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Digital media platforms in Uganda experimented with subscription-based models as an alternative to the traditional advertising model and as a recovery plan from the effects of COVID-19. Drawing from the theory of the political economy of the media, this study focusses on the critical success factors for subscription-based models in digital media platforms, audience consumption habits vis-á-vis payment for content, the effect of paywalls on the company financials and finally, establish the barriers to subscription uptake in Uganda. Media started charging users subscription fees for content in the 1990s (Chyi, 2005). Technological advances changed audience consumption habits from consuming hardcopy newspapers to accessing content on the go through their smartphones, tablets, and computers (Berger, Matt, Steininger, & Hess, 2015). Whilst some consumers pay for content, several audience surveys in East Africa indicated a lack of consistency among the paying audiences (KARF, 2019). Most consumers never purchased subscription and were avert to paywalls. The study used a mixed-method approach to find that the increase in internet penetration in Uganda and smartphone usage were the most significant enablers of paid-content consumption in Uganda. The quality of content, poor packaging, and unfair prices by publishers were the biggest barriers to consumption of paid news content.

This chapter examines the trends in published comparative and international education research from 2014 to 2019 with a special focus on 2019 publication in open access journals and by authors situated in the Global South. In particular, two trends from 2019 are (1) the increasing number of research publications in the field of comparative and international education that are being published in online, open access journals and (2) the representation among these research publications between authors situated in Global North versus Global South contexts. Evidence from the six years of data collection suggests that single country studies and qualitative methods continue to dominate published research in comparative and international education journals. 2019 data also show that there are significant different in the publication trends in subscription versus open access journals in the field, and that authors from the Global South are more likely to publish in open access journals, especially if they are female.

This chapter investigates attention theory by examining retail investors' true intention to purchase. Attention theory indicates that investors, and especially retail investors, typically invest in stocks about which they are aware. Previous studies test attention theory by analyzing stock price behavior or trading volume. However, stock prices and trading volume are primarily driven by institutional investors rather than retail investors. We examine investor attention using initial public offering (IPO) subscriptions in Taiwan because only retail investors are allowed to subscribe to Taiwanese IPOs. We use media coverage as a measure of passive retail investor attention and Google search volume as a measure of active retail investor attention. Our results reveal that active attention has a more profound relationship with retail investor IPO subscriptions than passive attention does. Additionally, information about the value of IPOs taken from trading prices in the pre-IPO market mitigates the effects of attention theory.

In recent years, a growing number of libraries have canceled or unbundled their “Big Deal” journal subscriptions – those subscriptions that include a full package of digital journal titles for one discounted cost. This started as an affordability problem but has slowly morphed into a challenge from libraries demanding a new pricing structure that accommodates and spurs the growing open access movement.

The change has caused a variety of challenges for technical services units including the increased need for user data, increasingly complicated workflows as they manage partial subscriptions, new interactions with consortia, and ongoing campus conversations. Whether the library is seeking to simply unbundle due to budget constraints, or push for new models such as “read and publish”, there is a tremendous impact on the work of technical services units.

This chapter will explore the rationale and growth of the Big Deal, how it is breaking, four case studies on breaking Big Deals, a brief discussion of new transformative agreements, new challenges for consortia, and implications for technical services units moving forward.

Libraries and professional publishers have long had a complicated relationship. This chapter seeks to explore some elements of this relationship in order to suggest new ways of regarding each of the parties and to generate an active dialog with the aim of improving collaboration and cooperation between them.

After having drawn lessons from the recent COVID-19 pandemic for retailers in the previous chapters, in this last chapter we provide an outline on retailing over a longer time horizon. We start with projections of how the phygitalization trend in retailing will further evolve and what role data plays as a basis for a competitive advantage – on the condition of smart and ethical use. Besides looking at customers (downstream), we address the upstream in the value delivery network, focusing on how to succeed in balancing between efficiency and sustainability in the retail supply chain. Retailers face huge challenges. This chapter contributes to setting the scene for retailers to thrive in the brand-new post-pandemic aftermath.