Investigating the Behavioral Economics Approach in Media Studies: A Systematic Review

Authors

1 PhD Candidate, Department of Media Management, Faculty of Management, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

2 Associate Prof., Department of Business Management, Faculty of Management, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

Objective
Media economic studies consist of theoretical and practical research that has received attention since the end of the 20th century. Primary studies in this field focused on issues such as the supply and demand in the media markets, content production and content distribution by using economic analysis models. And mainstream economics and especially neoclassical economics was a major paradigm that govern the research mentality. Also, the distinctive features of this industry such as distinctive media products and the behavior of audience-customer challenge the mainstream economic theories and models in the media context. The importance of studying people’s behavior has grabbed attention since the beginning of the new century, and economic thinkers tried to provide a clear picture of people’s economic behaviors with inspiration from other scientific fields. As a result, the interdisciplinary field under the name behavioral economics emerged in the late 20th century. The new approach of behavioral economics by using other science like psychology and sociology has been able to provide real analyzes of audience-customer behaviors. Therefore, it has attracted the attention of experts in different branches of human sciences. Berg (2010) by introducing behavioral economics as a new stream in microeconomic studies, states that this new stream is a complement and not a substitute for its previous approaches, and tries to compatible them with reality as much as possible. So, the current study as a pioneer research in media studies tries to open new horizons about the application of behavioral economics in media economics for researchers in media studies with providing a comprehensive view of fundamental assumptions and concepts of behavioral economics compared to previous economics schools.
Research Methodology
In order to provide a comprehensive formulation of studies in this field, this research used the methodology of secondary study, including a systematic review. The main sources of this research include all valid research articles indexed in the Web of Science (WOS) as well as reference books published related to behavioral economics from 1990 to 2019. To find the desired resources, the advanced search method of WOS was used in the following way: TS = (behavio$ral_econom*) which in this term (TS) includes the title, abstract, and keywords of all the resources on this website. As a result of searching the resources available in the WOS and based on the method mentioned above, which was done on April 20, 2019; A total of 4509 items were found as a result of this search. Then, in order to achieve the research goals, all of the articles obtained in the source search phase were listed based on the number of citations. Among the sources listed based on the purpose of the research, ten sources with the most citation were selected to extract the required data, which includes 5 books and 5 articles. It should be noted that the reason why books are more popular is the rich and fundamental literature on the concept of behavioral economics that can be found in these sources. After selecting the desired sources based on the subjective criteria appropriate to the research topic, the selected sources were analyzed and the desired data were extracted.
Findings
In the search phase, 10 sources with the most citation and well-known authors in the field of behavioral economics were selected. In order to provide a clear picture of behavioral economics, the basic assumptions of this field were compared with the previous schools (neoclassical and institutional economics). The main finding of this research is the identification and presentation of the behavioral economics view of the media in comparison to previous schools. Neoclassical economics, with a completely rational view, believed that media audiences rationally choose media products in order to maximize personal benefits. But the institutional approach believed in institutional effects in the media industry; Institutionalists believe that governments are actively interfering in the allocation of property rights through radio and television. But behaviorists, who are known as late obstacles in this direction, by focusing on the concept of bounded rationality, believe that media market audiences have unstable and sometimes conflicting preferences, and this affects their choices; finally, behavioral economists, focusing on the concept of bounded rationality, believe that media market audiences have unstable and sometimes conflicting preferences, and this affects their choices.
Discussion & Conclusion
What was presented in this research is presenting a clear picture of the interdisciplinary field of behavioral economics with a focus on its role in media studies. Therefore, current research via the comparative methods tried to present the fundamental assumption and the point of view of behavioral economics to the media industry compared to neoclassical and institutional economics. The findings of this research show that although behavioral economics has been able to pull the direction of economic research towards itself during the last few decades; in the field of media economics, it has somehow been neglected. The authors believe that the emergence of new media such as social media, VODs, computer games as well as increasing media literacy of the audience and their unstable preferences, it has become increasingly difficult to correctly understand the audience's behavior and predict their media consumption pattern, especially in subscription-based media; Therefore, it seems that the analysts of such a market need much more powerful tools in analyzing the audience's behavior; Behavioral economics can be a very effective tool for this task by involving institutions, audience preferences and psychological factors in the analysis of audience-customer behavior This approach can provide a more realistic explanation about the unusual behavior of the audience, the reasons for the failure of media businesses and media migration of the audience, and issues like that. also behavioral economic has provided many research opportunities that can lead to research subjects in the field of audience-customer behavior, audience persuasion, public opinion, business models and co-creation, etc. in different media platforms.
 

Keywords

References

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Media Management Review
Volume 1, Issue 3
2022
Pages 274-294

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