Telecommunications Policy最新文献

Female internet use is abysmally low (17.48%) in Nigeria, and it has become an issue of serious concern due to its negative impact on their health and economic well-being. While most of the scholarly debates centers on the influence of individual socio-economic characteristics and geographical factors to understand and improve female internet use, this study contributes to the literature by interrogating the role of women's experience of intimate partner violence (IPV) and other socio-economic and geographical factors based on the social theory of internet use. We conduct spatial and logistic regression analyses using the 2018 cross-sectional Demographic and Health Survey of 41,821 women aged 15–49. The spatial analysis shows a significant concentration of female internet non-use in the Northern region relative to the South, while the binary logistic regression analysis indicates that the experience of IPV, age, wealth status, education, being married, urban location, and residing in Northern Nigeria are significant predictors of female internet use. The study recommends tailoring support systems and interventions that acknowledge the unique challenges faced by survivors of IPV and the improvement of the socio-economic conditions of women to achieve greater internet use.

Television distribution has changed profoundly over the past 10–15 years. Now increasingly geared towards streaming, broadcasting's value chain hinges on content delivery networks (CDNs) to reach audiences. CDNs are important for content quality, as they constitute the part of the chain that stores and transmits data from broadcasters to the end-user. In this article, we investigate what this value chain shift means for television distribution in Norway, a country where global actors like Akamai and Amazon's CloudFront dominate the CDN market. Based on seven whiteboard-based, co-creation sessions with 15 industry experts representing broadcasters, telecoms, regulators and interest organisations, a value chain analysis reveals that the distribution part of the chain is outsourced and modular. As the technology of television distribution becomes increasingly outsourced, we ask what this means for television's autonomy as a universal service provider.

As the global entertainment and media market is expected to multiply, media companies, such as streaming services, television networks, and broadcasting companies, play critical roles in providing TV and movie content, the industry's fuel. Almost all players of small and large sizes in the industry spend enormous resources on content and expand their investment to retain global and regional content to win the battle of viewership. However, the efficiency of investments varies for media companies. Measuring efficiency has been crucial as all firms strive to achieve better productivity. In particular, estimating the efficiencies and productivities of firms producing and offering intangible assets, such as TV and movie content, and valuing the content on firm performance are challenging. With our longitudinal data about local and global media companies from 2019 to 2022, we first used a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to answer which firms in the media industry have effectively exploited their resources to achieve better firm performance. In addition, with the Malmquist analysis, we show how the efficiencies and productivity of content providers change along with the dynamics of the media industry that the media industry has recently faced. Our understanding of the global media companies' efficiencies from diverse perspectives offers several theoretical and practical implications for the streams of efficiencies and competition in the media industry.

This study compiles an original data set of Facebook posts and comments to analyze potential overblocking and chilling effects of a German law that aims to reduce hate speech on social media platforms (Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz, NetzDG). The analysis is based on a sample of 10 popular public Facebook pages. While critics of the law have feared an undue increase in the deletion of user-generated content (“overblocking”), we find no robust evidence in support of this claim in the data during our investigation period. Although there has been a slight increase in the proportion of deleted comments per post, the effect size is small. Furthermore, neither do people abstain from commenting on Facebook nor does the tonality of comments become more positive after the law was in full effect (“chilling effects”). In addition, this study demonstrates the difficulties of the empirical evaluation of platform regulation. This raises the question how politicians can hold social media platforms accountable to protect users and their rights in the digital sphere.

This research explores the relationship between broadband availability and quality and entrepreneurship in rural regions in three states. Using quantitative techniques, it investigates the unique properties of rural locations as they may bear on connectivity's associations with various types of entrepreneurial endeavors. It shows that digital ventures and sole proprietorships are both highly related to local broadband speeds, but that conditions of rurality mitigate those impacts, enhancing the proprietorship results attributable to broadband speed but depressing or reversing the presence of digital ventures in the most rural regions. The research throws into question how the assumptions of scaled efforts intrinsic to digital ventures may disadvantage or misrepresent the highly specific and low volume of enterprises in rural regions. It does appear that Internet speeds and services matter for rural regions, but understanding business dependence on the Internet must consider business sector and local business acumen and the local broadband environment.

This editorial provides an overview of the economic, social, and political impacts of blockchain and introduces the papers published in the special issue. It discusses how blockchain can facilitate entrepreneurial ventures, optimize business operations, and enhance supply chain efficiency. The potential of central bank digital currencies to improve transaction efficiency and financial inclusion is also highlighted. Socially, blockchain is positioned to address labor abuses, improve working conditions, and combat corruption through enhanced transparency and accountability. However, risks such as illicit financing and high energy consumption are acknowledged. Overall, blockchain holds promise to transform economies, societies, and organizations, but thoughtful policymaking is needed to maximize benefits and mitigate unintended consequences. This editorial introduces papers in this special issue, which aim to expand understanding of blockchain's diverse applications and implications across institutional governance, business, sustainability, energy, and payments systems.

The age-based digital divide is emerging as a major challenge with the integrated development of population aging and digital transformation. This study examines the dynamics of multifaceted age-based digital divides (perceived Internet importance, Internet access, and learning-oriented Internet use) as well as their socioeconomic differentials (urban-rural residence, gender, and education). Using longitudinal data from China Family Panel Survey (CFPS) from 2010 to 2020, the study found that despite increases in perceived importance and physical access, learning-oriented use showed a downward trend. Moreover, the age-based divides regarding importance and access persisted over time while the divides in learning-oriented use by age fluctuated, and these dynamics varied across different social groups. The largest difference was observed between high-educated and low-educated groups: while the age-based divides in perceived importance and access have widened among the low-educated, these gaps have been bridged among the high-educated populations. For the usage gap, this contrasting developmental trend was only observed between middle-aged and young people, but not for the elderly.

Radio spectrum is critically important to the functioning of modern society but is a scarce resource in great demand. Ideally, it should be allocated to the most valuable uses in a country and used as intensively as possible. Yet, we are far from this, with spectrum use entrenched for decades and much of spectrum unused for much of the time. Changing usage is typically bureaucratic and glacially slow compared to the speed of innovation. That is, the promise of spectrum management reforms has not been delivered so far. We promulgate and endorse the earlier views that the key elements needed to progress with spectrum liberalisation are fully flexible spectrum property rights where the use can be changed by the licence holder subject to interference constraints, improved conditions for secondary trading to enable change of ownership, and the lightest touch regulatory intervention. We propose and explain a comprehensive policy framework based on the concept of Evolved Spectrum Usage Rights (eSUR) that enables change of use and innovation that can apply to all exclusive spectrum licensing. We elaborate on this to discuss a practical path and roadmap to the future to realise a world where spectrum can deliver much greater value than currently. The proposed policy measures apply predominantly to commercial spectrum, but some elements might also help with public sector spectrum.