Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

8-1998

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Communication

Major Professor

Michael W. Singletary

Committee Members

Sam Swan, Barbara Moore, John Haaas

Abstract

Radio broadcasters have recently been confronted with the World Wide Web, a possible source of competition or an extension to broadcasting. Since 1994, broadcasters' adoption of the Web has grown exponentially along with the growth of the Web in general. This study examines the reasons why broadcasters have adopted the Web, their perceived advantages and disadvantages of adoption, when they adopted, their plans for future use of the Web, and how they are actually using the Web. The study is divided into two parts: (1) a survey consisting of 13 Likert-type questions probing reasons for adoption and four open-ended questions probing their attitudes toward the Web and plans for its use, and (2) a content analysis of the respondents Web sites to ascertain how they actually use the Web. Data were collected from 199 respondents from during the first two months of 1997. The most cited reason for creating a station Web site was fear of losing out to competition in case the Web turns out to be successful. Promotion was the second most cited reason for establishing a Web site. Most stations had a technologically knowledgeable employee who persuaded management to establish a site. The vast majority of managers were satisfied with their site once established. However, management found that the major disadvantage of having a site is the amount of time it takes to maintain the site. This suggests that radio stations may have to add employees especially to maintain a successful site, give up on maintaining a site, or continue with an inferior site. Most stations plan to broadcast over the Web via audio streaming. Although audio streaming allows stations to broadcast content worldwide, it does not lend itself to targeting a local audience. In addition, audio streaming can create competition for radio stations because anyone with a Web server and a CD player can broadcast via audio streaming. Finally, few stations use their site to generate revenue from advertisements. Instead, they offer advertisements on the Web as "value-added" to on-air advertisements for their clients. Content analysis of the respondents' sites indicates that few stations do enough to motivate visitors to their site. Although many stations report that they plan to enable audio streaming, at the time of this survey fewer than 15% actually utilize it. Many stations, on the other hand, include biographical information about their on-air staff. In addition, most stations include some kind of feedback mechanism such as an email address, telephone number, etc., on their site. The results have important implications for station managers. Sites need to be maintained with fresh content that motivates their audience to visit the site. Because this takes time and manpower, stations will have to either hire new staff or free current staff to work on the site.

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