S1214 Global Media Industries: the East and the West (S1214)

Thanks to digital innovations, media industries are converging rapidly. Entrepreneurs are transforming the world's economy through building new communication networks. As C. Shapiro and H. Varian suggested, people tend to focus on the trees of technological changes that they fail to see the forest: the underlying economic forces that determines success and failure. While technology has been changing, economic laws have not. This course is designed to develop and reinforce the student's ability to analyze activities of global media industries from the comparative economic point of view and study how media industry has been changing in the East and the West.

 

We will use basic analytical tools of industrial organization and examine the market strategies of global media firms and digital convergence issues.

 

The class will be divided into groups of 3-4 students, depending on the class size, to research the media industries from traditional media such as newspaper, TV?broadcasting, magazine and books to the Internet-related businesses such as search engines and social networking.?Occasionally, a third of the class time will be allocated to team studies. Students are expected to participate actively in class discussions and to prepare original research papers on media topics.

 

Evaluation Methods

Mid-term exam and final exam.

The 8-page typed research paper and oral presentation in class.

* Students are required to join a team study group and present their research in class as a team, but a term paper should be completed and submitted individually.

** You would be assigned one of the following business areas in order to balance the size of a team: (1) Digital TV Broadcasting, (2) CATV, Internet TV and Satellite, (3) Telecommunications (wired and wireless), (4) Music and Intellectual Property Right, (5) Animation, (6) Gaming, (7) Social Networking Service and Blogging, (8) Newspapers, (9) Magazines, (10) Film, (11) Internet Radio