Media Capture Research Articles

Local versus non-local effects of Chinese media and post-earnings announcement drift

Abstract Taking advantage of the institutional difference in capture between local and non-local media in China, we examined the association between media capture and post-earnings announcement drift (PEAD). Using both portfolio and regression analyses, we found that, for the same firms, non-local media coverage is negatively associated with PEAD; however, there is no association between local media coverage and PEAD, except for non-state-owned firms. Given that in China, non-local media are less captured or more independent than local media, the negative association observed for non-local media coverage can be interpreted as an indication that media independence plays a role in reducing PEAD or improving informational efficiency in the stock market.

A context-driven privacy enforcement system for autonomous media capture devices

The evolution of the Internet of Things and the related market has renewed the concept of media recording and sharing by means of a new kind of home-consumer devices, capable of continuous and autonomous media capture and upload. Such technologies have already begun to tamper with people’s privacy and discretion expectations, also raising many concerns about the potential legal implications. This work proposes an overall context-related privacy preserving system, based on context recognition. Our approach has been specifically developed considering contexts characterized by a high degree of similarity. The presented methodology has been devised in order to enforce privacy rules using image recognition techniques jointly with radio beacon technology. The reported results show that, in the peculiar environment considered in this paper, the use of radio beacon technology can help to increase the performances of image recognition techniques, both in terms of computational performances and elapsed time.

The role of the media in the health policymaking process: perspectives of key actors in Spain

ABSTRACTHealth and political communication disciplines address the influences that mass media have on health policy processes such as agenda setting and framing. However, we have fewer insights into the direct interactions among interest groups, media, and decision-makers. We conducted a case study using semi-structured interviews with journalists (N = 7) and other key actors in Spanish health policy (N = 47). A purposive sample of interviewees sought to represent all sectors involved in health policymaking. All actors interviewed agreed on the key role played by media in shaping health policy. They described a wide range of actions from subtle to overt pressure. There was a consensus on the increasing vulnerability of the media to the influence of industry due to their financial dependence and lack of critical capacity. Through the capture of media, key actors considered that health-related corporations are able to frame health problems and their solutions according to their own interests. The actors interviewed described extreme strategies against uncollaborative political actors that went beyond framing health issues and bordered on the unethical. These results highlight how corporations condition the generation and dissemination of knowledge on health issues in order to influence first the media agenda and then the political agenda. The intellectual capture of policy through media, as part of a wider policy capture process, biases health policy towards biomedical and individual responses to public health issues. Moreover, it neglects social innovations, weakens public health advance, and favours disease-related industries to the detriment of the public interest.

A Case-Specific Instance of Media Capture: the Gorilla Case of Slovakia

This article discusses an instance of case-specific self-inflicted partial media capture, acknowledging the chilling effect of legislation consistent with partial state capture. In general, this case illustrates the ethical and legal dilemmas in the reporting of a specific type of large-scale corruption in the media, which involves the denial of all accusations by most sources and a controversial stand by state authorities and politicians on the issue, forcing the media to primarily report rumors or contradictory claims and denials (after controversial files regarding the corruption were made public anonymously on the internet) or desist from reporting altogether (before the files were made public on the internet, due to possible libel threats). The findings question the normative expectations expressed in democratic theory related to the role of the media as a watchdog, in the specific context of large-scale corruption in post-communist states. Moreover, this paper suggests the need to re-examine the methodological aspects of quantitative content analysis of media coverage of corruption. This paper has also attempted to update the emerging theory on media capture with the term partial case-specific media capture.

Mass and Social Media in Ukraine: Between Chaos and Media Capture

Democracy requires well-functioning mass media, i.e. media that are professional, diverse and independent providing accurate, unbiased and accessible information. Pervasive and systematic propaganda, which is a key warfare tool of “hybrid wars” of nowadays as the case of Ukraine so well illustrates, is detrimental to the freedom of the media and has to be addressed by the state. The article provides an overview of the current Ukrainian media legislation, focusing, in particular, on the measures taken by Ukraine to counterbalance foreign propaganda as well as the risks of media capture and the threat to the freedom of press that such measures entail.

Partial state capture by a single oligarchic group: The Gorilla Case in Slovakia

The article discusses the Gorilla case, an officially still-contested partial state capture by a single local oligarchic group, in line with the (partial) Elite Cartels corruption pattern in Slovakia. Due to the manner in which evidence, although considered unofficial, was made available, this case illustrates secret political and business processes during partial state capture. The initial absence of the case in public, political, and academic discourses, suggests that state capture can be present and operate undetected for a long time. This study also shows that in-depth analysis of the Gorilla case was avoided by both domestic and international political scientists, despite its paramount practical and theoretical importance. This, in turn, reflects a methodological capture of political science. Consequently, this article disentangles the complexities of the Gorilla case and lays down the foundation for further studies. Specifically, it highlights the need for more careful research, terminological precision in both theory-building and empirical findings on state and media capture based on case studies, as well as re-assessment of the methodology of political sciences used in these research areas.

Dimensions of civic activism and their effectiveness in exposing corruption: evidence from Italy

ABSTRACTThis article studies the influence of civic activism in exposing corruption across Italian regions. Using different dimensions of civic activism (including local and national newspapers, the internet, blood donors, and voter turnout), we make the distinction between active (media, internet, voters) and passive (blood donors) activism. Results show interesting different impacts of civic activism on corruption. In particular, voter turnout, blood donors, and national newspaper diffusion consistently increased exposure of corruption, while the internet and local newspapers showed opposite effects. Thus, local newspapers and the internet point to the possibility of media capture (influence) with regard to corruption exposure. The main findings hold following the substantial reforms in the nineties (called Mani Pulite).

Perpetually “partly free”: lessons from post-soviet hybrid regimes on backsliding in Central and Eastern Europe

ABSTRACTThis article discusses the lessons that can be drawn from post-Soviet experiences of democratisation in hybrid regimes for debates on Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) “democratic backsliding”. Focusing on Moldova and Ukraine, the article investigates the ebb and flow of post-Soviet democratisation in hybrid regimes. It explores factors that have hindered democratisation, namely state and media capture by business-political interests, and factors that have hindered authoritarian consolidation, namely civil society and citizens’ potential for mobilisation. The article reflects on how these factors can inform debates on backsliding in more consolidated democracies, such as CEE states.

Quality of Experience for 3-D Immersive Media Streaming

Recent advances in media capture and processing technologies have enabled new forms of true 3-D media content that increase the degree of user immersion. The demand for more engaging forms of entertainment means that content distributors and broadcasters need to fine-tune their delivery mechanisms over the Internet as well as develop new models for quantifying and predicting user experience of these new forms of content. In the work described in this paper, we undertake one of the first studies into the quality of experience (QoE) of real-time 3-D media content streamed to virtual reality (VR) headsets for entertainment purposes, in the context of game spectating. Our focus is on tele-immersive media that embed real users within virtual environments of interactive games. A key feature of engaging and realistic experiences in full 3-D media environments, is allowing users unrestricted viewpoints. However, this comes at the cost of increased network bandwidth and the need of limiting network effects in order to transmit a realistic, real-time representation of the participants. The visual quality of 3-D media is affected by geometry and texture parameters while the temporal aspects of smooth movement and synchronization are affected by lag introduced by network transmission effects. In this paper, we investigate varying network conditions for a set of tele-immersive media sessions produced in a range of visual quality levels. Further, we investigate user navigation issues that inhibit free viewpoint VR spectating of live 3-D media. After reporting on a study with multiple users we analyze the results and assess the overall QoE with respect to a range of visual quality and latency parameters. We propose a neural network QoE prediction model for 3-D media, constructed from a combination of visual and network parameters.

Feminist Pornocracy? Femen and The Politics of Resistant Nudity

Feminist Pornocracy?Femen and The Politics of Resistant Nudity Dina Al-Kassim (bio) A scene at the April 2013 Hanover trade fair illustrates the peculiar symbiosis of pornocratic rule and struggle for celebrity enjoined by a global economy of sovereign subjectivity. Homogenizing market logics expressed as private sentiment and empowered agency feed the pornocratic economy by inflating and innovating the disciplinary imaginaries some mistake for liberty and sovereign intimacy. It was, recalls Shevchenko, a 24-year-old business studies graduate from … western Ukraine, "a very intimate moment." … "Suddenly there I was, looking into Putin's eyes, he into mine, just a metre between us before one of his men lunged to shield him from me and in those seconds I was just thinking to myself: "What a funny botox face—because of all the snips and tucks it's endured, it can't properly express what he's feeling." Alexandra Shevchenko (cited in Connolly) Femen activist Alexandra Shevchenko here gazes at the mirror image of a potential future self, one reflecting every surgical stay of mortality and of our being in common. As a major player among the "shock troops" of sextremism known as Femen, Shevchenko and the pornocrat share a moment of recognition in the public eye as she launches herself topless upon the Russian president in full view of the assembled media throng and to the contagious surprise of Europe's most powerful woman and national leader, German chancellor Angela Merkel. Cementing the public disclosure of their relation, the eye lock can be read as an index of a postsoviet identity in crisis, where personality and celebrity are sought as the other side of real poverty and an ossified gender system, conduit of trafficking and sex tourism without end by Femen's account. Cut off from its own expressive lexicon, the pornocrat's face beams back only images of bloated obscenity and grotesque invitation as Putin [End Page 111] "seems to push his chest out, raise his eyebrows and purse his lips, producing a double chinned smirk, while Merkel puffs out her cheeks and frowns as bodyguards pounce on Shevchenko and her four fellow Femen members, tackling them to the floor" (cited in Connolly). If Femen nudity primly stops at toplessness, their public materializations unleash the farcical element only ever loosely held in check by public figureheads who contend with the rigorous body discipline of public appearance. The Femen intervention exposes this fact before the cameras: "I had observed from a distance a group of suited men. The closer I got to them, I recognised the really small one amongst them was Putin. He was so puny, not like the macho pictures you see of him riding a horse bareback, or fishing barechested," she said. "And that was when I realised: now is the moment and started to charge. … I jumped over the fence, pumping my elbows out at my sides and undressing as I ran towards him, screaming: 'Fuck the dictator'" (cited in Connolly). Alternately tumescent and shrinking, fearsome yet fading, Putin appears less formidable when measured against the beauty system's exacting standards, and this fragilized masculinity, by turns ridiculous and obscenely leering, invigorates the Femen-ist who, seizing the opportunity to launch the insult, claims equality although only in the terms of erotic bondage. As one Femen-ist puts it, "We use women's sexuality as women's weapon" (Hutsol and Svyatski). Logics of saturnalian reversal or Bakhtinian carnivalesque fail to capture the restricted economy of Femen's pornocratic intimacy with heteropatriarchal power and the figures of sovereignty who front for it; for this we must reach into Achille Mbembe's notion of "commandment," a cycling entanglement of desire for glory wedded to a demand for absolute power, wherein the dominated "clothe themselves in cheap imitations of power to reproduce its epistemology … [while] power, in its own violent quest for grandeur, makes vulgarity and wrongdoing its main mode of existence" (133). Femen-ist nudity mirrors pornocratic vulgarity and machismo by borrowing its cheap lineaments to reproduce its logic of spectacular individuality, absolute agency, and freedom understood as the media capture of subjective singularity. Yet a Femen-ist is no libertine. "We were invited to Germany...

Authoritarian Turn or Continuity? Governance of Media through Capture and Discipline in the AKP Era

Since coming to power in 2002, AKP has exerted a range of legal and financial pressures on critical media organisations and professionals, including acts of direct intervention. While the growing literature on Turkey’s media system has explored the influence of political and economic pressures on media freedoms, recent developments necessitate a re-examination that tackles the upsurge of direct government intervention in the country’s commercial media landscape. Through the framework of media capture, this article analyses the disciplinary strategies deployed by AKP and argues that the party’s media capture at recent political junctures (Gezi protests, corruption scandal, coup attempt) is continuous with its past policies and practices and does not necessarily represent an ‘authoritarian turn’.

Panem Et Circenses: The Persuasive Effect of Soft News in Berlusconi's Italy

How do politicians influence news content? And are voters affected as a result? This paper contributes to the long-standing debate on media capture and bias by innovating in four directions. First, we develop a new measurement strategy to achieve content scores applying unsupervised text scaling on an original dataset of verbatim transcriptions of almost 20,000 hours of broadcasting from all main Italian televisions’ newscasts between 2010 and 2014. Crucially, transcriptions exclude all politicians’ airtime and thus allows us to identify purely content-induced media bias. Second, by exploiting a natural experiment, we document how during his tenure as a prime minister Mr. Berlusconi significantly altered public television coverage to mimic his private companies by increasing the soft news concentration. Third, we investigate the mechanism of news manipulation, by identifying a filtering, or agenda-setting, and a framing component. Finally, we couple the estimated content scores with a representative panel dataset of Italian voters documenting that content variation increased Berlusconi’s electoral support. Results are discussed in their implications for voting behavior and voters’ democratic competence.

A Message from the Executive Director: The Impact of SMPTE in an IP Age

At the IBC 2017 in September, SMPTE participated in one of the highlights of the five-day exhibition and conference. The IP Showcase, supported by the members of the Joint Taskforce on Networked Media; Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS); the International Association of Broadcasting Manufacturers; and more than 50 manufacturers demonstrated the capture and delivery of professional media over an IP network. This collaboration puts SMPTE at the forefront of this evolving ecosystem, with the SMPTE standard suite called SMPTE ST 2110, “Professional Media Over Managed IP Networks.”

Beyond the mogul: From media conglomerates to portfolio media

The article shows that outside ownership of media moves in stages – from media properties as the mouthpiece for personal and business interests, to a second stage of conglomerates seeking economic “synergies” of performance, to a third stage dominated by financial portfolio diversification. These phases of outside media ownership correspond to the stages of economic development in that country.The article finds that in rich countries, the ownership of media by industrial companies as a way to create political influence has been declining. The second phase, based on economic synergies, has become a less significant driver, too. On the other hand, there has been a significant growth of cross-ownership through financial intermediaries. In contrast, the media systems of emerging and developing countries are still operating in the first two phases of cross-ownership, centered on projection of influence and on conglomerate business synergies.It is quite likely that these dynamics will lead to a “capture gap” between emerging and rich societies. Media in the former would be significantly more captured through the seekers of personal influence and conglomerate synergies, while media in the latter are subject to professional investors imperatives of profitability, growth, predictability, and fit into portfolio diversification. The same financial institutions from rich countries are also likely to seek acquisitions in the emerging markets by leapfrogging the two other stages. The likely responses are restrictions on foreign ownership of media. Domestic conglomerates will step in and assume control. Media capture will then become patriotic.The article is fact-based and provides details on the media assets of non-media companies in 26 countries accounting for about 60% of the world’s population and over 80% of its economy.

Introduction to Special Issue on media capture

This introduction discusses the idea of ‘media capture’. It argues that media capture is a useful concept for understanding today’s state of the media. Media capture refers to a situation in which governments or vested interests networked with politics control the media. While traditional forms of prepublication censorship no longer exist in many parts of the world, the media are still not truly free. Political transition and digital technology, which were expected to free the media, did not. Instead, forms of control by government in tandem with business evolved along with changes in the media. This Special Issue explores recent cases of media capture and discusses how to update theories of media capture in light of transformations caused by digital technology and political transition.

Media capture with Chinese characteristics: Changing patterns in Hong Kong’s news media system

In the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong, a former British territory in southern China returned to the People’s Republic as a semi-autonomous enclave in 1997, media capture has distinct characteristics. On one hand, Hong Kong offers a case of media capture in an uncensored media sector and open market economy similar to those of Western industrialized democracies. Yet Hong Kong’s comparatively small size, close proximity, and broad economic exposure to the authoritarian markets and politics of neighboring Mainland China, which practices strict censorship, place unique pressures on Hong Kong’s nominally free press. Building on the literature on media and politics in Hong Kong post-handover and drawing on interviews with journalists in Hong Kong, this article examines the dynamics of media capture in Hong Kong. It highlights how corporate-owned legacy media outlets are increasingly deferential to the Beijing government’s news agenda, while social media is fostering alternative spaces for more skeptical and aggressive voices. This article develops a scholarly vocabulary to describe media capture from the perspective of local journalists and from the academic literature on media and power in Hong Kong and China since 1997.

Media capture in the era of megaleaks

Much has been written about the potential of large-scale digital disclosures, or ‘megaleaks’, to transform journalistic coverage of high-value news. This analysis takes a second look at the phenomenon by analyzing three of the best-known megaleaks to date: those disclosed by Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, and John Doe, the source of the Panama Papers. To what extent did these large-scale disclosures disrupt the media capture that distorts or limits coverage by an autonomous press? A study of circumstances surrounding these three megaleaks suggests that their main effect was encouraging a culture of collaborative work that favors independence from official sources.

Balkanization and pauperization: Analysis of media capture of public service broadcasters in the Western Balkans

This article provides an in-depth analysis of public service broadcasters in seven countries of the Western Balkans from the perspective of capture by political and market forces. A lack of editorial independence, reflected in politically biased, pro-government news content, is the main problem of public service broadcasting in the region. Another factor is the commercialization of programs, reflected in the neglect of public interest content in favor of entertainment formats, and the introduction of sponsored content and product placement. Financial difficulties, small fragmented markets, minor languages, weak economies, market pressures from commercial broadcasters, inefficient license fee collection, pressure and interference from political elites, as well as characteristics of local political and journalistic culture are among the reasons that public service broadcasters in these post-communist countries currently display similar characteristics.

Sharing News Online

While the term churnalism in this special issue speaks to the negative impacts of extensive news re-use, one pervasive form of news redistribution, social media news sharing, has had the more positive connotations of creative engagement, political participation and cross-promotion. Yet this reading of commendary culture is, as José Van Dijck suggests, largely ideological, anchored in the Silicon Valley rhetorics that support the data capture, data mining and behavioural advertising activities of social media businesses. Our paper critically analyses journalisms’ increasing dependence on social media news-sharing analytics and the implications for news media diversity. We first examine how sharing analytics function as a novel form of news commodification, influencing reporting and editorial practices, with possible implications for news media diversity. We then map the news-sharing ecology, looking at the interlinked business models, ownership patterns and industrial power of social news intermediaries such as Facebook, Twitter, Gigya, Chartbeat and Newswhip, and how these relationships reinforce the significance of analytics to news production. Finally, we propose how the use of news analytics could also help in tracking the changes wrought by social media news sharing, particularly in developing a media policy framework for monitoring digital news diversity and pluralism.

Real Time Communications in the Web: Current Achievements and Future Perspectives

The articles in this special section focus on the creation of real-time communication between web browsers via communication standards. These initiatives involve both the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The IETF has focused its work on the architecture and on-the-wire protocols, identifying the state information and the events that need to be available to developers, while the W3C worked on application-level JavaScript APIs to be offered to developers in order to allow them to easily implement interoperable real-time multimedia applications in the web. Back in 2011, the IETF chartered the “Real-Time Communication in WEB-browsers” (RTCWEB) Working Group, with the aim of defining an architecture and a complete suite of protocols for the support of real-time multimedia communications directly between browsers. The RTCWEB WG has since worked on key aspects like the overall communication infrastructure, the protocols and API (Application Programming Interface) requirements, the security model, the media formats (and related media codecs), as well as advanced functionality like congestion/flow control and interworking with legacy VoIP equipment. In parallel, the W3C has developed a set of APIs exposing functions like exploration and access to device capabilities, capture of media from local devices, encoding/processing of “media streams,” establishment of peer-to-peer connections between browsers (and web-enabled devices in general), decoding/processing of incoming media streams and delivery of such streams to the end-user in an HTML5-compliant fashion.