A principal-agent approach to the study of media organizations: Toward a theory of the media firm

Political Communication

Volumn 14, Issue 2, 1997, Pages 207-219

  Napoli, Philip M ^a  

^a BOSTON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Keywords: Agency Theory; Media Content; Media Organizations; Principal agent

Indexed keywords

EID: 0039471913     PISSN: 10584609     EISSN: 10917675     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/105846097199443     Document Type: Article

References (55)

1. Akhavan-Majid, Roya, Rife, Anita, & Gopinath, Sheila. (1991). Chain ownership and editorial independence: A case study of Gannett newspapers. Journalism Quarterly, 68, 59-67.
2. Akhavan-Majid, Roya, & Wolf, Gary. (1991). American mass media and the myth of libertarianism: Toward an "elite power group" theory. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 8, 139-151.
3. Alchian, Armen A., & Demsetz, Harold. (1972). Production, information costs, and economic organization. American Economic Review, 62, 777-795.
4. Altschull, J. Herbert. (1995). Agents of power: The media and public policy (2nd ed.). White Plains, NY: Longman.
5. Baer, Walter S. (1974). Concentration of mass media ownership: Assessing the state of current knowledge. Santa Monica, CA: Rand.
6. Bagdikian, Ben H. (1973-1974). Shaping media content: Professional personnel and organizational structure. Public Opinion Quarterly, 37, 569-579.
7. Bagdikian, Ben H. (1992). The media monopoly (4th ed.). Boston: Beacon Press.
8. Bantz, Charles R. (1990). Organizational communication, media industries, and mass communication. In James A. Anderson,. Communication yearbook 13 (pp. 502-510). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
9. Bantz, Charles R., McCorkle, Suzanne, & Baade, Robert C. (1980). The news factory. Communication Research, 7(1), 45-68.
10. Becker, Lee B., Fruit, Jeffrey W., & Caudill, Susan L. (1987). The training and hiring of journalists. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
11. Bennett, W. Lance. (1988). News: The politics of illusion (2nd ed.). White Plains, NY: Longman.
12. Breed, Warren. (1955). Social control in the newsroom: A functional analysis. Social Forces, 33, 326-335.
13. Calvert, Randall L., McCubbins, Matthew D., & Weingast, Barry R. (1989). A theory of political control and agency discretion. American Journal of Political Science, 33, 588-611.
14. Canon, Bradley. C. (1969). Voting behavior on the FCC. Midwest Journal of Political Science, 13, 587-612.
15. Chomsky, Daniel. (1996). One degree left of center: The mechanisms of management control. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Northwestern University.
16. Demers, David P. (1991). Corporate structure and emphasis on profits and product quality at US. daily newspapers. Journalism Quarterly, 68, 15-26.
17. Demers, David P. (1993). Effect of corporate structure on autonomy of top editors at U.S. dailies. Journalism Quarterly, 70, 499-508.
18. Demsetz, Harold, & Lehn, Kenneth. (1985). The structure of corporate ownership: Causes and consequences. Journal of Political Economy, 93, 1155-1177.
19. Dimmick, John W. (1979). The gatekeepers: Media organizations as political coalitions. Communication Research, 6(2), 203-222.
20. Donohew, Lewis. (1967). Newspaper gatekeepers and forces in the news channel. Public Opinion Quarterly, 31, 61-68.
21. Epstein, Edward J. (1974). News from nowhere. New York: Vintage.
22. Gans, Herbert. (1980). Deciding what's news: A study of CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, Newsweek and Time. New York: Vintage Books.
23. Herman, Edward S., & Chomsky, Noam. (1988). Manufacturing consent: The political economy of the mass media. New York: Pantheon.
24. Hewitt, John, & Houlberg, Rick. (1986). Local broadcast news editors and managers: A multiple station, single market study. Journalism Quarterly, 63, 834-839.
25. Hirsch, Paul M. (1977). Occupational, organizational, and institutional models in mass media research: Toward an integrated framework. In Paul M. Hirsch, Peter V. Miller, & F. Gerald Kline., Strategies for communication research (pp. 13-42). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
26. Jensen, Michael C., & Meckling, William H. (1976). Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs, and ownership structure. Ournal of Financial Economics, 3, 305-360.
27. Jensen, Michael C., & Meckling, William H. (1991, August). Specific and general knowledge, and organizational structure. Paper presented at Nobel Symposium No. 77, Stockholm, Sweden.
28. Kalt, Joseph P., & Zupan, Mark A. (1990). The apparent ideological behavior of legislators: Testing for principal-agent slack in political institutions. Journal of Law & Economics, 33, 103-131.
29. Kaniss, Phyllis. (1991). Making local news. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
30. Levine, Michael E., & Forrence, Jennifer L. (1990). Regulatory capture, public interest, and the public agenda: Toward a synthesis. Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, 6, 167-198.
31. Lichter, S. Robert, Rothman, Stanley, & Lichter, Linda S. (1990). The media elite: America's new powerbrokers. New York: Hastings House.
32. Linker, Jan H. (1981). Public intervenors and the public airwaves: The effect of interest groups on Federal Communications Commission decisions. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Emory University.
33. Lott, John R. (1987). Political cheating. Public Choice, 52(2), 169-186.
34. McManus, John. (1995). A market-based model of news production. Communication Theory, 5(4), 301-338.
35. Moe, Terry. (1990). Political institutions: The neglected side of the story. Journal of Law Economics, & Organization, 6, 213-254.
36. Mortensen, Frands, & Svendsen, Erik N. (1980). Creativity and control: The journalist betwixt his readers and editors. Media, Culture and Society, 2, 169-177.
37. Napoli, Philip M. (1994). Concentration of media ownership and ideology: Seeking evidence of cultural hegemony. Unpublished master's thesis, Boston University.
38. Nelson, Douglas, & Silberberg, Eugene. (1987). Ideology and legislator shirking. Economic Inquiry, 25, 15-25.
39. Owen, Bruce M., & Wildman, Steven S. (1992). Video economics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard U niversity Press.
40. Page, Benjamin. (1996). The mass media as political actors. PS: Political science and politics, 20-24.
41. Parenti, Michael. (1993). Inventing reality: The politics of news media (2nd ed). New York: St. Martin's Press.
42. Peterson, Robert A., Albaum, Gerald, Kozmetsky, George, & Cunningham, Isabella C. M. (1984). Attitudes of newspaper business editors and general public toward capitalism. ournalism Quarterly, 61, 56-65.
43. Pindyck, Robert S., & Rubinfeld, Daniel L. (1995). Microeconomics. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
44. Pratt, John W., & Zeckhauser, Richard J. (1985). Principals and agents: An overview. In John W. Pratt & Richard J. Zeckhauser, Principals and agents: The structure of business (pp. 1-36). Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
45. Pratte, Alf, & Whiting, Gordon. (1986). What newspaper editorials have said about deregulation of broadcasting. ournalism Quarterly, 63, 497-502.
46. Robinson, John P., Sahin, Haluk, & Davis, Dennis K. (1982). Television journalists and their audiences. In James Ettema & Charles Whitney., Individuals in mass media organizations: Creativity and constraint (pp. 163-178). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
47. Schudson, Michael. (1978). Discovering the news: A social history of American newspapers. New York: Basic Books.
48. Shoemaker, Pamela J., & Reese, Steven D. (1996). Mediating the message: Theories of influences on mass media content (2nd ed.). White Plains, NY: Longman.
49. Stigler, George J. (1971). The theory of economic regulation. Bell Journal of Economics and Management, 2(2), 3-21.
50. Tuchman, Gaye. (1978). Making news: A study in the construction of social reality. New York: Free Press.
51. Tunstall, Jeremy. (1991). A media industry perspective. In James A. Anderson., Communication yearbook 14 (pp. 163-186). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
52. Underwood, Douglas. (1993). When MBAs rule the newsroom: How the marketers and managers are reshaping today's media. New York: Columbia University Press.
53. Weaver, David H., & Wilhoit, G. Cleveland. (1996). The American journalist in the 1990s: U.S. news people at the end of an era. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
54. Webster, James G., & Phalen, Patricia F. (1997). The mass audience: Rediscovering the dominant model. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
55. White, David M. (1950). The "gatekeeper": A case study in the selection of news. Journalism Quarterly, 27, 383-390.