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The principal focus of this dissertation is to investigate the role of media coverage in the investment decisions of mutual fund investors and the consequent effects on flows into the funds. I examine investor attention and learning effects by examining the relation between media coverage of mutual funds and the net investor flows to the funds. Using a database of nearly 10,000 news articles, I find that the existence and stance of media coverage affects net investor flows into the fund in ways consistent with investor attention and learning. Further, the media coverage does not have a uniform effect on flows. News articles with positive (negative) tones are associated with significant increases (decreases) in flows. I find that fund size and past performance influence the impact of media coverage on mutual fund flows. I also find that, as a fund ages and investors receive additional news about the fund, there are smaller effects from the news. This is consistent with the hypothesis that investors learn about funds through media coverage and that this knowledge affects their investment behavior. These results suggest that media coverage can have significant economic effects on mutual funds through the effects on investors' attention and learning. / text

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Feng, Guosen. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 56-60). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Background for Network Content Providers' Peering --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Literature Review --- p.5 / Chapter 2 --- A Static Baseline Model --- p.12 / Chapter 2.1 --- Content Qualities and Subscribing Fees --- p.12 / Chapter 2.2 --- Users' Utilities --- p.13 / Chapter 2.3 --- Providers' Coverages and Revenues --- p.14 / Chapter 2.4 --- Content Procurement Strategies --- p.16 / Chapter 2.5 --- The Peering and Bargaining of Providers --- p.16 / Chapter 2.5.1 --- Peering Agreement --- p.16 / Chapter 2.5.2 --- Change of Coverage --- p.17 / Chapter 2.5.3 --- Providers' Revenues --- p.18 / Chapter 2.5.4 --- Nash Bargaining Problem --- p.18 / Chapter 3 --- Impact of Dynamic Content --- p.23 / Chapter 3.1 --- Additional Investment for Dynamic Content --- p.24 / Chapter 3.1.1 --- Content Change --- p.24 / Chapter 3.1.2 --- Change of Coverage --- p.24 / Chapter 3.1.3 --- Providers' Revenue --- p.30 / Chapter 3.2 --- Finite Budget for Dynamic Content --- p.30 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Content Change --- p.30 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- Change of Coverage --- p.30 / Chapter 3.2.3 --- Providers' Revenue --- p.35 / Chapter 4 --- Peeing in Dynamic Model --- p.36 / Chapter 4.1 --- Peering over T Time Slots --- p.37 / Chapter 4.1.1 --- "Content Change, Advertisement Sharing, and Payment ." --- p.37 / Chapter 4.1.2 --- Change of Coverage --- p.37 / Chapter 4.1.3 --- Providers' Revenue --- p.38 / Chapter 4.1.4 --- Nash Bargaining Problem --- p.38 / Chapter 4.2 --- Peering over One Time Slot --- p.45 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- "Content Change, Advertisement Sharing, and Payment ." --- p.45 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Change of Coverage --- p.46 / Chapter 4.2.3 --- Providers' Revenue --- p.48 / Chapter 4.2.4 --- Nash Bargaining Problem --- p.49 / Chapter 5 --- Summary and Future Work --- p.53 / Bibliography --- p.56 / Chapter A --- Proof of Optimal Peering Strategy --- p.61 / Chapter A.1 --- Proof of Static Optimal Peering Strategy --- p.61 / Chapter A.2 --- Proof of Strategy for Peering over T Time Slot --- p.65 / Chapter A.3 --- Proof of Strategy for Peering over One Time Slot --- p.66

published_or_final_version / Journalism and Media Studies Centre / Master / Master of Journalism

Since the early 1990s, regulators in the UK and in many other countries have faced increasing pressure from media industry participants to liberalise media and cross-media ownership restrictions. Many countries, including the UK, have responded to this pressure by amending their domestic legislative frameworks in such ways as to remove at least some restrictions which had previously been established in order to protect pluralism. The main aim for this study has been to assess the 'economic' case in favour of de-regulating media and cross-media ownership in the UK. The principal method of investigation has been to analyse the relationship between, on the one hand, the size and vertical or diagonal structure of a selection of UK media firms and, on the other, their recent economic performance. Findings suggest that, although factors other than size will affect performance, there is generally a strong and positive correlation between the market share and the operating profitability of firms who are involved in either television or radio broadcasting, or national newspaper publishing. This correlation reflects efficiency gains through economies of scale and scope and, also, revenue advantages arising from increased market power. On the other hand, there is little evidence that previous monomedia ownership restrictions represented a threat to the economic viability of the industry or that developments in the late 1990s have introduced significant 'new' gains for enlarged monomedia enterprises. Nor is there evidence that de-regulation of monomedia restrictions would have any positive impact on the exports performance of traditional UK media firms. With regard to diagonal expansion, there is no evidence that cross-ownership between radio and television or between television and national newspapers yields important economic benefits. This thesis would argue that, taken as a whole, the de-regulation of UK media ownership in 1996 has delivered relatively few enhancements to the economic efficiency or prospects of the UK media industry while, at the same time, has engendered a considerable welfare loss through lower safeguards for pluralism. This outcome reflects serious systemic problems at the national UK level in the policymaking mechanism which is supposed to curb the political influence of media owners. This study finds that the scope - via a shift in responsibility for policy-formulation to the transnational European level - for overcoming such problems will be limited, not least because the protection of pluralism remains outside the official competence of the European Commission.

The investigation to the appropriate mass media for the micro-enterprises (informal sector) is in line with the principle of economic development for post-apartheid South Africa envisaged by the Reconstruction and Development Programme. In many countries, such as Latin America, Japan, United States of America, small business sector is the backbone of the economy, providing jobs and means for large companies to out-source tasks. This also applies to South Africa, the micro-enterprise in this country ''fulfils a social and economic function which neither state owned corporations nor the foreign transnational corporations, can perform. Due to their knowledge of the clientele they are able to determine more precisely the real and basic needs of the society and thereby render people-oriented, as against a purely commercial service" (Mersham and Skinner 1992 :33). However, lack of access to appropriate, relevant and understandable information and advice is one of the most critical aspect which hinders development of small enterprises, particularly, micro-enterprises and survivalist and small start-up enterprises. Due to the past discrimination and lack of opportunities this problem is most serve among black entrepreneurs who are participating in this sector. In addition, the central problem that has an impact in the process of reaching the micro-enterprises is the fact that the nature of communication systems and their relevance for the micro-enterprise activities, seem to have more over-emphasis on the print media. Subsequently, over-emphasis on the print media concentrate efforts on more easily and receptive individuals and communities, ignoring the micro-enterprises that require the service, since the majority of the micro-enterprises are comprised of people who have been disadvantaged by an incomplete education. It becomes therefore, essential to investigate how micro-enterprises consume mass media and the central role it plays so that an appropriate mass medium to reach this sector could be identified. Since my perception is that there is no assurance that the formulated policies and strategies by the Department of Trade and Industry become known to the intended beneficiaries . Most importantly, the approach taken in this study, is the one which tries to understand the role of the mass media in national development but which is more specific to the micro-enterprises. The media are seen as educators or teachers of the micro-enterprises. The ideal is that mass media can be used to teach people skills of different kinds and, under some conditions, to influence the attitudes and behaviour of the micro-enterprises. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1995.

A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Media Studies, Johannesburg, July 2017 / This thesis analyses the representation of the nationalisation of mines debate, as a developmental policy discourse, by the South African corporate media. Essentially, the objective is to ascertain the corporate media’s role and influence on ideology-laden developmental policy discourses. Post-apartheid, the South African corporate media has often been accused of bias by various social actors, including South Africa’s governing party – the African National Congress. These accusations have been accompanied by perceptions of the media’s inability and unwillingness to partner with government in its endeavour to implement its developmental agenda. This perceived bias is accentuated when it comes to ideologically laden issues such as nationalisation. Therefore, this research study grapples, inter alia, with questions behind the drivers of these perceptions, the manner in which the media portrays the developmental policy discourse, and the role the media should be playing in the country’s developmental agenda. In its endeavour to respond to some of these questions, the research study thus focuses on the representation of the nationalisation of mines debate by the South African English corporate press in 2011. Given the complex nature of the discourse, the research study utilises both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies; triangulation in particular presents this thesis with numerous advantages towards attaining deeper understanding of the representation of the nationalisation discourse. Whereas quantitative content analysis helps identify and count the number of articles and related elements in the articles, qualitative content analysis offers a chance to probe further various elements in the discourse. In-depth semi-structured interviews are also used as a secondary research technique to discover new clues on the discourse. The research study is based on one major assumption – that structural factors such as ownership and control influence the representation of ideological policy discourses such as nationalisation – and is underpinned by four major theoretical frameworks – the critical political economy of communication; Marxist media analysis; social production of news; and decolonial theories. To comprehensively analyse the representation of nationalisation, the research study focuses on content analysis of news articles, looking at various aspects such as the structure of news as well as its headlines, sources and the general representation of the discourse; utilises theories of the critical political economy of the media and other related theories such as the social production of news and Marxist media analysis to perform qualitative content analysis; scrutinises economic factors in line with the assumption of the study that structural factors influence the representation of the discourse by using the Marxist theories to unpack the representation of nationalisation; and utilises Marxist theories in conjunction with decolonial theories. Among the findings of the research study presented in this thesis is that global capitalism, accompanied by factors such as commercialisation and advertising, influences the representation of ideologically laden policymaking discourses. Ownership and transformation of the corporate media also shape the representation. In this discourse there is convergence, and thus it is apparent that the media plays a pivotal role in reproducing dominant ideology which fundamentally maintains capitalism as “an inevitable and immutable” system. Also, the relationship between the state and media relations is a factor in ideological developmental discourses. Indeed, the representation of the nationalisation discourse is essentially a reflection of the corporate media’s posture towards the broader developmental state and its portrayal of ideologically laden policy discourses. / XL2018

Informed by the political economy framework and the public service role of media in democracy, the main objective of the study was to use in-depth semi-structured interviews to understand news-workers’ professional journalistic identities in relation to their status as government employees and the understanding of their public service role as outlined in the paper’s mission statement. The main interest was to understand the complexity of negotiating these role identities. Through reference to the theories of journalism professionalism, the study highlighted the extent to which news-workers in the small newsroom of Lentsoe la Basotho/Lesotho Today see themselves as public service journalists in a democratic country. The interest was borne partly out of the views of the paper’s critics who see it as not serving the public but rather promoting the activities and policies of the government of the day, thus falling short of its democratic role. The contention of the study was that as a public service newspaper, the paper should have news-workers who do impartial journalism and reflect the public’s right to know in their reporting. The findings of the study suggests that news-workers at Lentsoe la Basotho/Lesotho Today continuously have to strive to negotiate the potential conflict between being a professional and working for a government-controlled newspaper. While they sometimes lay claim to being journalists, the reality is that in their political coverage they end up adopting the role of government mouthpieces.

This thesis examines the way in which Business Day portrayed the neo-liberal logic of the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) strategy as both common sense and natural. It utilises framing analysis, adapting its application to the context of media studies as the guiding theoretical framework in trying to understand how Business Day, as representative of the mainstream financial media, frame economic policy issues. Using content analysis, the thesis examines how elite sources are the preferred news sources above ordinary citizens and are thus in a position to shape news content in line with their neo-liberal views on the economy. The thesis analyses how Business Day, by means of the globalisation frame and other frames, legitimated and in the process perpetuated the GEAR strategy as the macroeconomic policy of choice for South Africa in 1996 against the background of the country’s political transformation and economic policy development in preceding years.