Recommended Internet Access, Texts and Reading

Much of the initial reading material for the seminar will be available on the Web at www.globalmri.com. To access this material you will need a personal ID and password for this seminar, which will be provided by the instructor the first week of class.

You can obtain an e-mail address plus World Wide Web access directly from the University via www.gatorlink.ufl.edu or you can get help doing so at Room 520 CSE or by calling 392-HELP.

The suggested reading list is available on the course web site. This list includes current titles that cover most of the key dimensions of new, evolving and interactive media. You are expected to read only that material related to your selected research topic. The titles can be purchased through any of the major online book dealers, such as www.amazon.com and www.bn.com, and typically can be shipped within a few days.

Seminar Content

The objective of this seminar is to provide you with an overview of new, evolving and interactive media and to help you develop considerable depth in a medium of particular interest to you. Seminar topics include satellite and cable television and radio, satellite data networks, Web TV, telecos and fiber optics. The Internet is covered as well including the Web, net radio and video, electronic publishing, broadcast and cable resources, Internet functions such as e-commerce, information search, e-mail, ftp, telnet, UseNet and gopher plus Internet advertising.

Although the focus of the seminar is on new, evolving and interactive media, you can approach your personally selected medium from any theoretical or philosophical perspective you choose. For example, some perspectives that may interest you include consumer behavior, ethics, law, regulation, commercial speech, intellectual property, privacy, marketing, management, economics, industrial organization, competition, antitrust, sociology, psychology, history, mass communication, journalism, advertising, public relations, education and distance learning, fine arts, digital and analog production, and graphics and design.

From any of these world views you can analyze your selected medium in terms of content, access, cost, privacy, free speech, structure, organization, convergence, audience measurement, cultural diversity, gender and ethnicity, effects on viewers or listeners, and uses by consumers, business, media, advertisers and agencies to name just a few of the possibilities from which you can choose.

Your focus can be professional, empirical or theoretical, encompass qualitative or quantitative methods, include audience and site-centric surveys or experiments, and cover local, regional, national or international perspectives. Your output goal can fall within a broad range as well including a white paper for presentation and publication, a prospectus for a doctoral dissertation or master’s thesis, or an exploratory study.  In addition, you may collaborate with other faculty or students.

Seminar Schedule

The 16-week seminar will be divided into three parts, including content overview, research proposals and final research reports. Seminar meetings the first two months of the semester will provide a systematic overview of each of the content areas. The approach will be a combination of informal lecture and discussion following the outline on the Web site for each content area. Experts in some of the content areas will be invited to present as well to provide first-hand, professional perspectives. Although the instructor will plan to lead each seminar, you are expected to contribute most heavily in areas of particular personal interest or experience. You may choose to lead such seminars if your interests and schedule permit.

After we have reviewed the key seminar topics each student will have the opportunity to present a research proposal outlining their output objective for the course. Since this proposal will be distributed one week before you present it, you will benefit from the ideas and recommendations of the instructor and all other students in the seminar. The goal is to provide each student with positive feedback to help improve and refine the proposal. Each proposal will focus on at least one new, evolving or interactive medium from the chosen philosophical or theoretical perspective. Typically, the narrower the focus the more manageable the research project. Nevertheless, broad proposals are welcome as well.

You then will have three to four weeks to implement your research proposal. During this period we will not meet as a group. Instead, you may schedule individual meetings with the instructor, as needed, to further develop and refine your research project.

The last few weeks of the seminar will be devoted to "final" research reports and presentations. Again, each student will distribute a draft final report to each class member one week before his/her presentation. Your presentation should be delivered as if you were presenting at a professional or academic conference. Each presenter then will benefit from the suggestions of the instructor and all seminar participants. Projects that are well executed at each stage of the seminar should be in excellent shape as a prospectus for a master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation or as a conference presentation or a refereed journal submission.

Here is an initial, tentative time-line.

The course web site contains more detailed guidelines for research proposals and final reports and presentations.

Seminar Grades

Your grade for the course will be based on three equally weighted parts, including 1) seminar participation, 2) research proposal report and presentation, and 3) final research report and presentation. More detailed seminar evaluation criteria are published on the course web site. The grading scale is typical: 90-100% is an "A", 87-89% is a "B+", and 80-86% is a "B" and so on.

You will do well in this seminar if you exhibit informed participation in seminar meetings, do thorough, careful and imaginative research, write well-documented and high quality research reports, and deliver organized and informative presentations. To do so will be relatively easy if you choose a new, evolving or interactive medium and perspective that you find especially interesting or exciting. When this is the case your passion for the subject will show and your energy will be relatively boundless. Enjoy!

Instructor

Kent Lancaster has been a Professor of Advertising at the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida for 11 years, where he had also served as the Gannett Distinguished Visiting Professor of Advertising. Previously he was Associate Professor of Advertising at the University of Illinois where he taught for 10 years. His Ph.D. in Mass Media and MA in Advertising are from Michigan State University, while his BS in Business Administration (Advertising) is from Ferris State University.

Kent’s research focuses on advertising media and on the economics of advertising. He has written more than 50 research reports, some of which have appeared in the Journal of Business, Journal of Macromarketing, Journal of Advertising, Journal of Advertising Research, Journal of Advertising History, Journalism Quarterly, Journal of Marketing Education, Journal of Media Planning, Journalism Educator, Marketing and Media Decisions, and in the proceedings of the American Academy of Advertising, the American Marketing Association, the European Marketing Academy and the American Statistical Association.

He has written several texts and microcomputer software packages, including ADplus^™: For Multi-media Advertising Planning (distributed worldwide by Telmar Information Services Corp. for Windows^™, Macintosh® and DOS operating systems); Strategic Media Planning (with Helen Katz, published by NTC Business Books; Japanese edition translated by Shizue Kishi and Sei Takeuchi, published by Nikkei Advertising Research Institute, Tokyo, Japan); and ADLAB: For Advertising Media Planning on the IBM®, Macintosh® and Compatibles (McGraw-Hill). In 1989 Kent established the Media Research Institute, Inc., to support his research activities and to develop, test and use state-of-the-art, computer-based, advertising planning models for the advertising industry and advertising education.

Kent serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Interactive Advertising and has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Media Planning and the Journal of Advertising and as Treasurer of the American Academy of Advertising. He also is a consultant in advertising media planning, budgeting, and market analysis to a variety of public and private organizations and serves as a media planning expert witness for cases involving class action media notice plans, media competition and antitrust, and corrective advertising.

Kent teaches five graduate and undergraduate courses at the University of Florida, including New, Evolving and Interactive Media, Advertising Media Planning, Advanced Advertising Media Planning, Advertising Research, and Mass Media Audience Measurement.

Course Material

Back to MRI Homepage

Copyright 1997-1999 by Kent M. Lancaster, Media Research Institute, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.
Last revised: May 10, 2000.