Industry Analysis of Political Economy of Media

University Of Toronto Scarborough Department Of Arts, Culture & Media MDSB25H3 Political Economy of Media Fall, 2018 – Dr. David B. Nieborg Assignment 1 – Industry analysis – 10% Due date:

• Wednesday September 26 2018, 3pm, in class & upload to Q. Formatting:

• Assignment length is 750 words (excluding references). You will get a 2% penalty if you go over the word limit, assignments that are more than a 1000 words will not be graded.

• Please use the assignment template (see Q). You will get a 2% penalty if you do not use the template.

• You can use any accepted academic reference style listed on the UTSC CTL website: http://utsc.utoronto.ca/twc/academic-style.

Grading rubric:

• This assignment is graded as follows (see Q and for full rubric in PDF): o Pass (10%) o Room-for-improvement (5%) o Fail (0%)

Handing it in:

• Please upload a PDF version of your assignment to Q before the deadline. • Note that assignments that do not follow these requirements are either returned

(and thus considered late until revised) or void. • Late penalty is 2% per 24 hours, late assignments have to be emailed and may

be marked at the end of the course. Scope and goal: This assignment is meant to familiarize you with institutional analysis and is based on the material covered in class. Specifically, in week 3 we will discuss the process of “spatialization” or the “institutional extension of corporate power” (Mosco 2009, p. 158) and researching this process will be the starting point of your paper. That is, an important part of political economic research is surveying industry structures, concentration, and corporate ownership. For this assignment, you are asked to start following the money yourself and to chart out the structure of a media company of your choice. It is highly recommended to pick a publicly owned (i.e. stock listed) company in order to have access to company data. Examples of relevant companies include Disney, Apple, Twitter, Netflix, Facebook, Google, Activision Blizzard, Rogers Communications, Tencent or Sina Weibo. Non-media or communication companies,

such as car brands (Lamborghini) or fashion labels (Gucci) are not eligible for this assignment. Also note that your assignment should discuss a company, not an individual app or sub-branch. For example, Instagram is part of Facebook Inc. and therefore, for this assignment you should discuss Facebook if you’re interested in the question where Instagram fits into Facebook’s company structure. If you are unsure whether your choice of company is acceptable, please ask about this in class or during office hours (and not via email) before writing the assignment. Your assignment must contain the following three elements:

1) Company introduction o Briefly introduce the company you want to discuss and analyze.

Explain why you think the company is relevant, particularly in relation political economic thought and material discussed in class. Try to use class readings to explain your choice.

2) Data collection o Collect relevant company data on how the company is structured. For

example, you can use financial data, interviews with key executives, or company documentation. This material can be obtained via the company’s website, via professional magazines (“the trade press”), via one of the many university library’s databases, or via government databases. When you will be using your data (in your analysis, see below in part 3) be sure to very specifically cite where your data is from (i.e. where you found your material), using the reference style you chose consistently.

§ Tip 1: All public companies have extensive “Investor Relations” sections (for example: http://corp.sina.com.cn/eng/sina_rela_eng.htm or https://investor.fb.com/home/default.aspx) on their website and companies that are stock listed in the US have to file their financial information with the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission), see https://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html. If you are looking for relevant information, also consider “investor transcripts” or “earnings slides”, they contain a wealth of relevant information.

§ Tip 2: Statista has a wealth of data on industries and companies (log in with your UTOR ID): https://www-statista- com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/.

§ Tip 3: This UTL guide has many resources: https://guides.library.utoronto.ca/industryinfo.

3) Analysis o Use the data and insights you collected to explain the structure of your

company. That is, what is specific about your company in relation to the ideas and concepts introduced in week 3 on ownership structures? Be as specific as possible in using theories and concepts introduced in class, such as horizontal and vertical integration, and how these concepts relate to your company (structure).

Some tips & tricks:

• The UTL has an instructive guide that should help you in the formatting and annotation process: http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/specific-types-of- writing/annotated-bibliography.

• If you are unsure about the scholarly nature of a source, please follow this handy UTL guide: http://guides.library.utoronto.ca/c.php?g=251905&p=1675735. Or this guide specific to UTSC Journalism & New Media students: http://guides.library.utoronto.ca/UTSC-journalism-new-media. Please be very careful with search engines like Google (Scholar) or encyclopaedias like Wikipedia. They can be useful tools to find material, but should not be used as primary (or even secondary) sources.

Assignment 1 – checklist ☐ Use the assignment template (incl. cover sheet with name on assignment) ☐ Assignment formatted as a PDF & uploaded to Q ☐ Ensure all parts (as outlined above) are covered ☐ Spellcheck assignment ☐ Assignment proofread by a friend/colleague/peer/parent/partner ☐ 750 word limit