arena increasingly turn on quantitative data analyses.'In this environment, issues of access to data and data quality are central to assessing the integrity of the policymaking process. The abilities of stakeholders to conduct research and integrate it into the policymaking process, and to assess and verify the research conducted and utilized by policymakers, have become increasingly important indicators of the transparency, objectivity, and participatory nature ...
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The contemporary media environment is growing increasingly complex, as technological change and demographic trends impact the dynamics of media usage, production, and distribution in a variety of ways. Content is produced on–and... more
The contemporary media environment is growing increasingly complex, as technological change and demographic trends impact the dynamics of media usage, production, and distribution in a variety of ways. Content is produced on–and circulates across–a growing array of media platforms, with as-yet unclear inter-relationships and inter-dependencies between these various platforms. Content emerges from a greater array of sources, as technology has facilitated what has been termed a “de-institutionalization” of media ...
This article argues that many of the traditional distinctions used to distinguish critical from administrative research do not hold up well within the context of communications policy research. This argument is illustrated through an... more
This article argues that many of the traditional distinctions used to distinguish critical from administrative research do not hold up well within the context of communications policy research. This argument is illustrated through an analysis of early communications policy research literature that sought to define the contours and objectives of the field, as well as through an assessment of developments in the field over the past 30 years. This article then uses the recent controversy surrounding the FCC's abandoned critical information needs research as a case study for exploring the prospects for a more integrated critical administrative research tradition.
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The Mapping Digital Media project examines the global opportunities and risks created by the transition from traditional to digital media. Covering 60 countries, the project examines how these changes affect the core democratic service... more
The Mapping Digital Media project examines the global opportunities and risks created by the transition from traditional to digital media. Covering 60 countries, the project examines how these changes affect the core democratic service that any media system should provide: news about political, economic, and social affairs. The media environment in the United States is undergoing a significant transition. Terrestrial, over-the-air television has shrunk to less than 15 percent of households, due to consumers' embrace of pay-TV services including cable, satellite. Broadcast network news from ABC, CBS and NBC that once commanded an overwhelming share of the television audience each lost between one and two million viewers over the past five years, as part of an overall decline in audience size of almost 20 percent since 2005. Traditional print newspapers daily circulation fell by over 31 percent between 2003 and 2009. While local and national television channels remain the most use...
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Facebook, a platform created by undergraduates in a Harvard dorm room, has transformed the ways millions of people consume news, understand the world, and participate in the political process. Despite taking on many of journalism’s... more
Facebook, a platform created by undergraduates in a Harvard dorm room, has transformed the ways millions of people consume news, understand the world, and participate in the political process. Despite taking on many of journalism’s traditional roles, Facebook and other platforms, such as Twitter and Google, have presented themselves as tech companies―and therefore not subject to the same regulations and ethical codes as conventional media organizations. Challenging such superficial distinctions, Philip M. Napoli offers a timely and persuasive case for understanding and governing social media as news media, with a fundamental obligation to serve the public interest.
Social Media and the Public Interest explores how and why social media platforms became so central to news consumption and distribution as they met many of the challenges of finding information―and audiences―online. Napoli illustrates the implications of a system in which coders and engineers drive out journalists and editors as the gatekeepers who determine media content. He argues that a social media–driven news ecosystem represents a case of market failure in what he calls the algorithmic marketplace of ideas. To respond, we need to rethink fundamental elements of media governance based on a revitalized concept of the public interest. A compelling examination of the intersection of social media and journalism, Social Media and the Public Interest offers valuable insights for the democratic governance of today’s most influential shapers of news.
Social Media and the Public Interest explores how and why social media platforms became so central to news consumption and distribution as they met many of the challenges of finding information―and audiences―online. Napoli illustrates the implications of a system in which coders and engineers drive out journalists and editors as the gatekeepers who determine media content. He argues that a social media–driven news ecosystem represents a case of market failure in what he calls the algorithmic marketplace of ideas. To respond, we need to rethink fundamental elements of media governance based on a revitalized concept of the public interest. A compelling examination of the intersection of social media and journalism, Social Media and the Public Interest offers valuable insights for the democratic governance of today’s most influential shapers of news.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Based on our analysis of local news data provided by Facebook for February of 2019, a number of key findings emerge that provide insight into local news on Facebook: ● For communities meeting Facebook’s threshold for launching the Today... more
Based on our analysis of local news data provided by Facebook for February of 2019, a number of key findings emerge that provide insight into local news on Facebook:
● For communities meeting Facebook’s threshold for launching the Today In feature, 61% of the stories aggregated were identified as serving a critical information need.
● While stories classified as critical information needs only made up 58% of the classified stories across all communities, those stories accounted for 65% of the interactions in that same dataset. Stories satisfying critical information needs received an average of 244 interactions, while stories categorized as not meeting a critical information need had an average of 158 interactions.
● Communities that met Facebook’s threshold for launching the Today In feature are larger in terms of population than communities that don’t meet the threshold (76,606 vs. 15,353) - suggesting community size is a key determinant.
● Factors such as population, and some US Census categories (percent white, percent college educated) increase the likelihood that stories associated with a community will meet a critical information need.
● For communities meeting Facebook’s threshold for launching the Today In feature, 61% of the stories aggregated were identified as serving a critical information need.
● While stories classified as critical information needs only made up 58% of the classified stories across all communities, those stories accounted for 65% of the interactions in that same dataset. Stories satisfying critical information needs received an average of 244 interactions, while stories categorized as not meeting a critical information need had an average of 158 interactions.
● Communities that met Facebook’s threshold for launching the Today In feature are larger in terms of population than communities that don’t meet the threshold (76,606 vs. 15,353) - suggesting community size is a key determinant.
● Factors such as population, and some US Census categories (percent white, percent college educated) increase the likelihood that stories associated with a community will meet a critical information need.
Research Interests:
The economic challenges facing local journalism and the associated declines in revenues and newsroom staffs have generated great interest in understanding the composition and dynamics of local news ecosystems. Much of this research has... more
The economic challenges facing local journalism and the associated declines in revenues and newsroom staffs have generated great interest in understanding the composition and dynamics of local news ecosystems. Much of this research has focused on case studies of individual communities while other research has focused either on the content produced by local news outlets in the face of these challenges or on the consumption of local news by the American public.
However, despite what we know about the challenges faced by local journalism, the content of local news outlets, and Americans’ preferences for local news sources, we don’t know a great deal about how different types of outlets are serving the information needs of their communities. This paper addresses this question through an analysis of 100 randomly selected communities across the U.S. Across these 100 communities, this study analyzes over 16,000 stories provided by 663 local media outlets. For this analysis, local media outlets fall into one of four categories (radio stations, TV stations, newspapers, and online-only outlets). Each story in the sample was content analyzed to determine whether the story was original, local, and addressed a critical information need. To understand the journalistic performance of different outlet types, this study analyzes each the story output of each outlet type relative to the outlet type’s numeric frequency. Doing this allows us to assess each outlet type’s news production relative to that outlet type’s prominence in the news ecosystem. To examine production in this way, ratios were calculated comparing the share of total stories, original stories, local stories, and stories addressing a critical information from each outlet type to each outlet type’s share of outlets.
Key findings of this study include:
▪ Local newspapers significantly outperform local TV, radio, and online-only outlets in news production, both in overall story output and in terms of stories that are original, local, or address a critical information need. For instance:
o Local newspapers account for roughly 25 percent of the outlets in our sample, but nearly 50 percent of the original news stories.
o Local newspapers account for nearly 60 percent of the Local news stories in our sample – more than all of the other outlet types combined – despite accounting for only 25 percent of the outlets in our sample.
o Local newspapers account for nearly 60 percent of the stories that meet all three criteria (original, local, addresses a critical information need), with the other outlet categories each accounting for only 10 to 15 percent of the stories that meet all three criteria.
▪ Online-only media outlets remain a relatively small component of local media ecosystems, accounting for about 10 percent of the local outlets in the sample and generally producing only about 10 percent of the news stories in the sample, across the various content categories (original, local, addresses a critical information need).
o Online-only outlets do perform well in terms of the proportion of their story output that addresses critical information needs (over 80 percent).
▪ Radio stations represent the most common type of local media outlet in our sample, but generally are the weakest in terms of the extent to which their story output is original, local, and addresses critical information needs.
Overall, these findings suggest that newspapers are the most important producers of local news in terms of the volume of journalistic output being produced for local communities. The relative paucity of online-only local media outlets, and the relatively limited (compared with newspapers) journalistic output of these outlets suggest that online-only outlets have yet to come close to matching local newspapers as significant sources of reporting that is original, local, and addresses critical information needs.
These findings support the continued importance of public policy and philanthropic efforts to support the viability of local newspapers. These findings also suggest that commercial and philanthropic efforts to establish online-only outlets as comparable alternatives to local newspapers remain far from this goal.
However, despite what we know about the challenges faced by local journalism, the content of local news outlets, and Americans’ preferences for local news sources, we don’t know a great deal about how different types of outlets are serving the information needs of their communities. This paper addresses this question through an analysis of 100 randomly selected communities across the U.S. Across these 100 communities, this study analyzes over 16,000 stories provided by 663 local media outlets. For this analysis, local media outlets fall into one of four categories (radio stations, TV stations, newspapers, and online-only outlets). Each story in the sample was content analyzed to determine whether the story was original, local, and addressed a critical information need. To understand the journalistic performance of different outlet types, this study analyzes each the story output of each outlet type relative to the outlet type’s numeric frequency. Doing this allows us to assess each outlet type’s news production relative to that outlet type’s prominence in the news ecosystem. To examine production in this way, ratios were calculated comparing the share of total stories, original stories, local stories, and stories addressing a critical information from each outlet type to each outlet type’s share of outlets.
Key findings of this study include:
▪ Local newspapers significantly outperform local TV, radio, and online-only outlets in news production, both in overall story output and in terms of stories that are original, local, or address a critical information need. For instance:
o Local newspapers account for roughly 25 percent of the outlets in our sample, but nearly 50 percent of the original news stories.
o Local newspapers account for nearly 60 percent of the Local news stories in our sample – more than all of the other outlet types combined – despite accounting for only 25 percent of the outlets in our sample.
o Local newspapers account for nearly 60 percent of the stories that meet all three criteria (original, local, addresses a critical information need), with the other outlet categories each accounting for only 10 to 15 percent of the stories that meet all three criteria.
▪ Online-only media outlets remain a relatively small component of local media ecosystems, accounting for about 10 percent of the local outlets in the sample and generally producing only about 10 percent of the news stories in the sample, across the various content categories (original, local, addresses a critical information need).
o Online-only outlets do perform well in terms of the proportion of their story output that addresses critical information needs (over 80 percent).
▪ Radio stations represent the most common type of local media outlet in our sample, but generally are the weakest in terms of the extent to which their story output is original, local, and addresses critical information needs.
Overall, these findings suggest that newspapers are the most important producers of local news in terms of the volume of journalistic output being produced for local communities. The relative paucity of online-only local media outlets, and the relatively limited (compared with newspapers) journalistic output of these outlets suggest that online-only outlets have yet to come close to matching local newspapers as significant sources of reporting that is original, local, and addresses critical information needs.
These findings support the continued importance of public policy and philanthropic efforts to support the viability of local newspapers. These findings also suggest that commercial and philanthropic efforts to establish online-only outlets as comparable alternatives to local newspapers remain far from this goal.