Strategische Kommunikationsspiele

The main question of this paper is how actors in strategic communication constellations deal with seemingly hopeless situations. The thesis presented here is that actors in such situations make a strategic communication play. Basically, this facilitates the continuation of communication. The concept of strategic communication plays is developed theoretically in this paper. It is shown that strategic communication plays come across in direct interpersonal communication as well as in mass medial mediated communication. In the communication-sociological approach, it is used as the theoretical basis of a difference theory and paradoxical term of play based on Bateson (1956, 1985), embedded in the frame analysis of Goffmann (1980). On this basis, two functions of strategic communication plays are worked out. On the one hand, it is an extension of freedom of action and on the other hand increases the probability of sympathy and credibility attributions through self-thematization.     

Political pressures and the credibility of regulation: can profit sharing mitigate regulatory risk?

When price-cap rules determine the structure of prices for a long period, they suffer a credibility problem and introduce an element of risk especially if a firm’s profits are “too large”. Profit sharing may be seen as a device to pre-determine price adjustments and thus to decrease regulatory risk. We analyse the effects of profit sharing on the incentives to invest, using a real option approach. Absent credibility issues, a well designed profit sharing system may be neutral relative to a pure price cap. With regulatory risk, profit sharing is preferable to a pure price-cap one, if it intervenes for high enough profit levels.