In general, when we think about media, and especially mass media, we seldom associate them with economy. Meanwhile, the freedom of communication is closely related to the fi nancing sources. The Americans say: “he who pays the piper calls the tune.” In the modern world, it is diffi cult to establish who pays and what they actually pay with. Very few of us realize that the currency we pay for the consumption of media is our attention. Milton Friedmann, a Nobel Prize laureate, justly stated that “there is no such thing as a free lunch.” This book proves it clearly. Its content is the elaboration of the thought by one of the most prominent researchers of this fi eld, prof. Alan B. Albarran, who postulated that the research on economics of media should be holistic. The University of North Texas professor most accurately defi nes the notion of “media economics”, which is “the study of how media fi rms and industries function across different levels of activity (e.g., global, national, household, etc.) in tandem with other forces (e.g., globalization, regulation, technology, and social aspects) through the use of theories, concepts, and principles drawn from macroeconomic and microeconomic perspectives” [A.B. Albarran, The Media Economy, Routledge, New York 2016, p. 3]. In this book, we strive to meet these postulates, in the hope of making a contribution to the understanding of the interpenetration of media and economy, as well as to the illustration of its Polish specifi city.
Introduction 7 Media Economics 9 Lucyna Szot The costs of employment in the media 10 Jan Kreft The gift economy and traditional news media organisations. A new barrier to development 24 Sławomir Rogowski Universal Audiovisual Contribution – possibility or necessity? 37 Jakub Parnes From pluralism to monopoly. The evolution of the market of regional daily press in Poland after 1989 46 Economics in the Media – Historical Perspective 63 Rafał Śpiewak Workers’ issues in the press of Upper Silesia at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries 64 Aleksandra Pethe Economic issues in the magazine “Gość Niedzielny” during the interwar period 79 Marek Łuczak Economic issues in the religious press of Poland in the interwar period based on the example of the weekly “Niedziela” 93 Elżbieta M. Kur Economic issues in the columns of “Tygodnik Powszechny” (1945-1953) 102 Economics in the Media – Discursive Perspective 119 Dorota Marquardt, Jerzy Gołuchowski, Tadeusz Marquardt Argumentative economic discourse in the media based on the examples of blogs devoted to the topic of mining 120 Dominik Chomik Overtones carried by the words economics, economic and economically in the media discourse on the reform of Polish universities in the years 2011-2014 132 Rafał Nocuń Innovativeness: between value and persuasiveness. A linguistic perspective 146 Ways of Communicating Economic Issues 157 Katarzyna Zdanowicz-Cyganiak, Jerzy Gołuchowski Tools of communication and the characteristics of the anti-consumerism “Adbusters” movement 158 Karina Cicha, Sebastian Musioł Are Silesia-oriented news portals usable? 179 Natalia Starzykowska Game shows to the rescue – how can they improve studies on gender discrimination? 193