Research
Benchmarking the Network Society: Regulation, Investment, and Innovation
Ongoing Projects - 2008
A wealth of data on the status of information and communication technologies and their uses is available. Major projects of international data collection include the Digital Opportunities Index collected by the Digital Opportunities Partnership (including, among others, the International Telecommunication Union and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development); the Network Readiness Index by the World Economic Forum; the E-Readiness Index by The Economist Intelligence Unit; and the Broadband Portal by the OECD.
The purpose of this project is to provide a comprehensive approach to analyze this wealth of information more thoroughly than is presently done, with a particular emphasis on the effects of regulation on investment and innovation. The existing projects rank nations but do not mine the data in ways that could help decision-makers in policy and industry to improve a nation’s performance. The project will develop an analytical framework and empirical tools to assess regulatory policy and industry strategy and provide a framework and tools to evaluate the likely implications of future courses of action.
Contact: Johannes M. Bauer, bauerj (at) msu.edu, +1.517.432.8003.
NSF-Funded Study of Media Localism and Ownership
Ongoing Projects - 2008
While the quality of of media coverage of local affairs and the influence of media ownership structure on that coverage are hotly debated in policy circles, the empirical foundation for that debate is surprisingly slim. To address this need, beginning this Fall an interdisciplinary team of five MSU researchers will initiate the largest study of local media performance to date, examining coverage of local affairs by traditional media and on the internet for selected cities in 100 U.S. Metropolitan Statistical Areas. The study is funded by NSF for two years at the level of $500,000. The Quello Center will play a major role in this project as the PI is Quello Center Co-Director Steve Wildman and two of the Co-PIs (Professor Stephen Lacy and Professor Emeritus Thomas Baldwin) are Quello Center faculty associates and the project will utilize Quello Center facilities and student research assistants.
The Dynamics of Complex Communication Systems (2006-2009)
Ongoing Projects - 2006
This project is a collaborative effort with Professor Volker Schneider at the University of Konstanz, Germany. The three-year project was funded in 2006 by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany. The proposed project aims at the development of a micro-foundation to modelling these dynamic processes starting from individual agent’s decisions.
One of the key features of the new environment is the presence of pervasive links between individuals, which changes the conditions of optimal decision-making for individuals, organizations, and policy-makers. Many of the available research approaches and tools fall short of the challenges as they use static or relatively simple dynamic approaches.
The proposed project is premised on the belief that recent “complex systems theories” promise to yield more powerful tools to understand the dynamic processes in communications systems.
Contact: Johannes M. Bauer, , +1.517.432.8003.
Related Publications and Media
Governance-Theorie und die Analyse komplexer Systeme — August 26, 2008
Governance: Prospects of Complexity Theory in Revisiting System Theory (WP) — September 10, 2007
