(Media Management and Economics Series) Ulrike Rohn, Tom Evens - Media Management Matters - Challenges and Opportunities For Bridging Theory and Practice (2020, Routledge) - Libgen - Li

‘Media Management Matters is a welcome addition to the media management and
economics field. Moving beyond a pure academic discussion, the contributors

examine the numerous challenges and opportunities that exist in both practice
and theory. This thought-provoking volume should spur more discussion of the
topic and generate new ideas for study.’
—Dr . Alan B. Albarran, Professor Emeritus,
University of North Texas, USA
‘Aiming at understanding media firms and the uncertain environment in which

they operate, media management research builds upon theories from economics
and management, media and communication studies, information technology,
psychology, law and political science. It applies and develops these theoretical
considerations with respect to real-life situations and developments in the media
industry. The goal of Media Management Matters is to point to, discover, and sup
port the practical relevance of media management research. Only a holistic
understanding of the media industry can meet the challenges the complex and
volatile media environment poses to media practice and research alike.’
—Dr. Alfonso Sánchez-Tabernero, Professor of Media Management,
University of Navarra, Spain
MEDIA MANAGEMENT MATTERS
This edited volume explores media management as engaged scholarship, building a

bridge between theory and practice and discussing research collaboration between
academia, policymakers and the media industry. In addition to advancing the scho
larly discipline, it also questions, investigates and discusses the practical value of the
research undertaken, showing how media management research can provide action
able, practice-relevant knowledge to decision makers throughout the media industry.
The volume is broken into two parts: a section reflecting on the need for
collaboration between research and practice, and a section overviewing specific
projects that aim to deliver administrative value to stakeholders. The international
research projects presented here span topics such as digital transformation, business
models in news and digital journalism, media entrepreneurship and start-ups, ad-
blocking, location-based services, audiovisual consumption preferences, the sus
tainability of small television markets, co-located and clustered industries and
digital privacy. Incorporating under-used methodological approaches, such as
action research and ethnography, Media Management Matters brings suggestions for
how scholarship might be promoted outside academia. Simply put, this book
aims to demonstrate why media management matters.
Featuring an international roster of contributors, this collection is essential
reading for scholars and practitioners of media management, business and policy.
Ulrike Rohn is Professor of Media Economics and Management at Tallinn University,

Estonia, where she works at the Baltic Film, Media, Arts, and Communication School
(BFM) and the Centre of Excellence in Media Innovation and Digital Culture
(MEDIT). She served as President of the European Media Management Association
(emma, 2016–2020), and is co-Editor of the Springer Series in Media Industries and
Associate Editor of the Journal of Media Business Studies. Dr. Rohn’s research interests
include, among others, audiovisual policies, media business models and international
media strategies. Latter research interest has led to her book publication Cultural Barriers
to the Success of Foreign Media Content: Western Media in China, India, and Japan (2010).
Tom Evens is an Assistant Professor at research group for Media, Innovation and
Communication Technologies (imec-mict-UGent) at the Department of Com
munication Sciences at Ghent University, Belgium. He teaches in media eco
nomics, business model innovation and technology policy. He specialises in the
economics and policies of media and technology industries, and has published
widely on the media business. He is the lead author of The Political Economy of
Television Sports Rights (2013) and Platform Power and Policy in Transforming Televi
sion Markets (2018). He served as the Deputy President of the European Media
Management Association between 2017 and 2019. He is a member of several
editorial boards and has been consulting several governments and media organi
sations on strategy and public policy issues.
MEDIA MANAGEMENT AND ECONOMICS SERIES
Series Editor: Alan B. Albarran
Media Management Matters

Edited by Ulrike Rohn and Tom Evens
Handbook of Media Management and Economics

Edited by Alan B. Albarran, Sylvia M. Chan-Olmsted, and Michael O. Wirth
The Media Economy

By Alan B. Albarran
Webcasting Worldwide
Business Models of an Emerging Global Medium
Edited by Louisa S. Ha and Richard J. Ganahl
The Social Media Industries

Edited by Alan B. Albarran
MEDIA MANAGEMENT
MATTERS
Challenges and Opportunities for
Bridging Theory and Practice
Edited by Ulrike Rohn and Tom Evens

First published 2020
by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2020 Taylor & Francis
The right of Ulrike Rohn and Tom Evens to be identified as the authors of the
editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent
to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Rohn, Ulrike, editor. | Evens, Tom, 1983- editor.
Title: Media management matters : challenges and opportunities for bridging
theory and practice / edited by Ulrike Rohn and Tom Evens.
Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2020. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019053170 (print) | LCCN 2019053171 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780367210991 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367211004 (paperback) |
ISBN 9780429265396 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Mass media--Management.
Classification: LCC P96.M34 M427 2020 (print) | LCC P96.M34 (ebook) |
DDC 384.068--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019053170
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019053171
ISBN: 978-0-367-21099-1 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-367-21100-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-26539-6 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Taylor & Francis Books
CONTENTS
List of illustrations xi
Foreword by Alfonso Sánchez-Tabernero xii
Introduction 1
Ulrike Rohn and Tom Evens
1 Media Management as an Engaged Scholarship 9
2 University–Industry Collaboration in the Media Management
Field 29
Gregory Ferrell Lowe and Robert G. Picard
3 Why Policymakers Need to Collaborate with Academics on
Media Policy and Why That Need Will Grow 46
Steve Wildman
4 Managing Media Firms: Case Studies of Practice-led Research,
Actionable Knowledge and Instrumental Impact 59
John J. Oliver
5 Conducting Media Management Ethnography: A Journey
toward Impacting Industry Stakeholders 75
Sven-Ove Horst
x Contents
6 Evaluating Action Research to Innovate Digital Journalism

Revenue Models 93
Clare Cook
7 Examining Ad Avoidance Consumers: A Collaborative Study
with the Ad Blocker Industry 107
Lisa-Charlotte Wolter and Sylvia Chan-Olmsted
8 Location-Based Services in Regional Media Communication:
Insights from a Research Project 121
Harald Rau and Annika Ehlers
9 Sustaining Small Television Ecosystems: Lessons from
Policy-Driven Research in Flanders 138
Tim Raats
10 Researching News Media: Creating Societal Impact from
Research for the Media Industry and Policymakers 155
Mikko Grönlund, Katja Lehtisaari, Carl-Gustav Lindén and Mikko Villi
11 Research for Innovation: Improving the Management of
Co-Located and Clustered Industries 173
Erik Hitters
12 Eyes on Tech! Media Entrepreneurship and the Relevance of
Technology in Business Models 188
Andreas Will, Britta Gossel and Julian Windscheid
13 Managing Digital Transformation: The Case of the Finnish
Broadcasting Company 204
Päivi Maijanen
14 Shedding Light on Audiovisual Consumption Preferences:
A Case Study from Spain 218
Mercedes Medina
15 Digital Privacy and New Media: Reflecting on Lessons for
Policy and Practice 233
Conor O’Kane
List of Contributors 248

Index 254
ILLUSTRATIONS
Figures
2.1 Summary of Characteristic Drivers and Barriers in
University–Industry Collaboration, and Typical Anticipated
Benefits (authors’ own) 33
5.1 The Nature of Impact on Industry Stakeholders over Time 86
7.1 Conceptual Model 114
11.1 Societal Impact Value Chain (adapted from Van den Burgwal
et al., 2018) 178
13.1 General Model of the Research Project (Maijanen-
Kyläheiko, 2014) 208
Tables
9.1 Studies and Their Respective Subtasks and Methods 142
12.1 Sample by Continent/Countries of Origin 193
12.2 Description of Sample 194
12.3 Case Description 194
12.4 Emerging Technologies as a Crucial Part of Business Models 196
13.1 Data Collection 210
FOREWORD
Before the mid-1990s, the buzzword in the media industry was growth. At that
time, the main concern of CEOs working in the media was how to reinvest their
companies’ profits both to protect margins (typically 25% of total income) and to
diversify assets. But, from 1995 onwards, the Internet changed the rules of the
game in quite a disruptive way. New competitors appeared, the power shifted from
content providers to consumers, traditional business models were destroyed and
old barriers to entry weakened. Since then, the buzzword in the media industry has
become uncertainty.
Aiming at understanding media firms and the uncertain environment in which
they operate, media management research is highly interdisciplinary by nature and
not only encompasses and builds upon theories from economics and management
as well as media and communication studies, it also relates to the scientific fields of
information technology, psychology, law and political science. This inter
disciplinary approach is one of the key strengths of media management research.
While media management research can rely on a multitude of theoretical approa
ches, its other asset must be that it applies, discusses and develops theoretical con
siderations with respect to real-life situations, constraints and developments in the
media industry. In this context, it is the goal of Media Management Matters: Chal
lenges and Opportunities for Bridging Theory and Practice to point to, discover and
support the practice relevance of media management research.
This book, edited by Ulrike Rohn and Tom Evens, showcases various research
projects that demonstrate both the challenges and opportunities of conducting
practice-relevant media management research. The research projects presented
have resulted in knowledge of relevance to various players in the media industries
from state-owned companies to private players, from local newspapers and TV
Foreword xiii
stations to big online platforms, from journalistic brands to entertainment outlets,

as well as media policymakers.
One of the most frequently recurring concepts in Media Management Matters is
collaboration. According to the editors and contributors, media management
research that is to contribute to informed decision-making in media practice and
that is to develop its unique set of theories needs to collaborate with its stake
holders in the industry and policy in terms of research development, conduct and
dissemination. The future of the media industry depends on putting together the
perspectives, knowledge and assessment of all involved stakeholders. Only a hol
istic understanding of the media industry can meet the challenges the complex
and volatile media environment poses to media practice and research alike.
Citizens are spending more and more time consuming media. In pointing to
and discussing the practice relevance of the showcased research projects, Media
Management Matters also contributes to an understanding of some of the most
pressing issues that media practice is confronted with. This includes, among
others, organisational transformation, audience attention in an overcrowded
market, building and maintaining sustainable competitive advantage, and how
organisations can get enough income to pay the salaries of creative professionals.
I hope you enjoy the book.
Alfonso Sánchez-Tabernero
Professor of Media Management, University of Navarra
INTRODUCTION
We are very pleased to present our edited volume Media Management Matters:
Challenges and Opportunities for Bridging Theory and Practice. The volume intends to
showcase media management research of high relevance to industry and policy
stakeholders. The chapters seek to question the practical value of the research
undertaken and elaborate on how media management scholars can cooperate
with public and private stakeholders, not only to access first-hand data and in-
depth insights but also to produce findings that create actionable knowledge. We
believe that media management, as a growing field, should be driven both by a
genuine interest to advance academic knowledge in terms of theoretical and
methodological approaches and a deeper ambition to address and unpack ‘real
world’ challenges faced by media and communications organisations, regulatory
agencies, policymakers and other stakeholders. Various chapters in the book
underpin our argument that, albeit relatively young, media management really
matters when it comes to creating actionable knowledge. Key is a dialogue with
the media industry and policymakers in terms of research topics and questions, a
reflection as to what research results actually mean to stakeholders, as well as a
targeted dissemination of research results outside academia.
However, it is not our intention to showcase only success stories that legitimise
media management as an indisputable field of research. Rather, the book also
identifies, reflects on and discusses challenges that researchers face in terms of
creating actionable knowledge for, and in cooperating with, their stakeholders.
While inviting media management scholars to contribute to this volume, it became
rapidly clear that research collaboration between university and industry is not so
widespread in the media management community – a conclusion that is empiri
cally supported by Gregory Ferrell Lowe and Robert G. Picard further in this
volume. Cooperation with industry and policymakers provides an opportunity for
2 Ulrike Rohn and Tom Evens
researchers not only to write academic publications that further our theoretical and
empirical understanding of managing media organisations and industries. Colla
boration also enables the mutual exchange of knowledge and allows researchers, by
translating academic knowledge into actionable knowledge, to demonstrate impact
in terms of influencing business or policy practice. Based on the authors’ experi
ence, the book presents ideas, tips and hints in terms of overcoming such challenges
and working towards an engaged scholarship in collaboration with stakeholders.
The idea for this edited volume came up in the context of past and more recent
self-reflective accounts by media management scholars about the scholarship. These
accounts often have a critical tone towards the scholarship and the main argument is
that media management scholarship needs to improve in quality. While we agree
that there is a lack of theoretical development in media management scholarship, we
argue that one of the key problems with media management research is that much of
it is not connected to real life in media practice, nor are its results visible to its sta
keholders in industry and policy. We, therefore, argue that our research needs to
have much greater relevance to media practice and benefit to society in general. We,
as media management scholars, often lack our own reflections about the meaning
and value of our research results to practice. Furthermore, we do not integrate
enough stakeholders’ perspectives into our formulation of research questions and the
planning and conduct of our research projects. We believe we must and can do
much better in supporting informed decision-making in the media industries and
media policy than our research currently does. This is key to media management,
whose core task is to build a bridge between the general theoretical disciplines of
management and the specificities of the media industry.
We, the two editors of this volume, Ulrike Rohn and Tom Evens, have served
for many years on the Executive Board of the European Media Management
Association (emma), which is an international not-for-profit academic organisation
to support growth in media management research, scholarship and practice
throughout Europe and around the world. Founded in 2004, it has become the
world’s largest and most established community of researchers in the field of media
management. At the time of the planning of this edited volume, Ulrike Rohn was
President of emma, a position she held from 2016 to 2020, and Tom Evens was
Deputy President, a position he held from 2017 to 2019. In this context, we see
our edited volume as a follow-up to the book Managing Media Firms and Industries:
What’s So Special about Media Management? written by Gregory Ferrell Lowe and
Charles Brown, President and Deputy President at the time of the planning of this
book. While they argue in their book that media management is, indeed, special
and differs from management in other industries, we take their argument and
reflect and collect input as to how media management scholarship can make a
greater impact outside academia. Following our own long-lasting experience with
practice-led, demand-driven research for and with media organisations and pol
icymakers, we believe that a better collaboration with public and private stake
holders is needed to advance media management as an academic field.
Introduction 3
As it is with all collections, there is a limit as to how many chapters can be

fitted into it. We are well aware that there are many more practice-relevant
research projects that could be showcased as examples of engaged scholarship that
provide actionable knowledge to stakeholders than this book could possibly
accommodate. The selection of the chapters for this edited volume followed a
multi-stage process. On the advice of the publisher, we did not publish an open
call for contribution proposals, but invited authors individually. We started with
the community of researchers within emma, but we also invited authors who are
more loosely connected to the association and/or whose work we noticed at
related conferences and journals. Each manuscript underwent multiple rounds of
reviews and revisions before it was eventually approved for publication. As a
result, we are proud to present an edited volume that covers a great diversity of
topics of relevance to the field, written by scholars from many different countries.
It goes without saying that we owe an incredible debt of gratitude to all the
authors for their contributions.
We want to acknowledge a workshop that was organised at LUT University in
Finland by Päivi Maijanen, Atte Jääskeläinen, Ari Jantunen and Amanda Pieppo
nen in May 2019 and that brought together media management researchers with
representatives of the media industry as well as academic funding organisations.
The aim of the workshop was to discuss how academic research could be more
relevant to its stakeholders. The workshop, and especially the presentation by
Leona Achtenhagen from the Media Management and Transformation Centre at
Jönköping International Business School, proved to be very useful in reflecting
on arguments underlying this book. We also want to thank Gregory Ferrell Lowe
from Northwestern University in Qatar for comments on the first draft proposal
for this book. And we want to thank Alan B. Albarran from the University of
North Texas, and the editor of the Media Management and Economics Series at
Routledge, for his useful comments and guidance. Finally, we would like to
acknowledge Ross Wagenhofer, Nicole Salazar, Brian Eschrich and Grant
Schatsman at Routledge for their editorial assistance and support.
Contents of the Book

This book is a collection of 15 chapters written by established media management
scholars affiliated with academic institutions in Belgium, Finland, Estonia, Ger
many, the Netherlands, Spain, the UK, the US and Qatar. In most of the chapters,
the author(s) present how they went about developing a collaboration with exter
nal stakeholders and in retrieving practice-relevant knowledge. In addition to a
variety of research topics covered, some chapters present and reflect upon metho
dological approaches that are less commonly applied by media management
researchers but that are of especial importance due to their enabling to further
bridge theory and practice. As such, the book presents a selection of timely topics
and approaches to further improve media management scholarship.
In the first chapter, Ulrike Rohn and Tom Evens sketch the contours of media
management scholarship, stressing its focus on the specifics of the media business
and its wider impact on culture and society. Furthermore, they put forward some
new directions to advance the scholarship. They identify challenges in terms of
developing new analytical lenses and methodological approaches, as well as a
challenge to create more impact outside academia. Rohn and Evens make a call for
more problem-focused and interdisciplinary forms of knowledge production in
media management scholarship so as to exchange knowledge and inspire decision-
making at several levels. They argue that, in addition to advance academic litera
ture, media management scholars should get into dialogue with practitioners and
help them to solve real-world challenges.
In Chapter 2, Gregory Ferrell Lowe and Robert G. Picard report on the findings
of a worldwide survey among 132 media management researchers about uni
versity–industry collaboration (UIC). The results indicate that a minority of the
surveyed population is engaged with consulting industry or policymakers. Despite
the increasing call from universities for raising external funding and creating social
impact, Lowe and Picard point to the underlying structural problems within these
institutions to explain this incongruity. They find that consulting and public out
reach is generally of low or no priority for decisions on tenure or promotion, while
publishing scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals remains the highest priority.
They conclude that this presents an opportunity for media management scholar
ship to take a leading role to grow collaboration with industry and push universities
to actually practise what they are preaching.
In the third chapter, Steve Wildman reflects on his experience as Chief Economist
at the Federal Communications Commission and points to the need for policy
makers to collaborate with media management scholars. In the chapter, Wildman
makes the argument that, as the rapid acceleration of technological change drastically
impacts the media environment, the challenges confronting both policymakers and
practitioners will multiply and become more complex. He stresses that different types
of actors should turn to university experts for help in addressing the challenges that
media pose to both of them. The media are being transformed in ways that demand
new thinking, which, as a result, demand new approaches to understand the nature
of modern media in order to devise policies that can help to realise the societal
benefits of digital technology and prevent society from the significant harm that this
transformation can make possible.
Chapter 4 by John Oliver presents two case studies of practice-led research
where the media content not only helped to advance knowledge ‘about’ media
practice but also ‘within’ practice. Based on his long-lasting experience with
actionable research, Oliver concludes that if media management is to flourish in
the years ahead, it should consider the benefits of theoretical development
working in tandem with a consideration of knowledge that is actionable and
produces high levels of implementable validity. Media management scholars need
to concentrate on generating knowledge that is useful rather than generalisable.
Introduction 5
He advises that researchers need to focus on those questions that are important to
business, disseminate results in non-academic outlets and engage with practi
tioners at business conferences to widen personal networks.
In Chapter 5, Sven-Ove Horst tells a personal story about developing and creating
impact with industry stakeholders. Drawing from an auto-ethnographic experience,
he reports about his work with industry practitioners that frequently consult media
organisations. His extensive analysis demonstrates that impact is created naturally
over time and progresses through six interlinked stages. The findings reveal that
building a mutually synergistic relationship costs substantial time but is necessary to
define joint goals and achieve success in a collaborative engagement with industry
stakeholders. Horst contrasts this time-consuming process of producing meaningful
research outcomes with pressures from funding agencies that push researchers to
achieve short-term wins, rephrase existing knowledge and restrict critical reflection.
In doing so, media management research may miss opportunities for preparatory,
generative and reflective impact in the longer run.
In the sixth chapter, Clare Cook shows the opportunities of action research not
just for advancing academic knowledge about revenue models for newspaper
organisations but also for improving daily practice. Cook presents research ateliers
as an unorthodox yet highly instrumental method for media management
researchers who seek to connect theory and practice. In contrast to expert inter
views, action research allows marginalised groups to find ways to express them
selves and work towards tangible solutions by using creative, hands-on
techniques. Hence, action research is a compelling bottom-up methodology that
goes beyond explaining phenomena and that explores future-oriented pathways
for the industry. In this particular case, the method allowed for collective learning
on the success criteria as well as lived experiences around revenue generation in a
more productive way than more traditional qualitative methodologies would
have allowed.
Chapter 7 by Lisa-Charlotte Wolter and Sylvia Chan-Olmsted presents the
results of a collaborative project with an ad-blocker company, which raises
important issues for the digital advertising and publishing industries. The authors
evaluate the collaboration as especially beneficial, because the industry partner
offered a valuable and unique way of data collection. The biggest challenge was to
provide a scientifically sound study while addressing the specific needs of the
industry partner. Wolter and Chan-Olmsted nevertheless demonstrate that, while
the project resulted in actionable insights, the results were published in a leading
advertising journal. They claim that academic independence and frequent com
munication between the partners must be key to make the collaboration a success.
Finally, the authors identify a difficult tension between speeds and accuracy and,
again, propose a mutual understanding of expectations, efforts, goals and output.
In Chapter 8, Harald Rau and Annika Ehlers discuss the outcome of a research
project about location-based services for regional media. The objective was to
identify the opportunities and risks of such services, and to detect models of
success for the digital transformation of the media partners. The authors list
multiple softer and mostly administrative challenges related to developing research
collaborations with industry stakeholders. One is the substantial time between
writing and submission of the proposal and the eventual approval of the proposal,
which not only poses a core challenge to the academic and practical goals of a
project, especially when dealing with new technology. The lengthy period also
has an impact on the structure of staffing, with temporary personnel already
having left university once the project is funded. Staff turnover within the
industry stakeholder also poses a great challenge, especially since personal relations
are often key to developing collaborative actions. Therefore, setting shared goals
is crucial to making the collaboration a success.
The ninth chapter is written by Tim Raats, who elaborates on two policy
preparatory research projects commissioned by the regional government. Fol
lowing his substantial experience with policy-supporting research, Raats identifies
five important challenges. First, the researchers must keep autonomy and inde
pendence to define the research question at hand and choose the appropriate
methods to tackle the research question. Second, Raats raises the problem of
cherry-picking the results by policymakers, who do not necessarily only seek to
shape future policies but also try to legitimise existing or planned decisions. Third,
the researcher has limited control of the (ab)use of the results by several stake
holders, who consider these instrumental in pursuing their own interests. Fourth,
researchers must deal with strict deadlines and often limited budgets. Finally,
effective communication with policy stakeholders demands a specific narrative
and tone of voice.
Chapter 10 aims to illustrate the societal impact of two research projects, one
for an industry body and one for a regulatory agency. The chapter is written by
Mikko Grönlund, Katja Lehtisaari, Carl-Gustav Lindén and Mikko Villi, and
offers a good case of a project that resulted in a series of academic publications in
respected peer-reviewed journals, publicly available project deliverables and sev
eral public talks. The researchers evaluate both projects and express that they had
higher expectations of the collaboration than transpired. Time constraints, shorter
project lifecycles and excessive reporting are named as possible explanations. In
general, they felt more freedom while working with industry than with policy
makers, who often display insufficient expertise to really add value to a colla
borative project. As the authors point out, assessing the practical impact of the
studies is difficult. In addition to counting academic publications, it could be a
responsibility of universities or research councils to develop other indicators so as
to monitor the societal impact of research.
In Chapter 11, Erik Hitters reports about a collaborative project in which
entrepreneurship and innovation in co-located creative industries were examined.
Not only did the research intend to feed the academic debate on the effectiveness
of media clusters and co-locations, knowledge dissemination and utilisation were
central to the research design. Through the organisation of conferences and expert
Introduction 7
meetings and the sharing of online presentations, working papers and reports,
applicable knowledge for the sector was created. Despite the generally smooth
collaboration with industry partners, Hitters stresses that demand-driven research
and two-way interactions is not self-evident and may produce varying results and
impacts. In general, the author found that, at best, such research is tailored to the
needs of the stakeholders, but often fails to deliver generalisable results.
Chapter 12 by Andreas Will, Britta Gossel and Julian Windscheid centres on
the role of emerging technology in the business models of new media ventures. It
aims to put media entrepreneurship and the role of technology firmly on the
agenda of different stakeholders. Based on a qualitative research design, the study
explored the extent to which entrepreneurs rely on new technology as part of
their value proposition. The empirical results are said to assist industry stake
holders to better consider technology issues in their decision-making and their
drawing of strategic plans. Furthermore, the authors identify media management
educators and students as important stakeholders. They rightly claim that entre
preneurial issues often remain below the surface in higher education and call for
raising awareness. It is not enough, both for students and educators, to master
business planning. In this context more attention to advances in technology
should be central in media management curricula. This plea fits very well with
the many voices that call for more STEM (science, technology, engineering and
maths) education.
In Chapter 13, Päivi Maijanen reports on a longitudinal research project about
change management and digital transformation in an incumbent media organisa
tion. The researcher’s background as a journalist and manager in the company
helped to make the project possible, which once again shows the importance of
personal relationships and networking. She recalls the challenge of providing both
short-term practical impact and long-term theoretical knowledge, and concludes
that practical impact is difficult to reconcile with academic practices and demands.
Maijanen draws a few practical guidelines for doing collaborative research with a
company and to create a win–win situation. In brief, planning, networking,
meeting, sharing and communicating are identified as critical conditions for a
mutually beneficial cooperation.
Chapter 14, written by Mercedes Medina, presents an overview of a multi-
method research to explore and map audiovisual viewing patterns. The main
conclusion is that academic research published in peer-reviewed journals in most
instances does not reflect industry interests. Meanwhile, industry stakeholders
often do not look for standard quantitative research, as the slower lifecycle of
academic research can hardly team up with rapid industry developments, but
demand for more reflexive and provocative research. On the one hand, uni
versities could better and more quickly adapt to the pace and needs of the
industry. On the other hand, this provides an opportunity for media management
scholars to engage in more critical in-depth studies to extend academic knowl
edge and even improve existing approaches.
In the final chapter, Conor O’Kane presents empirical evidence on the use of
privacy seals and their effect on personal information disclosure. He argues that
the findings are of significant relevance to a range of stakeholders, including
policymakers, regulators, media firms and the public. The context of this study is
the newly introduced European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR),
which sets out to improve information transparency and give individuals greater
control over their personal data. A novel privacy seal accreditation scheme is
proposed in the GDPR. In addition to presenting the results, O’Kane also reflects
on his engagement with the national press in relation to the GDPR. He was
invited to contribute to a few newspaper articles to explain the context and key
elements of the new regulation. Once again, this shows that media management
scholars can participate in the public debate.
We hope that stakeholders will appreciate this book for its presentation of
relevant suggestions from research results. And we hope that media management
scholars will appreciate this book for its inspiration in terms of making media
management scholarship more relevant. We, the editors and the authors, all share
the strong belief that media management matters.
Enjoy the book!
Acknowledgement
Ulrike Rohn thanks the Estonian Research Council for supporting her work on
this book (grant number PUT1647).
1
MEDIA MANAGEMENT AS AN
ENGAGED SCHOLARSHIP
TALLINN UNIVERSITY AND GHENT UNIVERSITY/IMEC
Introduction
The media industry is undergoing profound change. Recently developed tech
nologies and types of infrastructure make new business opportunities possible, and
many emerging players are new to the field of media. While many digital-based
organisations struggle with finding their position and role in the media industry, it
is especially the more established and traditional legacy media firms that suffer from
the simultaneous decline of mass media demand from audiences and advertisers. In
fact, the competition for audience and advertiser revenues has never been fiercer
due to media abundance and audience fragmentation. The volatile environment of
the media industry calls for a better understanding of the transformation processes
among private and public stakeholders. It also makes for copious research oppor
tunities for media management researchers who aim to understand how media
managers perceive the changes in the industry, how they manage their firms, what
influences their managerial and strategic decision-making, and how their conduct,
in return, impacts media markets and industries. It is, therefore, no surprise that we
can see a continuing growth in scholarly interest in media management research,
especially in the last two decades.
This text serves as an introductory chapter to the edited volume Media Manage
ment Matters: Challenges and Opportunities for Bridging Theory and Practice by the
authors. The book discusses media management as an engaged scholarship. Laying
the foundation for the book, this chapter first sketches the contours of media
management scholarship, stressing its focus on the specifics of the media business
and its wider impact on culture and society. Moreover, we propose some new
directions to advance the scholarship. We identify challenges in developing analy
tical lenses and methodological approaches, as well as the challenge to create more
impact outside academia. Second, we position media management scholarship on

the presumed continuum of administrative and critical research, and argue that
scholarship can be undertaken while both advancing theoretical knowledge and
addressing real-world problems. Third, we identify decision-makers in industry
and policy as the main stakeholders of media management research and discuss
their need for practice-relevant research. Fourth, we elaborate on media manage
ment as an engaged scholarship. What is more, we identify obstacles outside and
within academia and make suggestions for creating a greater impact outside aca
demia. Finally, we address academic independence as a conditio sine qua non for a
vivid media management scholarship.
What is Media Management Research?

At its core, media management research aims to understand media firms and their
strategies and practices. The necessity for media management research is widely
acknowledged, as the management of media firms differs from the management
of other firms (Lowe, 2016). In other words, there is no business like the media
business. This has its roots in the special economics of the media business (Doyle,
2013; Küng, 2017; Picard, 2005), but also in the close connection of media with
culture and society.
Economics of the Media

With regard to the special economics of media firms, media industries allow for
great economies of scale due to the predominantly immaterial nature of the
media products. Selling more copies of an already-produced media product does
lead to relatively low (or marginal) re-production costs. Furthermore, the char
acteristics of media production and distribution often allow for great economies
of scope that lead to significant cost savings and synergies. Furthermore, media
organisations are highly dependent on network externalities where those plat
forms, channels and content that usually reach most of the audience and users are
the ones that are most attractive to additional new audience members. Due to
these high economies of scale and scope as well as network externalities, large
players operate more efficiently in the media. In digital markets, especially, where
marginal and distribution costs are close to zero, network externalities may lead to
winner-take-all markets. Media firms are also distinctive in that they may connect
multiple markets, which include audiences and advertisers but also content sup
pliers, ad developers, data brokers and so on. Success in these markets is inter
dependent, though the customers in the various markets may sometimes ask for
different and conflicting behaviour. Besides these special economics of media
firms, the management of and within media firms is different from that in other
areas due to their organisational structure. Most media firms have creative and
production departments as well as administrative departments. Tensions between
Media Management as an Engaged Scholarship 11
the personnel and their respective objectives in these departments may pose very
special challenges to leadership in the media.
Managerial decision-making at the heart of media management research takes
place on various levels within media firms (see also Rohn, 2019). New business
developments as well as mergers and acquisitions are usually decided on the cor
porate level, whereas the strategic level is concerned with formulating strategies to
meet the corporate target and to create a competitive advantage. The strategies
then are translated into specific product and service tactics on the tactic level, and
the operational level makes day-to-day decisions regarding the activities of creating
and providing media content and services. In all of these levels, media management
researchers find relevant questions. Furthermore, research may concern decision-
making with respect to the internal firm environment, such as regarding organisa
tional structures, leadership, skills and knowledge development, as well as with
respect to the external environment, such as pricing and competitive strategies.
Media management research is closely connected to media economics research,
in whose shade it developed (see also Rohn, 2019). In contrast to media manage
ment research, media economics research is more concerned with the character
istics and dynamics of the industries and markets. The contribution of media
management research in this context lies in providing a closer look at processes
within media firms that lead to certain behaviours by these media firms that, in
turn, influence market and industry dynamics. While media management research
provides insights into the product, market and organisational decision-making of
media firms as well as the knowledge about media firms’ perception of the chal
lenges and opportunities in changing conditions, it itself very much relies on media
economic research to provide knowledge on the wider context that media firms
operate in. It is, therefore, no surprise that the academic communities of media
management as well as media economics researchers are very closely intertwined.
Cultural and Societal Concerns

With regard to the close connection of media with culture and society, the
actions of media firms tend to have a high impact on people’s lives and contribute
to the formation of a shared identity and social cohesion. However, media orga
nisations are under close scrutiny from policymakers and regulatory agencies.
Democracies rely on the availability of a fair, reliable, diverse and pluralistic media
offer, which contributes to the public debate and controls the different ‘powers
that be’. Increasingly, these social externalities of the media product are put under
pressure by the rise of commercialism and the impact of media concentration, the
emergence of fake news and the wider problem of disinformation, which is in
general related to the ever more difficult economic context in which news media
have to operate. Digital media organisations, and platforms in general, collect vast
amounts of data with possible risks such as privacy breach or data theft. These
data are instrumental in providing a personalised experience, which may, in turn,
lead to algorithmic biases. As such, the importance of media management

research lies in its ability to understand managerial and strategic decision-making
by media firms and to discuss misconduct and help identify internal and external
environmental prerequisites for media firms to fulfil their important societal roles.
Due to the special conditions of media production, distribution and consump
tion and the important role of media firms for culture and society, media man
agement research can never just mean the strict application of general management
to media industries. Instead, it is interdisciplinary as it combines the general man
agement studies with media and communication studies. The latter informs media
management researchers about the specifics of media content, distribution and
consumption that may influence management of and within media as well as the
societal consequences of media firm behaviour. The management of media firms
does, however, not occur in a social vacuum, but it is highly influenced by multiple
societal, cultural and political forces. In this context, media management is well
related to the more critical tradition of political economy, which looks among
others at political debates about media and communication, and how public poli
cies shape media systems and industries, and also links up with the fields of cultural
studies and creative industries. The specifics of media and its role in society are,
therefore, an essential part of media management scholarship.
New Directions in Media Management

Media management research issues started to be of interest to scholars about 80 years
ago (Albarran, 2013), and it was not until the late 1990s and early 2000s that media
management scholars founded their own journals and academic associations. What
we see today is a growing scholarship whose publications can be roughly divided
into four types. First, most journal articles present the result of one particular research
project in the field. The main journals are the Journal of Media Business Studies, which
is the flagship journal of the European Media Management Association (emma) and
the International Journal on Media Management and, to a somewhat lesser extent, the
Journal of Media Economics. Second, we see edited volumes or handbooks that present
exhaustively topics relevant to the field, including the heuristics and typologies that
frame the scholarships (e.g. Albarran et al., 2018; Lowe & Brown, 2016). Third, we
see monographs and edited volumes that present and discuss one particular sub-field
of media management (e.g. Altmeppen et al., 2017; Chan-Olmsted, 2006; Küng,
2017; Siegert et al., 2015). And last, but not least, we see an increasing output of
journal articles, book chapters as well as book publications that deal with self-reflec
tions and discussions on self-identity of the field (e.g. Achtenhagen, 2016; Küng,
2007; Lowe, 2016; Mierzejewska & Shaver, 2014; Ots et al., 2015; Picard & Lowe,
2016; Rohn, 2018, 2019; Wirtz et al., 2013).
The need for self-reflection is not so surprising considering the interdisciplinary
character of media management research that calls for a continuing need for recon
firmation about the field of research among scholars. What is more, due to the
tremendous transformations of the media industries, media management research

needs to constantly adapt its research questions to changing realities. When media
management scholarship first started out, the media industries and markets were
characterised by a degree of stability and certainty unheard of today. Due to con
vergence in the industry, no less than the object of study needs to be adapted. Tradi
tionally, media management scholars understood media firms as firms that are
‘involved in the production and distribution of content intended for a mass audience’
(Mierzejewska & Shaver, 2014, p. 48). However, this so-called publishing-broad
casting approach seems outdated in the light of, for instance, Facebook, YouTube or
Google. Although they are strong players in how and what content is being offered,
they are, in most instances, not producers of that content. Hence, the broadcasting
approach has been replaced by the so-called platform approach that also considers
firms that only aggregate, manage and distribute content, including user-created
content. With this understanding, media firms become organisers of public, media-
based communication (Hess, 2014), and the above-mentioned firms become as
much part of media management research as are traditional mass media firms, i.e.
legacy media (see also Rohn, 2018). Since these platforms handle different compe
titive strategies and operate with disruptive business models (Cusumano et al., 2019;
Evens & Donders, 2018), this requires that media management scholars look into
and advance new theoretical perspectives to gain a better articulation of media and
communication platforms in the digital economy.
Transformations in media and communication industries suggest new theoretical
perspectives and analytical lenses and call for appropriate methodological approa
ches to address these transformations. In order to respond to the interchanging
relationship between media organisations, distribution infrastructure, platform
companies and software/hardware industries, media management research may
need to broaden its scope. Geopolitical developments and tilting power balances
marked by the rise of the Chinese ‘powerhouse’ and the subsequent business
expansion of Tencent, Alibaba and Huawei, may also call for a broadening of the
geographic reach of the field, with the goal to address work on geographical
regions such as Latin America, Africa and Asia. Moreover, historical and archival
research is welcome to go beyond the increased focus on the ‘now’ – an ontolo
gical bias better known as ‘presentism’ – and put ongoing developments in an
evolutionary perspective and ground it, historically. In a similar vein, corporate
documents form an opportunity to dig into the corporate context and provide a
chance for a far richer level of analysis. In doing so, media management may be
able to link up with the expanding development of research into global media
industries, which calls for a common dialogue between different scholarships on
the economic and cultural specifics of media organisations to bring together inter
disciplinary inquiry on media and creative industries (see Deuze & Prenger, 2019).
Much of the self-reflecting writing on media management research is concerned
as to whether the scholarship is well-enough equipped for the future and is able to
respond to future developments in academia. This regards, in terms of addressing
challenging research questions, experimenting with innovative methods and fur

ther developing the scholarship. In addition to these three future directions, we see
that another challenge for a strong media management scholarship lies in its rele
vance to stakeholders outside academia. The edited volume Media Management
Matters: Challenges and Opportunities for Bridging Theory and Practice by the authors
works out and reflects on the practical value that media management research can
deliver to its stakeholders. As we consider the bridging between theory and prac
tice as a core task of media management research (Küng, 2010, 2017), this book
will discuss the challenges but also opportunities of this process.
Media Management between Critical and Administrative Research

In terms of Lazarsfeld’s (1944) seminal distinction between critical and adminis
trative scholarship, media management research may stand at the crossroads of
which direction it should take to prepare itself for the future. Whereas Lazarsfeld
criticised administrative research for addressing only ‘little problems, generally, of
a business character’, critical research was censured for focusing on dramatic
high-level ideas and ‘showing up things, rather than fact-finding or constructive
suggestions’. However, we believe this should not automatically be a binary
opposition since academic research, even when funded by industry or govern
ments, can both serve practical ends and theoretical purposes. Media management
enquiries that provide an understanding of media firms and their strategies and
practices can, therefore, contribute to both critical and administrative scholarship.
It should be driven by academic knowledge production but should also connect
to context-driven, more problem-focused and interdisciplinary forms of knowl
edge production.
Where media management improves our understanding of how the media
business operates and what contextual factors drive transformation in the industry,
it may contribute to a critical understanding of the general role of media firms in
society as well as the societal and cultural consequences of media firms’ strategies
and operations. Media management research that identifies and discusses the
motives and conditions that lie behind certain behaviour in the media industry
can very well contribute to critical research. The question, however, has been
whether and to what extent media management scholarship itself is a critical
scholarship. Some of the self-reflecting writing on media management (Brown,
2016; Rohn, 2018), indeed, points out that much of the output of the scholarship
is too descriptive and shies away from critical reflections on questionable practices
and structures in the media industries that may work against the public interest
and the plurality of the media. Yet, there is growing awareness that media man
agement scholarship needs to reach out so as to connect with more critical
approaches in media and creative industries. Media management scholarship has
to contribute to examining, questioning and elaborating on the nature of trans
formation in the media industry and its impact on the wider society and develop
new approaches to address the need for a better theorisation and measurement of
this transformation.
Besides being a critical scholarship, media management has the potential of
providing clear guidance to its main stakeholders, the media industry and pol
icymakers, on how to cope best with transformation. A main keyword here is
actionable knowledge, which refers to knowledge (understandings, insights and
explanations) that can be used to implement and take action (Argyris, 2003).
Media management delivers actionable knowledge when it provides knowledge
that can be picked up by or provided for its stakeholders for them to make
informed decisions. Hence, where media management research helps decision-
making in terms of firm growth and sustainability as well as setting or evaluating
the rules and framework for a diverse and sustainable media landscape, it provides
administrative value. Given that media management research aims at under
standing how the media business works, its research, by nature, is well-suited for
creating practice-relevant knowledge.
As mentioned before, critical and administrative research must not exclude
each other. In fact, the real potential of media management scholarship comes
alive where critical research and administrative research go hand in hand. In par
ticular, critical media management research can identify questionable decisions,
behaviour, structures and power constellations and reflect on their societal effects.
In doing this, critical media management can inform decision-making by pointing
to these shortcomings, identifying best practices or guiding future strategies. Also,
practical-relevant research does not mean uncritical research. Critical and admin
istrative scholarship are not, ideally, something to be chosen between, but, in our
opinion, are highly complementary.
Practice-relevant Knowledge, but for Whom?

The success of media management research as an administrative scholarship
very much depends on its ability to produce actionable knowledge that is
relevant to decision-makers in policy and/or industry. Each of the chapters in
this book illustrates how decision-makers, either working in the media indus
try or in policymaking, share a great interest in and are willing to collaborate
in practice-relevant research projects. After all, they have a need for a better
understanding of the media landscape and the forces that influence behaviour
and structure.
For media managers, the main challenge lies in how best to manage and use their
resources in an uncertain and ever-changing environment. In fact, due to the speed
in which the media industries are changing, far better management is needed
nowadays than it was during the time of mass media and previous media con
vergence and digitisation. Media managers need increasingly to master the com
plexity of cross-media production management, and build the technological
awareness and capabilities that are keys in all stages of the value creation and capture
process. The competences, knowledge and skills that are required for managing a
firm are increasingly diverse and reach from digital storytelling and multiplatform
distribution, via data analytics and relationship-building through digital platforms, to
creating recurring revenue streams and designing sustainable business models (Evens,
2018; Küng, 2017). Furthermore, technical experts play an increasingly crucial role
in organisational culture and the composition of employers and project teams in
media firms. As a result, leadership might be more challenging as it does not need
only to consider and balance the needs and demands from people from the creative
as well as the business side but increasingly from the technology side. Rohn (2018)
lists topics of great relevance for future media management research that informs the
media industries. Besides leadership issues in the media (Deslandes, 2016; Küng,
2006), research topics of particular interest to media managers include, among others,
understanding entrepreneurial ventures (Achtenhagen, 2008), transmedia manage
ment (Rohn & Ibrus, 2018), the usage of big data and analytics (Napoli & Roep
nack, 2018), corporate social responsibility (Altmeppen et al., 2017), development of
dynamic capabilities for transformation processes (Oliver, 2014) and business models
(Evens et al., 2018).
Though they are in the midst of the transformational changes in the media and
communication industries, media managers very often do not find the time to reflect
upon matters and to more thoroughly understand the development of the underlying
forces. While they are caught in day-to-day business, they often make ad hoc decisions
without having the time to reflect on the bigger picture and prepare for ‘the day after
tomorrow’. Media management research that not only describes but also explains the
underlying dynamics and disruption processes, therefore, can contribute to a better
understanding of transformation processes thereby supporting media firms in sustaining
and striving under these changing conditions in an informed and reflective matter. For
media management researchers, on the other hand, media managers are an important
source of information for developing their research questions, collecting first-hand
data and testing the relevance of their research, but also for a better understanding of
the meaning and consequences of research results.
Decision-makers in media policy are, unlike those in the media industry, not in
the midst of the business and its changes themselves. Similar to media manage
ment researchers, they take an outside perspective. Yet, different from researchers,
policymakers often lack the understanding of how the media business works and
what factors influence conduct and structures in the media industry. It is the
media management researcher who can provide expert views on the con
sequences of suggested new policies and regulations, or evaluate existing ones.
Media policies set the framework within which media firms operate and they,
therefore, have a strong impact on the strategic options that media firms have.
Since media policies and regulations greatly influence whether media firms can be
sustained, and how they operate, media management needs to point to policies
and regulations that, given the logics of the media business, may threaten plur
ality, diversity and sustainability in the media industries. It is for future media
management research that policymakers do not overlook the special characteristics

and economics of the media industries and the firms operating in them. The need
for media management research that consults policymaking is very high, con
sidering the fast speed in which the conditions and dynamics in the industries are
changing. This complex interplay between multiple antecedents of transformation
calls for a constant update on knowledge and understanding. In fact, the problem
with media policies and regulations is that they quickly become outdated by
digital convergence and changing business opportunities and practices, and the
risk is that policies and regulations aim at solving yesterday’s problem (Lund,
2016). Media management research topics of relevance for policymakers include,
but are not limited to, policies regarding global platforms, intellectual copyright,
privacy and artificial intelligence (Rohn, 2018).
Media Management as an Engaged Scholarship

There have been multiple self-reflective accounts on the practical relevance of
social sciences and on the ‘impact’ of research on public and private stakeholders
(see Bastow et al., 2014; Landry, 1999). In order to make an impact, mere research
to be communicated to academic peers is not enough. As Van de Ven (2007)
points out, conducting high-quality research is not enough for any scholarship.
What it takes for a scholarship to flourish is engagement. This is highly relevant for
the media management scholarship, since engaged research was originally intro
duced in management science to bridge gaps between theory and practice and
selected as a way to generate both theoretical and practical knowledge (Shawcross
& Ridgman, 2019).
Van de Ven (2007, p. 9) sees engaged scholarship as a ‘participative form of
research for obtaining the different perspectives of key stakeholders … in studying
complex problems’. Boyer (1990, p. 16) describes engagement as ‘stepping back
from one’s investigation, looking for connections, building bridges between theory
and practice and communicating one’s knowledge effectively’. As O’Connor
(2019) points out, effective engagement is an interactive process and not just a
unilateral dissemination of results. By involving others, engaged scholarship can
produce knowledge that is not only more insightful but also more relevant and
actionable than when scholars work on the problems on their own (Van de Ven,
2007). At the core of engaged scholarship, therefore, lie both critical enquiry as
well as dialogue directed simultaneously at the development of the scholarship as
well as an engagement with and an impact on others.
Moreover, Van de Ven (2007) discusses engaged scholarship as being central
for addressing the gap between theory and practice. The division between aca
demic knowledge and its relevance for practice is not unique to media manage
ment research but of concern across many scholarships. Also general management
research has been criticised for a gap between theory and practice (Tranfield et
al., 2004). Management scholars are criticised for not putting their abstract
knowledge into practice, and managers are criticised for not being aware of
relevant research and adopting the research findings (Rousseau, 2006). In another
field related to media management, communication studies, Puppis (2018) points
out that policy research has failed to inform media policy and calls for more
engagement by scholars. And for media management, Küng (2010) reports on
how surprised she was at just how large the gap between theory and practice was
when she joined a supervisory board in the media.
Van de Ven (2007) points out that academics very often have a limited under-
standing of their role of scholarship. They tend to respond to the criticism that their
research does not provide actionable, practice-relevant knowledge by claiming that
the purpose of their research was to make advances in scientific knowledge and not
to make immediate contributions to practice. Referring to a citation analysis con-
ducted by Starbuck (2005) that found that papers in management journals were
cited on average only 0.82 times per article per year, Van de Ven (2007: p. 2)
concludes that management research contributes neither to science nor practice.
This may well be a premature conclusion since an academic’s presence in popular
media was not taken into account. Other studies do show that social science research
has achieved public policy impact, contributed to economic prosperity, and informed
public understanding of policy issues and social changes (Bastow et al., 2014).
Nevertheless, the sentiment that media management scholarship, in general, has
not done enough to produce and promote actionable and practice-relevant
research that informs decision-makers in practice remains. In the remaining sec-
tions of this chapter, we explore obstacles to engaged scholarship and make sug-
gestions on how to improve media management’s external impact.
Obstacles to be Relevant outside Academia

One of the main reasons for a gap between theory and practice is that researchers and
practitioners occupy different worlds that define what is important for them in their
careers and how to achieve this. A few obstacles lie in the nature of academic publishing.
The need for scholars to follow academic writing conventions in order to be published
makes it difficult for people outside academia to read their texts. Most obviously,
researchers and practitioners use a different language. Practitioners may feel alienated by
the terminology used and the references made to concepts and theories. Most academic
writing is just too abstract and too vague to be useful in practice (Küng, 2010).
Researchers need to ‘sell’ their research results by changing the tone of voice, avoid
academic jargon and apply a clear, concise communication style so as to achieve impact.
Also, the underlying purpose of academic research and publications often does not
conform to practitioners’ needs. While researchers tend to aim at testing
hypotheses and building long-term knowledge and theories, practitioners are
often looking for specific advice on best practice and how to make short-term
changes (Tranfield et al., 2004). Having their own time constraints, practitioners
need to see an immediate applicability of the knowledge provided in the text, or
else it is not interesting to them. The answer to the question ‘So what?’ needs to
be very obvious to them (Küng, 2010). Moreover, there is a tendency to produce
advice that is either too simplistic or generic and, as a consequence, has limited
value to practitioners (Oliver & Cairney, 2019).
What is more, many academic journals do not select manuscripts based on their rele
vance to stakeholders. What is important to editors is that the presented research
expands theoretical boundaries, is methodologically rigorous or attracts citations. Pre
ferred manuscripts are those that are driven by a gap in theory and not by an empirical
phenomenon, as the latter often remain descriptive due to the lack of previous academic
knowledge. Furthermore, while most media firms operate locally, academic journals are
not interested so much in locally specific problems and solutions that may be most
relevant to the respective practitioners: they are more interested in international trends
and comparative studies. Also, due to the often very lengthy publication processes with
several rounds of reviewing, the research results may lose their value for stakeholders.
Practitioners are also unlikely to search and find research results in any of the academic
journals, which often charge for access. So unless scholars directly and actively dis
seminate their results to practitioners, the research does not reach them.
Another set of obstacles lies in the nature of the academic incentive system. The career
prospects and status of academics is largely evaluated by how much they publish
and by how much their work gets cited by fellow academics. While university
incentive systems consider a scholar’s academic impact, measured by h-index and
number of citations, they usually do not consider whether scholars provide prac
tice-relevant knowledge to their stakeholders outside academia. What is more,
research only concerns one part of the workload of academics, whose working
time usually also consists of teaching and supervision as well as other administrative
roles and responsibilities. The job market for academics in most countries is very
tough, and it is not uncommon that researchers have to endure many years or even
decades of strings of different temporary contracts and an accompanying uncer
tainty about their future opportunities. Academia is generally also known for
having a long-hours work culture where scholars find themselves operating in
subsequent crunch times trying to meet a seemingly endless row of deadlines. In
this situation, scholars often do not find the time to step back and reflect on how
their research is or can be relevant to their stakeholders. Instead, they need to
carefully select what is mostly important to the positions they pursue and what is
not. Due to limited time resources, most academics choose to please or boost their
career within academia rather than focusing on creating practice-relevant knowl
edge that is no part of the incentive system at most universities.
Limited time resources represent, in fact, crucial obstacles for producing practice-
relevant and actionable knowledge that rarely can be done through desk research
only. Instead, scholars need to get into dialogue with stakeholders in order to
identify what research questions are relevant for them and what the results may
mean to them. Particularly, getting access to media firms may be not only time-
consuming but also very difficult. It may take a lot of patience and time until
media managers feel comfortable enough to share information or data with aca
demics. Very often a research project is also based on the failure and uncertainty
that practitioners may experience, and opening up to someone about it may not
come naturally and easily to them. As a result, scholars need to invest a lot of time
into not only identifying the right people but also into gaining their trust.
Building and maintaining strong relationships with practitioners, although time-
consuming, may not always lead to concrete research projects, and researchers
need to be ready to invest time in many meetings, long discussions and negotia
tions without the security that this will lead into anything that could or would be
useful to their academic careers.
Research funding often comes from government agencies as well as private
foundations. Writing a grant application is usually very time-consuming and
scholars face limited time between the publication of the call and the deadline for
application submission. Although the description of how the research will be
delivered to stakeholders is a key criterion for being considered a successful can
didate in the competition for funding, there is often no time for long dialogues
and deliberations with stakeholders to identify the most practice-relevant research
questions. At the same time, funding applications usually need to include a very
detailed description of the research questions, the research plan and sometimes
even the expected outcome. As a result, many scholars write what they think
may be important to stakeholders, instead of investing time in learning what
would be relevant to stakeholders.
Another challenge for cooperating with stakeholders may lie in human resource
management. Cooperative projects may call for more researchers. While it may be
possible to employ additional researchers for a short-term project, universities and
employees are usually interested in long-term working contracts that extend the
period of the projects. So while a cooperative project with a stakeholder may
open up new job opportunities for researchers, the universities may face funding
challenges for these positions once the project ends.
Most academics tend to have specific research interests and expertise. This is often
a thematic specialisation that they are known for among their colleagues and, in the best
case, they have been able to build some brand reputation in this area. There is always
a risk that it becomes obvious through the dialogue with stakeholders that they have
a need for research outside the expertise, interest or comfort zone of the scholar.
Scholars, however, may be reluctant to branch out to new research areas due to the
extra time needed to invest in building knowledge. Furthermore, an institute may
find that the profile of its researchers just does not fit with a stakeholder’s criteria for
investigation. From the researchers’ perspective, imposing research interests and
questions upon stakeholders may seem like the easiest and most time-efficient way to
conduct research instead of listening carefully to stakeholders’ needs and then, sub
sequently, translating these into relevant research areas and questions.
Most media management scholars have connections to researchers and scholarly
associations outside media management scholarship. This has its roots in the fact
that media management itself is, by nature, interdisciplinary. As a result, many

scholars publish also in academic journals in general media and communication
journals and/or in management and business journals. The same goes for con
ference presentations, where many media management scholars are regular parti
cipants at large media and communication conferences, such as the International
Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), International
Communication Association (ICA) or European Communication Research and
Education Association (ECREA), as well as the management conference of the
Strategic Management Society (SMS), European Academy of Management
(EURAM), Academy of Management (AOM), European Group for Organisa
tional Studies (EGOS), just to name a few. It is extremely important for media
management scholars to attend conferences outside the more narrowly defined
media management conference of the European Media Management Association
(emma), the World Media Economics and Management Conference (WMEMC)
or the International Media Management Academic Association (IMMAA),
because the importance of the media management scholarship depends on how
much scholars in related fields are aware of media management research as a
scholarly field and community. And while this interdisciplinary outlook is what
makes media management scholarship so rich and relevant for so many different
research areas and questions, individual scholars may find it challenging to engage
with different research communities, and will have little time or energy resources
left to also connect with and present themselves to stakeholders outside academia.
A final obstacle for cooperating with stakeholders while carrying out practice-
relevant and solution-oriented research may lie in the attitude of scholars themselves.
Offering what is often referred to as ‘free or cheap consultancy work’ is something
that many may regard as being beneath their academic dignity. Not only do private
consultancy agencies charge more money for their research, their approach and pre
sentation can also be more customer-oriented compared with the approach by aca
demic scholars. Private media consultants are not concerned with the contribution of
a particular research project to existing knowledge and theories. Academics, when
working on solution-oriented research with stakeholders, on the other hand, may fear
for their freedom as to their choice of research questions as well as open-minded and
critical interpretation of their research results. We, however, see great potential in
collaborative projects that advance both practice as well as scientific knowledge.
Suggestions to Create Greater Impact outside Academia

Much of media management research is, in fact, relevant to its stakeholders. But
the relevance of the research results is not always clearly formulated in academic
papers. Academics often fail to address the question: What do the results mean for
decision-makers in media practice? Furthermore, any recommendations to stake
holders within research results may be hidden in academic journals that are rarely
or never read by stakeholders outside academia.
If we want our research results to reach decision-makers in industry and policy,

it is not enough to publish in academic journals. We also need to translate our research
results into a language that will be more easily understood by stakeholders and to
publish them in as executive summaries or policy briefs that present ideas in a clear,
logical, comprehensible and actionable form. Furthermore, our research will
become more visible to stakeholders if we present not only at academic con
ferences but also at conferences and meetings attended by practitioners. We
therefore suggest that researchers should be available for stakeholders and the media
when needed. Universities should also acknowledge this form of public service and
not just see academic publications as a prerequisite for promotion or tenure.
For making it comprehensible, scholars need to be able to answer the ‘so
what?’ question in a few sentences so that any person outside academia can
understand the relevance of the results and what they suggest for future decision-
making in the industry or in policy. Media managers, especially, prefer to see a
clear route to improvement and new market opportunities rather than have to
work it out for themselves. For researchers, this also means spending more effort
reflecting on the relevance and implications of their research results and explain
ing the relevance of the study. When presenting research results we need to be
ready to pack them differently for different audiences by adopting their language
and perspective. In addition, academic journals have a role to play in media
management and should put more emphasis on the implications for practitioners
when considering whether to accept and publish academic papers.
What is also important is that research results are always reported back to stakeholders.
It is not uncommon that scholars interview or survey representatives from media
companies or from policymaking and then, later, do not inform them about the
results of the research. They might not make the time to do so, or they may simply
forget. Not only does this represent a missed change for the transfer of knowledge
and possibly improved decision-making, but it may also upset stakeholders and
reduce their readiness to take part in future research projects. Any chance to
reconnect with stakeholders should be seen as an opportunity to build a network,
which can eventually pay off in access to data or collaborative research.
Key to conducting practice-relevant research is that the relevance to stake
holders is thought of as starting from day one of the research project. At best,
research areas and topics are chosen based on a dialogue with stakeholders. The
above-mentioned conferences or meetings targeted at practitioners present mul
tiple network opportunities that may lead to meaningful dialogue and improved
research relevance. Furthermore, the topics presented and discussed at such gath
erings, inform researchers about what really matters to their stakeholders and
reveal their experiences, fears and uncertainties. As Küng (2016) points out, there
is a need to be in contact with representatives from the media industry for a
constant upgrade on industry insights and for cooperating in the formulation of
relevant research questions. The industry is usually much more in touch with the
latest developments than academia is, and is therefore a crucial source of research
questions. A feedback round with the industry should ensure the relevance and
reliability of the research findings. A similar close connection with policymakers is
important to review the effects of past, current or intended policies (Rohn, 2018).
The dialogue between media management scholars and industry as well as pol
icymakers is extremely important considering the fast changing environment.
Not all personal connections with representatives from the industry and policy
making will lead into meaningful research projects. Due to the above-mentioned
time constrains that most scholars experience, it is, therefore, very important for
them to identify practitioners who are willing to connect and work with people in
academia. Very often, it is former academics that will be happy to assist research
projects and who understand the rules and jargon of academia and who want to
satisfy their need for knowledge without having the time themselves to dig into a
research project. But also other, curious, entrepreneurial and out-of-the box thin
kers among practitioners are keepers in terms of maintaining relationships. Though
networking may not lead into immediate projects, building up and nurturing
strong relationships with practitioners may be useful later in time.
Most academic conferences consist of a large number of paper presentations
that follow one after another with little room for discussion, and regularly have a
very limited number of practitioners among the conference participants. As an
alternative, small seminars and workshops may present useful formats for additional
gatherings that offer more space not only for academics to discuss the relevance of
their results but also for including practitioners in the discussions. At best, through
such seminars and workshops, new research areas and questions are formulated.
Seminars and workshops are also ideal for getting scholars and practitioners
together with representatives from funding institutions. The last will learn about
the importance of certain research areas and questions in order to improve their
grant application calls. Membership of (independent) think tanks or expert net
works may also serve as potential entries for consultation.
Seminars and workshops are also very useful for formulating and integrating the
stakeholder’s perspective as part of integrative research methods, such as collaborative
action research and design thinking. In fact, common research methods, such as
expert interviews or surveys, need to be much better framed within a larger
research approach. Action research, through which researchers formulate research
questions in collaboration with stakeholders and stay connected with them
throughout the whole research project for confirmation, validation and adaptation
of next steps, represents one way for a more targeted research approach. Tranfield
et al. (2004) introduce the concept of systematic review that helps the co-produc
tion of knowledge and knowledge transfer between scholars and stakeholders. The
idea behind a systematic review is that, usually, literature reviews as part of research
projects are often biased and may lead to incorrect or misleading conclusions as to
existing research evidence that should underlie informed decision-making. Fur
thermore, the sheer amount of research that exists and the sometimes contradictory
findings make it difficult for policymakers as well as media managers to make sense
of the existing science base. In a systematic review, academics and stakeholders

work together to make sense of the existing research. The review process follows a
rigorous procedure for conducting, reporting and disseminating the review. By
doing this, it not only minimises bias throughout the process but in dialogue with
the stakeholders it can also identify where knowledge is lacking. A systematic
review, therefore, works towards improving the evidence underpinning decision-
making and action by minimising the risk of incorrect or misleading conclusions
from review and identifying further needs for research.
It is always easier for scholars to get in touch with stakeholders outside academia
if they have institutional support at their universities. Some universities have estab
lished research centres that form clear units and that serve as easy gateways to
contacts outside academia as they connect public and private organisations with
university researchers. In such centres, networking contacts and collaboration
experience with outside stakeholders can be collected over years and individual
researchers can build up that stock of knowledge. Such centres may provide ser
vices to businesses and offer research and development partnerships. Where
research is ‘commercialised’, the conditions under which research is disclosed need
to be thoroughly reviewed and agreed with all the relevant scientists, as good sci
entific collaborations can be ruined by misunderstood commercialisation strategies.
A main prerequisite for conducting practice-relevant research that leads to
actionable knowledge is that scholars sincerely want to become involved and engaged
in stakeholder collaboration. For this, the institutional environment needs to
encourage collaborations that bridge theory and practice, and find instruments to
honour and value them as an integral part of a scholar’s performance. For a
continuing commitment it is also important that scholars work on research topics
and questions that they are sincerely interested in. Researching only what stake
holders ask for may result in compromised scientific conduct and excellence, as
well as little commitment to the project. This may also pose a threat to one’s
independence, which, and this has to be stressed, needs to be preserved.
As always, the right balance between solution-oriented research and purely academi
cally motivated research needs to be found. Scholars as well as their institutions need to
have a long-term plan and an awareness of how much they want to get engaged and
how much of their research results, and under what conditions, they are ready to give
away. The level of engagement defines the time commitment and possibly financial
reward that comes from the commercialisation. One needs to consider this carefully at
the outset of any project: ideally, it is seen in the context of the long-term career goals
by scholars so that they are rewarded for these collaborative efforts.
Discussion: Academic Independence is Crucial

In the light of the tremendous changes in the media industries worldwide that bring
about new business opportunities but that also threaten the pluralist offer of high-
quality and locally-produced media, media management research can make a great
contribution to informed decision-making necessary for supporting the sustainability

of the media landscape, both in economic and sociocultural terms. The demand for
informed and evidence-based decision-making by media managers as well as pol
icymakers is continuously increasing with new technological developments that
influence media production and distribution as well as their consumption. Colla
borating with stakeholders in industry and policymaking ensures that researchers
update their knowledge about ongoing changes and that their research areas as well
as questions are relevant for managing media firms as well as organising the reg
ulatory framework under which they operate.
Following this rationale, we have made a call for more problem-focused and
interdisciplinary forms of knowledge production in media management scholarship.
We firmly believe media management scholars should engage better with public and
private stakeholders and build mutual relationships in order to exchange knowledge
and inspire decision-making at several levels. Engaged research does, however, not
exclude the need for curiosity-driven academic research that builds on and extends
the existing knowledge base. As we have argued above, media management scho
larship needs to contribute to a profound understanding of the ongoing transforma
tions in the media and communication industries and reflect on its wider role in
society. Helping stakeholders to solve real-world challenges does not necessarily
entail uncritical research. On the contrary, engaged scholarship through dialogue
with practitioners might enhance academic knowledge by highlighting promising
research questions, building beneficiary relationships and reflecting on societal issues.
It is of utmost importance that any research, even when conducted in colla
boration with public and private stakeholders, is performed according to the
highest ethical standards and scientific independence. This means, although closely
cooperating with stakeholders outside academia, scholars need to be independent
in what they choose to research and how they conduct such research. They need
to be free to review and criticise the conduct of stakeholders without the fear of
losing cooperating partners. Scholars need also to be free to draw and publish their
own conclusions of the research results. Indeed, intellectual freedom is the cor
nerstone of any scholarly endeavour that differentiates it from commercial agencies.
Some even see external funding from private stakeholders as one of the biggest
threats to academic freedom – Napoli’s (2015) critical assessment shows that gov
ernment-funded research is also not immune to this tendency – and are reluctant to
be involved in practice-led research because they fear loss of autonomy.
It is evident that any inappropriate interference from project partners erodes
public trust in academic research and violates the integrity of scholarship. It there
fore should be avoided that any funding party involved in a project defines the
research question and its methodological approach. Researchers, from any aca
demic field, should not accept that any collaborating party can dictate the outcome
of the research or insist that a researcher should formulate strategy or policy
recommendations preferred by that party. If media management research aims to
be a critical scholarship, it needs to reject any attempt at interference in the research
process. Besides a stricter application of ethical procedures already in place in most

research institutions, we suggest these institutions show more transparency regard
ing funding sources, the involvement of public and private partners, the formulated
research goals, and data collection and storage procedures. If we expect media
organisations to take up their corporate social responsibility, we should expect a
similar standard from knowledge institutions and individual scholars.
References
Achtenhagen, L. (2008). Understanding entrepreneurship in traditional media. Journal of
Media Business Studies, 5(1), 123–142.
Achtenhagen, L. (2016). Developing media management scholarship: A commentary to
Picard and Lowe’s essay. Journal of Media Business Studies, 13(2), 117–123.
Albarran, A. B. (2013). Media management and economics research: The first 75 years. In
A. B. Albarran (Ed.), Media management and economics research in a transmedia environment
(pp. 5–17). New York and London: Routledge.
Albarran, A. B., Mierzejewska, B. & Jung, J. (Eds.) (2018). Handbook of media management
and economics (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.
Altmeppen, K.-D., Hollifield, A. C. & van Loon, J. (Eds.) (2017). Value-oriented media
management: Decision making between profit and responsibility. Cham, Switzerland: Springer
International.
Argyris, C. (2003). A life full of learning. Organizational Studies, 24(7), 1178–1192.
Bastow, S., Dunleavey, P. & Tinkler, J. (2014). The impact of social sciences: How academics
and their research make a difference. London: Sage.
Boyer, E. L. (1990). Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities of the professorate. New York: The
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
Brown, C. (2016). Media management: A critical discipline? In G. F. Lowe & C. Brown
(Eds.), Managing media firms and industries: What’s so special about media management? (pp.
83–100). Cham: Springer.
Chan-Olmsted, S. M. (2006). Competitive strategy for media firms: Strategic and brand manage
ment in changing media markets. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Cusumano, M. A., Gawer, A. & Yoffie, D. B. (2019). The business of platforms: Strategy in
the age of digital competition, innovation, and power. New York: Harper Collins.
Deslandes, G. (2016). Leadership in media organisations: Past trends and challenges ahead.
In G. F. Lowe & C. Brown (Eds.), Managing media firms and industries (pp. 311–327).
Cham, Heidelberg, New York, Dordrecht, London: Springer.
Deuze, M. & Prenger, M. (2019). Making media: Production, practices, and professions.
Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Doyle, G. (2013). Understanding media economics. London: Sage.
Evens, T. (2018). Media economics and transformation in a digital Europe. In L. d’Hae
nens, H. Sousa, & J. Trappel (Eds.), Comparative Media Policy, Regulation and Governance
in Europe: Unpacking the Policy Cycle (pp. 41–54). Bristol: Intellect.
Evens, T. & Donders, K. (2018). Platform power and policy in transforming television markets.
London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Evens, T., Raats, T. & von Rimscha, B. (2018). Business model innovation in news media
organisations – 2018 special issue of the European Media Management Association
(emma). Journal of Media Business Studies, 14(3), 167–172.
Hess, T. (2014). What is a media company? A reconceptualization for the online world.
The International Journal on Media Management, 16(1), 3–8.
Küng, L. (2007). Does media management matter? Establishing the scope, rationale and
future research agenda for the discipline. Journal of Media Business Studies, 4(1), 21–39.
Küng, L. (2010). Why media managers are not interested in media management – And
what we could do about it. The International Journal on Media Management, 12(1), 55–57.
Küng, L. (2016). Why is media management research so difficult – And what can scholars do
to overcome the field’s intrinsic challenges? Journal of Media Business Studies, 13(4), 276–282.
Küng, L. (2017). Strategic management in the media: Theory and practice. London: Sage.
Küng, L. (Ed.). (2006). Leadership in the media. Jönköping: Media Management and
Transformation Centre.
Landry, R., Amara, N. & Lamari, M. (1999). Utilization of social science research
knowledge in Canada. Research Policy, 30(2), 333–349.
Lazarsfeld, P. F. (1944). Extract, remarks on critical and administrative research. Studies in
Philosophy and Science, 9, 3–16.
Lowe, G. F. (2016). Introduction: What is so special about media management? In G. F.
Lowe & C. Brown (Eds.), Managing media firms and industries: What is so special about
media management? (pp. 1–20). Cham: Springer.
Lowe, G. F. & Brown, C. (Eds.). (2016). Managing media firms and industries: What is so
special about media management?Cham: Springer.
Lund, A. B. (2016). A stakeholder approach to media governance. In G. F. Lowe & C.
Brown (Eds.), Managing media firms and industries: What’s so special about media management
(pp. 103–119). Cham: Springer.
Mierzejewska, B. & Shaver, D. (2014). Key changes impacting media management
research. The International Journal on Media Management, 16(2), 47–54.
Napoli, P. M. (2015). Media ownership and the political economy of research in US
media policymaking. In S. Barnett & Townend, J. (Eds.). Media power and plurality: From
hyperlocal to high-level policy (pp. 101–115). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Napoli, P. M. & Roepnack, A. (2018). Big data and media management. In A. B. Albar
ran, B. Mierzejewska & J. Jung (Eds.), Handbook of media management and economics (pp.
410–421). London: Routledge.
O’Connor, L. (2019). The nature of scholarship, a career legacy map and advanced practice: An
important triad. Heidelberg: Springer.
Oliver, J. (2014). Dynamic capabilities and superior firm performance in the UK media
industry. Journal of Media Business Studies, 11(2), 55–77.
Oliver, K. & Cairney, P. (2019). The dos and don’ts of influencing policy: A systematic review
of advice to academics. Palgrave Communications, 5 (21). doi:10.1057/s41599-019-0232-y.
Ots, M., Nyilasy, G., Rohn, U. & Wikström, P. (2015). Media business studies as we see
it: Why does it matter, for whom, and how do we get published? Journal of Media
Business Studies, 12(2), 103–106.
Picard, R. G. (2005). Unique characteristics and business dynamics of media products.
Journal of Media Business Studies, 2(2), 61–69.
Picard, R. G. & Lowe, G. F. (2016). Questioning media management scholarship: Four
parables about how to better develop the field. Journal of Media Business Studies, 13(2),
61–72.
Puppis, M. (2018). Libertarians’ quest to put the media at risk. Paper presented at the
colloquium on Libertarians’ quest to put the media at risk: The Swiss referendum on the
abolishment of public service broadcasting and the future of media policy hosted by The
Center for Media at Risk, Annenberg School of Communication, University of Penn

sylvania. Retrieved from: https://www.ascmediarisk.org/2018/08/manuel-puppis-li
bertarians-quest-to-put-the-media-at-risk/.
Rohn, U. (2018). Media management research in the 21st century. In A. B. Albarran, B.
Mierzejewska & J. Jung (Eds.), Handbook of media management and economics (pp. 425–441).
New York: Routledge.
Rohn, U. (2019). Industry organization, media management and media economics. In A.
B. Albarran (Ed.), Research agenda for media economics (pp. 144–158). Northhampton,
MA: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Rohn, U. & Ibrus, I. (2018). A management approach to transmedia enterprises. In M. Free
man & R. R. Gambarato (Eds.), The Routledge companion to transmedia studies (pp. 410–418).
London: Routledge.
Rousseau, D. M. (2006). Is there such a thing as ‘evidence-based management’? Academy of
Management Review, 31(2), 256–269.
Shawcross, J. K. & Ridgman, T. W. (2019). Linking practice and theory using engaged
scholarship. European Journal of Engineering Education, 44(1–2), 35–48.
Siegert, G., Förster, K., Chan-Olmsted, S. & Ots, M. (2015). Handbook of media branding.
Berlin: Springer.
Starbuck, W. H. (2005). How much better are the most prestigious journals? The statistics
of academic publication. Organization Science, 16(2), 180–200.
Tranfield, D., Denyer, D., Marcos, J. & Burr, M. (2004). Co-producing management
knowledge. Management Decision, 42(3/4), 375–386.
Van de Ven, A. H. (2007). Engaged scholarship: A guide for organisational and social research.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wirtz, B. W., Pistoia, A. & Mory, L. (2013). Current stage and development perspectives of
media economics/media management research. Journal of Media Business Studies, 10(2),
63–91.
2
UNIVERSITY–INDUSTRY
COLLABORATION IN THE MEDIA
MANAGEMENT FIELD
Gregory Ferrell Lowe and Robert G. Picard
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY IN QATAR AND REUTERS INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF JOURNALISM
Introduction
University–industry collaboration (UIC) involves ‘the interaction between any parts
of the higher educational system and industry, aiming mainly to encourage knowl
edge and technology exchange’ (Ankrah & Al-Tabba, 2015, p. 387). UIC became a
focus of university administrators in the mid-2000s in response to growing demands
for more external funding to facilitate research and higher degrees of ‘social impact’
(Cunningham & Link, 2015; Muscio & Pozzali, 2013). UIC research confirms earlier
research on inter-organisational relationships (IOR) (e.g. Barringer & Harrison,
2000; Oliver, 1990), with a specific focus on collaboration between universities and
companies rather than only between companies. Although universities have been
more satisfied than industry partners, failure rates are above 50%. The chief challenge
is achieving successful mutual benefits (Protogerou et al., 2013).
UIC is especially important for media management scholarship because (1) the
underlying focus is on improving managerial practice, (2) funding often depends on
media companies and industry foundations, (3) data collection often relies on partici
pation of media managers and (4) public funding for scientific research now typically
prioritises social impact and economic development. Pressure to do UIC research is
growing because of economic and structural uncertainties in media industries and
growing pressures for innovation to improve financial performance and market
growth (see Lowe & Brown, 2016). Despite its obvious importance, our review of the
literature found no studies on the frequency and volume of UIC in any media field.
To begin addressing that gap, this chapter reports initial findings from an empirical
study of UIC among media management scholars worldwide (N=132) – to our
knowledge the first of its kind. The study is exploratory because knowledge and
theory in this area of inquiry is still too limited to facilitate more rigorous testing.
30 Gregory Ferrell Lowe and Robert G. Picard
Given the topical and practical importance for the field, we hope the study con
tributes to development of more rigorous investigation.
Changing Policy and Structure in Higher Education

Published research on UIC is Eurocentric because of European and domestic
pressures to achieve higher social impact and for universities to support economic
development. Although more familiar in STEM disciplines (science, technology,
engineering and medicine) than HASS disciplines (humanities and social sciences),
even for STEM the two criteria were not common until mid-2000s (Bruneel et al.,
2010). This is especially challenging for HASS disciplines in European scholarship
due to an historic antagonism against capital interests and commercial enterprise
(Howells & McKinlay, 1999; Mowery & Nelson, 1999), especially common in
media research (e.g. critical studies, political economy and cultural studies).
Facilitating economic development was not part of the historic mission for Eur
opean universities generally, and requires significant reorientation to become an
‘entrepreneurial-enterprise’ (Harryson et al., 2007). This shift has been criticised as the
‘marketisation’ of universities. Growing dependence on external funding raises con
cerns about the potential for diluting academic independence that would endanger the
critical orientation which facilitates knowledge development. Moreover, economically
unprofitable disciplines are being marginalised. Increasing dependence on grant fund
ing, and fiercer competition as a consequence of public spending cuts, can be parti
cularly challenging for universities in smaller countries where the number of sources
and scale of resources are lower. Further, achieving significant international impact is
more difficult because country contexts are so diverse and comparatively unique,
undermining generalisability. The majority of European countries are small and
securing large grants typically requires joining international projects in consortia often
dominated by prestigious universities in (historically) the Big Four EU countries –
France, Germany, Italy and the UK (Protogerou et al., 2013).
The aforementioned reorientation requires institutional change in university
cultures, described by Gibbons et al. (1994) as a transition from Mode 1 to Mode
2 knowledge production. In Mode 1 research, scientific advances happen within
narrow, specialised fields (i.e. not cross-disciplinary) and publication in field-spe
cific journals is the gold standard. Mode 1 is operationalised via university struc
tures featuring autonomous departments that focus on basic research for theory
development, generally taking a pejorative view of applied research. Mode 2 is
rather the opposite: cross-disciplinary, organised into large university structures,
and prioritising applied results for social impact but without neglecting scientific
publication in peer-reviewed journals (often, and somewhat questionably, con
sidered as the proof of social impact).
Transitioning university systems to Mode 2 is evident in two common strategies.
The first is restructuring faculties to encourage multi-disciplinary collaboration.
Although partly about cost-savings as administrative staff can be reduced, the
University–Industry Collaboration 31
intellectual rationale supposes innovation is more regularly achieved by bridging spe

cialisations and incorporating industry. Mode 2 research is more complex and com
plicated, and therefore harder to manage, but the potential benefits can be higher than
Mode 1 outcomes which tend to be narrow, fragmented and largely theoretical.
The second common strategy is evident in new criteria for grant applications. In
the past, national science academies did not emphasise cross-disciplinary research
and social impact was not a key criterion. HASS faculty find these requirements
especially challenging because economic value is harder to prove than in STEM
sciences, few have been trained in UIC, and practical experience is limited (Lam,
2007). Many HASS disciplines are being de-funded, as in Japan where HASS was
severely downgraded in 2015 (Jenkins, 2015), although the government softened
its stance in response to public outcry (Kakuchi, 2016).
The role of government has become a focus of UIC. The Triple Helix model
(universities + industry + government) is especially important in Europe because
public agencies formulate national science policies and universities are increasingly
required to demonstrate ‘public value’ (see Benington & Moore, 2011) by
decreasing reliance on public money and increasing innovation for private and
public gain (Nielsen et al., 2013).
The scope of change in Europe was documented in a comprehensive study of UIC
rates in EU member states plus Turkey (Cunningham & Link, 2015). Although rates
vary from highs in the UK (nearly 80%), Finland (about 75%), and Germany (about
70%), to lows in Italy (about 60%), Poland (just under 50%), and Turkey about (55%),
UIC is a characteristic requirement throughout Europe today. This has been driven
by EU framework programmes (FP) that began in 1984 and provide larger-scale
research grants that have strengthened collaboration across national borders and
between disciplines. They are specifically intended to stimulate innovation with the
long-term goal of growing European competitiveness in the global economy.
The EU promotes UIC due to (1) low proportions of R&D investment in member
states, (2) traditional constraints on exploiting university research results, and (3) frag
mented research activities and resources (Protogerou et al., 2013). The seventh FP,
Horizon 2020, launched in 2007 with about €80 billion euros to invest. In H2020 the
nexus of UIC leadership is an especially important change. Whereas earlier FPs
prioritised university leadership, H2020 puts industry in the driver’s seat due to per
sistent criticisms about uncertain contributions to improved competitiveness. Grant
criteria emphasise scaling up already successful domestic innovations, with universities
in a supporting partnership role for small to mid-size commercial enterprises.
The reason for this change was documented by Protogerou et al. (2013) in a com
prehensive analysis of UIC projects using the CORDIS database (operated by the
European Commission). Results indicate that while industry agrees FP funding has
contributed to scientific and technological development, most think economic devel
opment has been uneven and unclear. These findings were confirmed in the large-scale
study by Cunningham and Link (2015), which surveyed all registered universities in 33
EU countries plus Turkey (see www.ub-cooperation.eu/index/presentations).
Muscio and Pozzali (2013) conducted a web survey among EU researchers and
found that UIC is pursued more by academics (83%) than practitioners (48%).
Protogerou et al. (2013) found the majority of business partners in FP projects are
first-timers (64%) and it is rare for a company to participate in more than one
(only 5%). University benefits have been more certain as the primary recipients of
funding and follow-on publications. Even so, a combined total of only 156
companies and universities account for the lion’s share of funding allocation over
the past 30 years. More than half (53%) were awarded to prestigious universities
with large faculties and robust administrative support to effectively compete for
grants. Another 27% has gone to university research centres. Only 20% has gone
to companies. Of the 80% that has gone to universities, fully 80% of that has been
awarded to the same universities in serial fashion. The national receipt of FP
funding favours the EU Big Four, especially the UK. Brexit will complicate
research financing there. Universities in Central Europe, Malta and Cyprus have
received the least. Less than 3% of funded projects involved universities outside
Europe.
The UIC failure rate is high – at least 50% and as high as 70% when collaboration
involves significant international participation. An important focus of UIC research is
therefore to diagnose characteristic motives and barriers for engaging, and causes for
failure, which we discuss next. Most studies have investigated institutional and structural
factors, although recent interest has begun to examine factors at the individual level.
Motives, Barriers and Conflicted Logics

Researchers in Sweden reviewed 100 articles on UIC published in the early
2000s to identify the main drivers and barriers (Harryson et al. 2007). Their
findings were recently corroborated (Ankrah & Al-Tabbi, 2015). Figure 2.1
summarises the results of these meta-analyses.
Potential benefits for engaging UIC are economic, institutional and social – in
that order. For firms, the primary motivation is to spread R&D risk and costs
(Ankrah & Al-Tabbi, 2015; Al-Ashaab et al., 2011). For universities, the primary
motivation is to secure research funding. The drivers for UIC are consistent with
earlier findings in IOR research (Barringer & Harrison, 2000; Oliver, 1990).
Bruneel et al. (2010) conducted a large-scale statistical analysis of UIC in the UK
and found no significant differences when comparing large and small enterprises.
Muscio and Pozella (2013) found that university department or faculty size in
Italy were not differentiating factors either.
Most characteristic problems are caused by lack of management competence to
handle complex interdependencies between partners with incongruent institu
tional logics, premised on value orientations that determine professional priorities
(Nielsen et al., 2013). Every organisation has a prevailing institutional logic (or
dominant logic) that grounds shared meanings, shapes collective identity, and
establishes general priorities (Prahalad & Bettis, 1986). There is higher potential for
• Corporate focus on short-term profits

• Technology development • Difficulty ensuring the practical value of
• Policy pressure on universities
• Growing costs for scientific research as • Lack of adequate resources on one/both sides
• Differences in organisational cultures, values
• Increasing competition in markets
• Shortening product lifecycles • Contention over information confidentiality
• Incompatible incentives and rewards
• Mismatch between annual calendars
• Access to relevant cutting edge knowledge • Improved funding and access for research
• Forum for networking with skilled researchers • Marketing and protection of IP rights
• Access to government funding • Harvesting royalties and fees
• Access to university facilities • Deep knowledge of practical realities
• Developing answers to complex problems • Improved alignment with industry needs
• Enhanced R&D productivity • Wider opportunities for students and faculty
• Appropriating and commercialising results • Building goodwill and growing prestige
FIGURE 2.1 Summary of Characteristic Drivers and Barriers in University–Industry

Collaboration, and Typical Anticipated Benefits (authors’ own)
innovation when organisations with different logics interact, but also heightened
tensions. When funding agencies are added, interaction is further complicated by a
third layer of institutional logic.
The most essential balance to manage is between the quality of scientific
research for universities and fitness to purpose for companies. This underscores a
fundamental contradiction in UIC that hinges on the value of knowledge. Uni
versity culture is rooted in an ‘open science’ ethos that values public knowledge
(Merton, 1973), while companies value proprietary information and con
fidentiality. Career success for academics requires publication, while in the private
sector success depends on protecting competitive advantage through con
fidentiality. Of course, there are other important differences such as the speed and
criteria for decision making, scale of organisational assets, and organisational
priorities and the nature of anticipated benefits.
While a degree of cognitive difference between organisations is conducive to
achieving innovation, too much hinders collaboration. That happens when
managers find academic research too advanced for their needs or too esoteric to
be useful, and when academics find company interests too narrow or self-serving
to be worthwhile for science (Muscio & Pozzali, 2013). Lind et al. (2013) inves
tigated the problem and proposed a model with four degrees of interdependence,
two of which are especially pertinent:
� Translational collaboration is characteristic when different dominant logics

function in parallel, which in our view is more akin to co-operation than
collaboration because the logics co-exist rather than converge;
� Developed collaboration happens when institutional logics are integrated at
every stage of UIC practice, from formulating the research agenda, to con
ducting the research, to determining how results are used.
The likelihood of developed collaboration (their normative priority) is

highest when there is ‘domain consensus’ between academic and industry
partners, meaning enough overlap to ensure shared interests and fluent com
munications. But even when this is the case, the institutional logics of aca
demics and practitioners must be continually navigated, and their respective
interests negotiated. Success is most often realised when the collaboration is
led by an individual with personal expertise on the basis of experience with
both logics (Lind et al., 2013).
Effective collaboration requires trust, which can be difficult for organisations
with different logics. Relationships with high degrees of trust share more infor
mation and develop results faster, with lower risk of failure (Bruneel et al., 2010).
The relationships that matter most are between individuals who represent insti
tutions, rather than between institutions per se, because UIC requires trial and
error, giving and receiving criticism, and accommodating changing requirements.
How that goes depends mainly on the individuals involved (Nielsen et al., 2013).
Our research is premised on the reviewed literature. We are interested to see
whether similar pressures, issues and patterns of collaboration occur in media
management scholarship. We report initial findings from an international survey
of media management scholars. Based on the literature review and our own
experiences with academic traditions, we expected to find the following:
� Junior scholars will be more dependent on external funding than senior

scholars.
� Senior scholars will be more routinely involved with industry and govern
ment in UIC projects.
� Faculty in business schools and departments will be more likely than their
counterparts in media and communications schools and departments to
engage in collaboration with industry.
� Faculty with permanent positions in universities will be less likely to engage
in collaboration than those with temporary contract positions.
� Collaboration with industry will be a lower priority than traditional scholarly
activities due to criteria for tenure and promotion decisions.
� Non-monetary motivations for collaboration will be perceived as most
important overall because media management scholars need industry for data
collection and student success.
Methods
A survey instrument of 51 questions was used to collect selected demographic and
professional data from media management scholars. We focused on collaborative
activities with industry and government, and perceptions of that. We also investi
gated university priorities for UIC in decisions on tenure and promotion. The survey
instrument was placed on the Qualtrics survey platform and invitations were sent
electronically to individuals in four international organisations for scholars in this field
(in alphabetical order):
1. AEJMC: Media Management, Economics & Entrepreneurship Division of

the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication
2. emma: European Media Management Association
3. IMMAA: International Media Management Academic Association
4. WMEMC: World Media Economics and Management Conference
The survey was available for response from 4 October to 31 October 2017 and
produced 132 usable responses. The universe of mailing lists was 702, representing
the upper limit of active scholars in this field. The actual number is certainly lower
because most are active in multiple organisations. It was not possible to scrub the lists
for duplicates due to data privacy policies. A reasonable conservative estimate for our
sample is not less than 19.5% of active scholars in this field, although we expect the
true proportion is higher.
Results
We begin with the population profile (N=132) and then discuss findings about
UIC involvement with industry and government, and general orientation towards
conducting collaborative research with industry partners. We finish with an over
view of the relative prioritisation of UIC for decisions on tenure and promotion.
Population Profile
A slim majority of our sample were senior scholars (45%), which is not surprising
given the relative newness of the field and an abundance of early career researchers
(ECRs) who participate in the conferences organised by emma, IMMAA and
WMEMC (which largely comprised the sampling frame). One-fifth of respondents
were junior faculty (21%), which includes doctoral students. The remaining 30%
were at some mid-point in their careers. The three categories are not precise, but
give the general sense of a large group of ECRs working with a large minority of
established scholars – a fair number of whom could be construed as founders, given
the field’s relative newness. The proportions were different in research centres,
which had twice as many junior scholars and fewer mid-career scholars.
A large majority of media management researchers (70%) are situated in media

schools, departments or programmes. A much smaller population is situated in
business schools, departments or programmes (18%). About 10% are situated in a
joint media/business school, department or programme. Media firms are con
cerned about developing managerial competence and would understandably look
to media faculties for research and education, mainly, because business and man
agement schools are more generalist in orientation (i.e. not typically specialised in
media).
Our results indicate encouraging growth in institutional stability. The early
development of media management scholarship was characterised by mostly
temporary university contracts for professorships largely funded by media com
panies and industry foundations (Lowe, 2016). Nearly two-thirds of our 2017
sample have permanent contracts (64%), and 82% are entirely salaried by the
university. Clearly, universities have been investing in media management (and
economics).
The number of respondents with permanent positions rises with seniority.
Whereas 68% of junior scholars were employed on a temporary contract basis, that
figure dropped to 45% for mid-career scholars and to 14% for senior scholars.
Thus, most of the roughly one-third of scholars working on temporary contracts
are junior faculty. Those associated with business/management programmes were
almost twice as likely to be in this category (54% vs. 31% employed in media/
communication programmes). Two-thirds of those employed in research centres
were working on a contract basis. Neither finding is surprising. Many business and
management programmes expect faculty to leverage the prestige of their location
and contacts to secure external funding for their positions, and employment by a
research centre is nearly always a temporary situation because few centres are per
manently funded.
The higher overall stability of the field is also reflected in the source of
employment funding. Fully 72% of temporary contract scholars are funded entirely
by their universities, while only 15% are funded entirely by external grants. About
13% have mixed funding. Investment today is more often from universities than
external sources, although external funding continues to have considerable
importance. Not surprisingly, results indicate that faculty become less dependent
on external and mixed funding as seniority is reached. For senior scholars, about
11% receive mixed funding and only 6% are entirely funded by external sources.
These findings suggest media management scholarship is becoming well established
as a disciplinary specialisation that universities are employing, mainly in media-related
schools, departments and programmes. There was no difference between media/com
munications and business/management programmes in reliance on external funding.
Not surprisingly, only 33% of those working in research centres had full university
funding and 33% relied entirely on external funding. It is worrisome, however, to find
female colleagues are far more likely to have temporary contracts (43% compared with
31% of males). The issue of gender imbalance is thematic, as will be demonstrated.
External Involvement and Interaction

External involvement and interaction are the beating heart of UIC. We examined
this in several categories, beginning with consulting for industry and government
entities. We also looked at conducting seminars and workshops, and frequency of
invitations to serve as a keynote speaker at industry events. We conclude this part
of our analysis with results about the propensity to engage in collaborative research
with industry, and engaging industry lecturers and securing student internships.
A large minority (41%) of our sample rarely or never work as consultants for
media companies, and nearly three-quarters (70%) rarely or never consult for gov
ernment entities. In this aspect, UIC is not yet common although there is a sizeable
minority (20%) that consults with industry on a frequent basis and a larger group that
does so occasionally (38%). The large disparity for consulting with government
entities is persistent and likely explained by lack of opportunity because that sort of
work is characteristically by invitation only, whereas consulting for media companies
can be initiated by the researcher. About one-quarter of the sample have consulted
government entities on an occasional basis.
Individuals employed by research centres were twice as likely to frequently
engage in consulting compared with those in media/communications programmes
(33% vs. 15%), and those associated with business/management programmes were
more likely than those in media/communications programme to engage in con
sulting (26% vs. 15%). These are important differences. The former finding likely
reflects a common view that centres are prime locations for experts with particular
specialisations. The latter is not surprising because many business schools expect
faculty to generate significant funding from external sources, as earlier noted.
Digging deeper, analysis indicates that consulting activity is correlated with career
stage. The number who never consult was 33% among junior scholars, but declined to
9% among senior scholars. Those who often or frequently consult rose from 38%
among junior scholars to 54% among mid-career scholars to 64% among senior scho
lars. The figures for governmental consulting showed a similar pattern. Thus, consulting
activity is related to the development of knowledge, expertise and reputation over the
course of a career. Nonetheless, fewer media management scholars in all stages of their
careers were engaged in governmental consulting compared with industry consulting.
The findings reveal a gender bias in consulting activity. Whereas 66% of males
indicated occasionally or frequently consulting for media firms, only 42% of females
did so. Interestingly, however, the imbalance disappeared for consulting government
entities (43% for males; 42% for females). The difference likely reflects higher gender
sensitivity and policy requirements for public agencies deciding consultant contracts.
An even larger total percentage of the sample rarely or never provides seminars or
workshops for media companies – 60%, compared with 41% who rarely or never
work as consultants. About one-third of respondents occasionally provide seminars
or workshops (31%), but only 9% do so on a frequent basis. The majority of media
management scholars are more oriented towards achieving security in universities
than garnering industry support. We return to why in discussion about tenure and
promotion. While 52% of junior scholars had never provided seminars or workshops
for media firms, only 33% of mid-career scholars and 14% of senior scholars reported
never doing so. The gender divide in conducting seminars and workshops was
smaller than for consulting; 46% of men and 42% of women indicated occasionally
or frequently providing seminars or workshops. It appears that industry managers are
more open to female teaching than female consulting.
When asked whether they would conduct seminars and workshops if invited, the
vast majority of respondents said they would (75%) with most of the rest (24%) indi
cating ‘maybe’. More junior scholars said they would if asked (85%) than mid-career
and senior scholars (72% and 74% respectively). This may indicate that conditions are
more important to them, or that they do this often enough not to need more oppor
tunities. Female scholars indicated being less interested in participating in such activities,
with 21% saying they would not do so if invited compared with only 1% of men. The
reason is unclear, but women are less often invited which is a confounding factor.
Those associated with media/communications programmes were three times
more likely than business/management colleagues to be invited occasionally or fre
quently to serve as keynote speakers for industry events. This is probably connected
with the earlier finding that media management faculty are typically employed by
media and communications schools rather than business and management schools.
Nearly one-third of the sample (29%) is never invited to provide a keynote speech
for an industry conference or event, and about one-fifth (21%) are rarely asked. A
small group (12%) are frequently invited and a large minority (38%) are occasionally
invited. The vast majority of respondents would do so if invited (75%), but a rather
large minority (24%) said ‘maybe’, which again suggests that it depends on conditions
or the focus. The same proportionate response was found for invitations to conduct
seminars or workshops.
Providing keynote speeches is correlated with seniority, with 65% of senior
faculty being asked occasionally or frequently compared with only 10% of junior
faculty – although 16% of senior scholars reported never being asked. Gender also
plays a role in invitations to give keynote speeches, with 53% of male respondents
occasionally or frequently giving speeches compared with 45% of female respon
dents. Women expressed slightly more willingness to give keynote speeches than
men, with 23% answering maybe and 77% saying yes if invited, compared to 27%
and 73% respectively for men.
When the results for this item are compared with percentages and frequency of
consulting, it seems media management scholars are more often invited to consult with
managers than to teach or mentor them. This is worth exploring in future research to
determine the hierarchical level of consulting for managers, and why teaching and
mentoring is not as commonly invited. It might be that managers look to UIC to solve
immediate problems rather than for help with longer-term development.
We asked two questions about collaborative research with media companies and
were surprised to find that a large minority rarely did this (42%), and nearly one
quarter never (24%). Although a large minority (41%) conducts collaborative

research with industry occasionally, only 16% do so frequently. Scholars in media/
communication programmes were three times more likely to occasionally or fre
quently engage in collaborative research than those in business/management pro-
grammes. Thus, the picture is quite mixed with about half the population engaging
with industry in collaborative research and about half rarely or never doing so.
Although about three-quarters do this on some basis, UIC among media manage
ment scholars was lower than we expected given its importance for the field. Of
course, we are left with the question of what ‘collaborative research’ means, which
was not tested. We assumed it means conducting research with media professionals
or managers as a cooperative project, but this needs investigation.
For those engaged with industry in collaborative research, about 14% have done
ten or more projects in the past academic year. Another 16% has been involved in at
least six projects of this kind. About one-fifth (20%) say they have never done this
kind of project. This indicates some discrepancy when compared with the earlier
item where nearly one-quarter (24%) said they had never done so, again suggesting
uncertainty about what ‘collaborative research’ means. Nonetheless, our findings
concur with general research on UIC because a comparative minority are serially
involved in collaborative research with industry while a large number do so rarely or
never. We should have also asked how many were one-off projects compared with
serial projects, but only realised the error too late. This also needs further research.
There is an interesting difference in collaboration patterns based on seniority, with
33% of mid-career scholars not engaging in collaboration compared with 19% for both
junior and senior scholars. Why mid-career scholars more frequently engage in colla
boration with industry is not clear from the study, but may be keyed to criteria for
promotion to senior faculty status and perceptions of the value of collaboration in that
process, a factor we discuss later. Patterns of collaboration based on gender mirror earlier
findings. About 29% of female respondents do not engage in collaborations compared
to 21% of male respondents. Although not as extreme, that is a large enough difference
to support our supposition of gender bias among media industry managers.
The most common reason that media management scholars do not engage in
collaborative research with industry is lack of time (33%), which rises with seniority
(45% for junior scholars; 58% for mid-career scholars, 66% for senior scholars). Time
constraints were twice as important for women (55% vs. 23% for men). Only nine
respondents expressed lack of interest. About 15% indicated never having been
asked, with women at a higher percentage than men (33% vs. 22%). Again, gender
bias is observed. About 10% indicate lack of industry contacts, lack of support or
appreciation from the university, or low prioritisation for decisions on tenure and
promotion. We return to this soon.
The vast majority would be interested to participate in research collaborations
if given the opportunity (only 8% indicated no interest). Demands for doing
collaborative research were not considered too high (by only 8%) and very few
considered collaborative research inappropriate for scholars (only 3.4%). Even less
of those who have engaged in at least one such project reported having a bad
experience (1.7%), although men reported more bad experiences than women as
a reason not to collaborate. It should be remembered that female colleagues have
less opportunity.
Finally, we asked respondents about inviting media managers to give guest
lectures and the importance of industry relations for student internships and work
programmes. Guest lecturers are very common with nearly two-thirds (64%)
inviting at least one and up to five industry managers in the past year. About 15%
invited six or more, although few invited ten or more (5%). Opportunity for
student internships was even more important with more than two-thirds (67%)
viewing this as extremely important, and another 17% said it is moderately
important. Only 4% said that has no importance. This suggests the priority for
educating students, especially when compared with the much lower amount of
teaching and collaboration with industry.
Priorities for Tenure and Promotion

University criteria for decisions on tenure and promotion indicate a traditional
prioritisation. There were no major differences in perceptions based on career stage
or gender. Among junior scholars, 9% reported low university support for UIC and
one-fifth (18%) indicated this as a low priority in decisions on tenure and promotion.
Similarly, 11% of mid-career scholars reported low university support and 21% cited
low priority as reasons for not collaborating. A higher percentage of senior scholars
(25%) reported low university support and (22%) low priority in promotion deci
sions. The results overall indicate that despite pressures from universities and funding
agencies to engage in UIC, actual engagement does not count as much in decisions
that are crucial to career success for an academic. There is structural incongruity
between what is expected by universities and what they reward.
The most highly and widely valued accomplishment is publishing scientific
articles in peer-reviewed journals, which was very highly prioritised by 73% of
respondents. When combined with highly prioritised, the figure jumps to 91%.
Mid-career scholars rated this slightly higher than respondents in the other career
stages. The next closest priority was securing a grant for research from a scientific
academy, with 58% saying this is very highly prioritised. When combined with
highly prioritised, that figure rises to 92%, on par with journal publication. Males
put slightly more emphasis on grants than females, and juniors put slightly more
importance on funding than seniors.
Peer-reviewed book chapters are a runner-up. Although less than one-fifth say
this is very highly prioritised (19%), it is highly prioritised by about 50% and the
combined total is better than two-thirds of the sample (69%). Mid-career scholars
gave slightly more importance to peer-reviewed chapters than scholars in the
other career stages. ECRs need journal articles and senior scholars need mono
graph books. Publishing a monograph was ranked the third most prioritised type
of publication, although a distant third. A bit more than one-quarter of the

sample (26%) say it is very highly prioritised, but when combined with highly
prioritised the total is only about one-third (34%).
Serving as a journal or book editor is not generally prioritised. About half indi
cate it has low or no priority in decisions on tenure and promotion (45% and 56%
respectively). Serving as a journal editor is slightly ‘better’ than serving as a book
editor, but both are more often at the low end of priorities. Female respondents
gave these activities slightly more importance than men, and junior scholars per
ceived journal editorships as slightly more important than seniors. In most cases,
authoring industry reports, articles for trade magazines, and expert commentary in
newspapers were ranked as low or no priority by about 75% of the sample, and
25% said none of these are any priority – although authoring an industry report was
slightly more important than writing an article for a magazine or newspaper.
Authoring reports for a government entity has more importance, but this was
still ranked rather low by nearly half the respondents (47% compared with a low
ranking of 57% for industry reports). Nonetheless, this was highly important for
one-third of the sample (33%), compared with about one-fifth for an industry
report (22%). Males indicated such reports were slightly more important than
females, and seniors perceived these as slightly more important that scholars in
earlier career stages. The lowest priority was publishing a popular book. Although
21% say this is highly prioritised for tenure and promotion decisions, fully 77%
indicate it has low or no priority – with 27% saying none.
As regards grants, any source (and presumably any amount) has value for deci
sions on tenure and promotion. Grants from scientific academies are the most
prioritised (91%), but grants from governments and NGOs were also rated highly
or very highly (83%). Grants from industry finish lower, although highly or very
highly prioritised by nearly two-thirds (62%). It seems public money counts for
more than private funding, but all funding matters. Mid-career scholars rated grants
from industry and government slightly higher than colleagues at other career stages.
The distinction for mid-career scholars here and for collaborative research earlier
likely indicates the higher overall importance of UIC for advancement to full
professor, while ECR scholars are in the ‘publish or perish’ career stage. Seniors are
more engaged due to established reputations and expertise, rather than career-
related needs, and seemingly more reserved because this is no longer as important
for advancement.
Consulting is generally a low or no priority for decisions on tenure and pro
motion, which explains the low figures. Consulting for government is more
prioritised (31%) than for industry (19%), reflecting a preference for public versus
private sector support. But this is still of low or no priority for about half the
respondents. Consulting for industry and government was ranked slightly lower
by females than males, and senior scholars ranked government consulting slightly
higher than those at earlier career stages. The least value was accorded to main
taining a blog in the field, which had low or no value for 90% of respondents.
Conclusions
Our expectation that junior scholars would be more dependent on external funding for
their positions was not confirmed. Findings indicate media management scholarship is
sufficiently established as an academic discipline to enjoy reasonable stability in many
universities. External funding still matters, but not primarily to finance employment.
We also found that media management scholarship is mainly situated in media-
related schools rather than in business and management schools. But our expectation
that colleagues located in business schools would be more likely to engage in colla
boration with industry was not borne out. Scholars in media/communication were
far more likely to conduct seminars, be keynote speakers and engage in collaborative
research. But a much higher proportion are situated in media schools, which is an
important factor.
Our expectation that those with permanent positions would be less likely to
engage in collaboration than those with temporary contract positions was not
confirmed either. In fact, the results show the opposite. Senior scholars are the
most likely to be involved as consultants, to provide seminars and workshops, and
to be invited keynote speakers. They are somewhat more selective in what they
accept, but established reputation and expertise are the determining factors. This
was not discussed in the UIC literature we reviewed.
When it comes to participation in collaborative research projects with industry,
this is not nearly as common as we expected although it is more likely among
seniors than juniors. The latter expectation is confirmed. We also found that UIC
research projects have highest importance among colleagues in the mid-career
stage, presumably because they are pursuing promotion to full professor. This was
not discussed in the UIC literature and is an interesting result because it indicates
rising and falling degrees of participation keyed to one’s location in career stages.
Our expectation that UIC activities have a lower overall prioritisation than
traditional scholarly activities in deciding tenure and promotion is strongly con
firmed. The field of media management scholarship shows no practical differences
from other academic fields in the relative priorities for these decisions. What
matters most are publications in peer-reviewed journals and securing research
grants from scientific academies and foundations. Thus, calls to achieve higher
social impact are more important in principle than practice. This undoubtedly has
a bearing on the general dissatisfaction of industry managers about lack of benefits
in applied results.
Finally, our expectation that non-monetary motivations for collaboration with
industry would be perceived as more important than monetary motivations was
also confirmed. By far, the highest overall importance of UIC activity is inviting
managers to lecture classes and facilitating student internships. For those who
engage in consulting, provide workshops and seminars, and serve as keynote
speakers, the primary reason is to grow one’s personal reputation and build rela
tionships with industry managers.
Discussion
Although a good deal of collaboration happens in the media management field, it is
not very widespread. Higher importance was expected because media and busi
ness-related disciplines have stronger professional foci than many other disciplines.
Although a fairly large number of scholars in this field are regularly active in UIC
activities, at least as many are not. Nonetheless, we think the findings indicate this
field is better prepared than many to meet educational policy demands for enga
ging more with society and businesses, and securing more external funding,
although not yet at optimal levels.
The findings indicate two significant challenges for university–industry collabora
tion in this field. Many scholars do not engage with industry due to lack of time, a
major challenge for all academics today that tends to increase with seniority. We
suspect two primary causes that are general rather than specific to this field. The first
is a growing volume of work for which faculty are responsible, compounded by the
second cause – which is low priority for UIC in decisions on tenure and promotion.
Arguably the most significant finding is the importance of gender imbalances. This
factor is complex. Although women are well represented in media management
scholarship and outnumber men in the junior ranks, our findings reflect a general
problem in academic cultures that becomes glaring in industry cultures. The data
indicate female colleagues have fewer opportunities to collaborate than men,
although they express willingness to do so. Gaps in women serving as keynote
speakers at industry meetings and acting as consultants to media firms are stark,
although they are in a better position for government consulting. We are not sure
whether our findings indicate the problem is more pertinent to industry than uni
versities, but suppose that although females comprise a large group of ECR scholars in
media management today their promotion to senior faculty positions and nomination
to leadership positions in the future is uncertain. This needs deeper examination.
Our findings are especially interesting considering published literature on uni
versity–industry collaboration. Although much is made in grant applications about
the importance of ‘real world’ applied research and contributing to economic
development, few universities prioritise either. Traditional priorities for decisions on
tenure and promotion reign supreme internationally. Few universities have aligned
criteria for decisions on tenure and promotion with what they now encourage and
often say they require. The field of media management is an important case because
it should be different in this respect given the importance of UIC for general practice
and future development in this field. The fact that it differs little from the wider
academic orientation suggests the essential problem is structural rather than specific.
This presents an opportunity for media management scholarship to take a leading
role for development in the years ahead. That will not be easy because the under
lying problem is structural, but media management scholars need to grow colla
boration with industry and push universities to actually practice what they are
preaching.
References
Al-Ashaab, A., Myrna, F., Doultsinou A. & Magyar, A. (2011). A balanced scorecard for
measuring the impact of industry-university collaboration. Production Planning & Control,
22(5–6), 554–570.
Ankrah, S. & Al-Tabba, O. (2015). Universities-industry collaboration: A systematic
review. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 31(3), 387–408.
Barringer, B. R. & Harrison, J. S. (2000). Walking a tightrope: Creating value through
interorganizational relationships. Journal of Management, 26(3), 367–403.
Benington, J. & Moore, M. H. (Eds.) (2011). Public value: Theory and practice. Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Bruneel, J., D’Este, P. & Salter, A. (2010). Investigating the factors that diminish the bar
riers to university-industry collaboration. Research Policy, 39(7), 858–868.
Cunningham, J. A. & Link, A. N. (2015). Fostering university-industry R&D collaboration in
European Union countries. International Entrepreneur Management Journal, 11(4), 849–860.
Gibbons, M., Linoges, C., Nowotny, H., Schwartzman, S., Scot, P. & Trow, M. (Eds.)
(1994). The new production of knowledge. London: Sage.
Harryson, S., Kliknaité, S. & Dudkowski, R. (2007). Making innovative use of academic
knowledge to enhance corporate technology innovation impact. International Journal of
Technology Management, 39(1/2), 131–157.
Howells, J. & McKinlay, C. (Eds.) (1999). Commercialization of university research in Europe.
Report to the Advisory Council on Science and Technology, Ontario, Canada.
Jenkins, N. (2015). Alarm over huge cuts to humanities and social sciences at Japanese
universities. Time, 16 September. Retrieved from: http://time.com/4035819/japan-uni
versity-liberal-arts-humanities-social-sciences-cuts/.
Kakuchi, S. (2016). Government softens stance on humanities after uproar. University world
News, 22 January. Retrieved from: www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=
20160122155338974.
Küng, L. (2007). Does media management matter? Establishing the scope, rationale and
Lam, A. (2007). Knowledge networks and careers: Academic scientists in industry-uni
versity links. Journal of Management Studies, 44(6), 993–1016.
Lind, F., Styhre, A. & Aaboe, L. (2013). Exploring university-industry collaboration in
research centres. European Journal of Innovation Management, 16(1), 70–91.
Lowe, G. F. (2016). What’s so special about media management? In Lowe, G. F. & C.
Brown (Eds.), Managing media firms and industries: What’s so special about media manage
ment? (pp. 1–20). Heidelberg: Springer Verlag.
Lowe, G. F. & Brown, C. (Eds.) (2016). Managing media firms and industries: What’s so special
about media management?Heidelberg: Springer Verlag.
Merton, R. K. (1973). The sociology of science: Theoretical and empirical investigations. Chicago:
Chicago University Press.
Mowery D. & Nelson, R. R. (Eds.) (1999). Sources of industrial leadership: Studies of seven
industries. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Muscio, A. & Pozzali, A. (2013). The effects of cognitive distance in university-industry
collaborations: Some evidence from Italian universities. Journal of Technology Transfer, 38
(4), 486–508.
Nielsen, C., Chrautwald, J. & Bentsen, M. J. (2013). Levers of management in university-
industry collaborations: How project management affects value creation at different life-
cycle states of a collaboration. Tertiary Education and Management, 19(3), 246–266.
Oliver, C. (1990). Determinants of interorganizational relationships: Integration and future

directions. Academy of Management Review, 15(2), 241–265.
61–72.
Prahalad, C. K. & Bettis, R. A. (1986). The dominant logic: A new linkage between
diversity and performance. Strategic Management Journal, 7(6), 485–501.
Protogerou, A., Caloghirou, Y. & Siokas, E. (2013). Twenty-five years of science-industry
collaboration: The emergence and evolution of policy-driven research networks across
Europe. Journal of Technology Transfer, 38(6), 873–895.
3
WHY POLICYMAKERS NEED TO
COLLABORATE WITH ACADEMICS ON
MEDIA POLICY AND WHY THAT NEED
WILL GROW
Steve Wildman
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY AND UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO, BOULDER
Introduction
Every step in the long advance from universal hunter-gatherer subsistence living to
the life of comparative plenty that so many of us enjoy today has been marked by
increases in the store of knowledge upon which humans can draw to maintain and
fashion an existence in a world with finite resources. It is not surprising, therefore,
that, beginning with the emergence of large-scale, centrally organised societies,
governing authorities have directed some portion of their societies’ resources to
efforts to add to the stock of knowledge that they believed might contribute to the
attainment of major societal goals.
A consequence, perhaps, of the rise of the modern research university, today a
substantial fraction of those resources is directed toward universities and we have
grown accustomed to looking to researchers affiliated with universities for advice
and insights on how to respond to challenges faced by actors in both the private
and public spheres. Media policy has been prominent among those challenges since
the invention of the printing press made mass distribution of media content eco
nomically feasible and, as anyone familiar with the development of media policy
during the twentieth century and thus far in the twenty-first century can attest,
research by and consultations with academic experts have become increasingly
important to media policy development.
There are good reasons for policymakers to turn to academics for advice and
insight and for research that might produce knowledge that is needed but currently
lacking. In most economically advanced nations, media are themselves substantial
industries whose products are greatly valued by consumers and also impact the
functioning of other sectors of the economy. Perhaps more important, media are
intertwined with the cultures and the politics of the countries in which they are
Policymakers Collaborate with Academics 47
consumed. Industries that are both economically consequential and play vital roles
in domestic politics cannot escape the attention of government. On the other
hand, because media industries are complex and have features not present in most
other industries, they present their own unique analytical challenges and, in spite of
the considerable progress made to date, we still have a ways to go to fully address
them. Today, the vast majority of people working to build a better and, crucially, a
more intellectually rigorous, understanding of the economics of media are
employed by universities. It is only natural then that governments, and media
companies as well, should turn to university experts for help in addressing the
challenges that media pose to both of them.
In this chapter, I will make the argument that as the seemingly ever accelerating
pace of technological change continues to expand the menu of media types and
their permutations, the challenges confronting both policymakers and direct parti
cipants in media markets will likewise multiply and become more complex. As a
result, we can expect reliance on academic expertise to, if anything, increase. And
this is as it should be.
The argument proceeds in three steps. The next section lists and examines five
broad but critical aspects of media that have made media significant policy foci in
the past. The policy concerns raised by each of these aspects are long-standing and
would continue to command the attention of policymakers even if the media
landscape were not being transformed by new technologies. The third section
looks at the ways technology-driven change in the nature of media services and the
conditions under which they are offered impacts each of these policy foci. This
exercise makes quite apparent that the concerns underlying policymakers’ focus on
media in the past have been amplified by changes already underway and likely will
be amplified further by changes yet to come. Furthermore, media are being trans
formed in ways that demand new thinking and, by implication, new research to
develop the better understanding of the nature of modern media that is needed to
devise policies that can help us more fully realise the potential for greater societal
benefits implicit in the ways the Internet, and digital technologies and services
more generally, are transforming media, and to avoid to the extent possible the
very significant harms to societal well-being that are also made possible by this
same transformation. The chapter concludes with a fourth section that discusses
what the previous analysis means for collaboration between policymakers and
academics going forward.
Why Policymakers Care about Media

That media have been a major focus of policy concern in just about all modern
countries is beyond dispute. Nevertheless, it is still a worthwhile exercise to
briefly discuss some of the most important reasons media receive so much atten
tion from policymakers. Here I list and briefly discuss five.
48 Steve Wildman
Media and Media Services Are Economically Significant Industries

At any given time, a society’s consumption options, broadly defined, are deter
mined by the efficiency with which it utilises the resources at its disposal and its
economic dynamism determines the rate at which its consumption options grow
over time. For this reason, promotion of economic efficiency and dynamism are
seen as important policy goals. While some policies, intellectual property laws for
example, designed to promote efficiency and growth are broadly targeted, others
are specific to individual industries or groups of related industries. Because gov
ernments must do their work with finite budgets and limited personnel, they must
be selective in deciding which among the innumerable subjects that might benefit
from more focused policy attention will actually receive that attention. While it
ignores other important considerations, an industry’s financial size relative to the
national economy is a commonly employed measure of its contribution to the
economic well-being of a country’s citizens and thus the degree to which it merits
special attention from policymakers. By this measure, media and the associated
information industries loom quite large. According to Statista (Watson, 2019), in
2016 the entertainment and media sector accounted for 2.54% of global GDP.
Because expenditures on non-necessities tend to increase as a percentage of perso
nal income as income grows, we would expect media and entertainment to
account for a larger fraction of GDP for wealthier countries than poorer ones.
Although strictly comparable figures are hard to find, it appears that the percentage
of GDP accounted for by media and entertainment tends to be substantially larger
than the global average for more economically advanced countries. For example,
this figure was 6.9% for the United States in 2015 (U.S. Department of Commerce
International Trade Administration).
However, because many of the most popular media services are multisided plat
forms that sell access to audiences attracted by content or services made available for
free or at other low, cross-subsidised prices, revenue measures typically understate the
consumer surplus component of media industries’ contributions to economic value,
possibly by a considerable amount. For example, in recent research Brynjolfsson et al.
(2019) employed online choice experiments to estimate for the United States the
consumer surplus generated by popular online services available to consumers at zero
cost. Estimates were based on the minimum amounts study participants said they
would be willing to accept (their WTAs) to do without these services for a month or
a year. Estimated WTAs varied with participants’ demographic characteristics and the
type of online service they were being asked to give up, and different types of ser
vices differed considerably in their median WTAs. At $17,530 and $3,648, year 2017
median year-without-service WTAs were quite high for the categories ‘all search
engines’ and ‘all maps’, while the median WTA for ‘All social media’ was con
siderably lower at $322; but in showing that in the aggregate consumers value free
online services quite highly, the argument that GDP under counts the contributions
of free services to economic value is strongly supported.
Media Are Major Consumer Goods

There can be no question that media are important consumer goods. This is evident
from the sheer amount of time consumers spend with media products and services.
While time spent with media is an indirect measure of the importance of media as
consumption goods, it is also very revealing because, unlike other activities such
eating, sleeping and many related to job performance, time spent with media is for
the most part discretionary. Statistics from Zenith Media’s 2019 Media Consumption
Forecasts are quite revealing in this regard. Based on their survey of media users in 57
countries, Zenith estimated that in 2019 people would spend an average of
approximately eight hours (479 minutes) a day consuming media of various types.
Any activity or collection of related activities that occupies nearly half of the average
adult’s waking hours has a big impact on human well-being and cannot escape the
attention of policymakers.
Media Significantly Impact the Functioning of Other Industries

Media impact other industries in numerous ways. Perhaps most obvious is by sell
ing advertisers access to audiences. Advertising can be informative and help con
sumers make better choices, but it may also be purely persuasive or even
misleading, and some might argue that advertising promotes an unhealthy con
sumerism. While one can argue about whether the society-level consequences of
advertising are positive or negative, it is clear that market outcomes and the ulti
mate fates of firms and industries are shaped in part by advertising. The most
obvious measure of this impact is the amounts advertisers willingly pay for access to
media audiences. eMarketer reported that worldwide digital ad sales of $283.35
billion in 2018 were 45.9% of total global advertising for that year (Enberg, 2019),
which the maths tells us amounted to approximately $617.32 billion. Citing World
Bank estimates, World Population Review reports that 2018 global GDP was
$84,683.79 billion, of which global ad sales were about 0.73%.
Two other channels through which media influence other industries worth
briefly mentioning are the role media play in consumers’ pre-purchase searches for
information on the products and services offered by different sellers and industry
trade press. Product reviews in specialty magazines (magazines focused on auto
mobiles, personal computers, and video games are familiar examples) and other
publications have helped consumers choose among alternative models, brands and
sellers of the associated products for decades, and they still do. Today many people
also turn to online sources for similar reviews or use search engines to ferret out
product and seller information.
It is doubtful that there is an industry of any size that is not served by one or
more publications that report on new developments within the industry, including
changes in laws and regulations, new technologies and services of interest to
industry members, and noteworthy actions by industry members, such as capacity
50 Steve Wildman
expansions, mergers and new product introductions. While little studied, trade
publications appear to play important roles in keeping industry members informed
of developments that might impact their collective and individual fortunes and
thereby contribute to the formation of better-informed plans and strategies.
Media Products and Services Are Cultural Goods

Culture is a complex and multifaceted construct, but for our purposes it is sufficient
to observe that most people see their countries as distinguishable from others by
cultural values – beliefs, perspectives on the human condition, and ethical and
behavioural norms – that differ in noticeable ways from those of other countries.
Cultural products, which include media content as well as many craft goods and
other works of artistic expression, are often looked on as embodiments of culture
and, over the longer term, as promoters and shapers of a country’s culture. Even in
countries that espouse tolerance and appreciation for other cultures, the protection
and promotion of cherished aspects of national culture and efforts to prevent the
entrenchment of values considered to be incompatible with key cultural tenets,
whether foreign or domestic in origin, are viewed as appropriate activities of gov
ernment. Media policies justified on grounds of promoting or protecting a national
culture include restrictions on content thought to violate cultural norms, subsidies for
domestic content producers, and restrictions on the amounts of foreign-produced
content broadcast by domestic radio and television services. In the most extreme
cases, only content that has been cleared by government censors is approved for
domestic distribution.
Media Play Critical Roles in the Political Systems of All Countries

Whether its governing system is democratic, authoritarian or a mix that falls some
where in between, in the long run a national government’s legitimacy and staying
power depends on the support of its citizens. Because citizens turn to media for
information on the policies their governments are pursuing and the extent to which
they benefit or are harmed by those policies, it is inevitable that governments be
concerned with the types of political information their citizens receive through
media and enact policies that reflect those concerns.
Media Should Attract More Attention from Policymakers in the

Future
If we look at the reasons media are important policy foci discussed above and
project forward, we can see that the ways the Internet and digital technologies
more generally are transforming the media sector are changing the ways it impacts
society and most likely amplifying these impacts as well. In addition, this transfor
mation is changing the scope and character of media services in ways that will
require new knowledge and new thinking to devise effective media policies, and
this too should be a matter of concern for policymakers.
Changing Economic Impact

According to PQ Media estimates for global spending on media content and
technology through 2017 (Global Consumer Spending, 2017; 2018), the growth
rate for consumer spending on media content and technology exceeded 6% each
year from 2011 through 2017. Comparing these figures with World Bank world
GDP estimates for the same time span shows that growth in consumer spending
on media content and technology considerably outpaced GDP growth. For
countries that mirrored the global trend, this should have raised the profile of
media policy issues. However, the dramatic changes occurring within the media
sector should have given policymakers even greater reason to pay close attention
to media.
The scale of these changes is evident in the fact that by 2016 digital media had
grown to account for an estimated 64% of total consumer spending on media con
tent and technology (Global Consumer Spending, 2017), clear evidence that the
Internet and digital technologies more generally had driven significant change in the
media sector – change that was reflected in rapidly changing media consumption
patterns. According to Zenith (2019), the 479 minutes per day that consumers in
their 57 country sample were predicted to spend with media during 2019 represents
a 14% increase from 2013’s 420 daily minutes. This trend was driven almost entirely
by growing use of Internet services, itself spurred in substantial part by increasing use
of mobile devices to access online services. Average time spent accessing the Internet
with mobile devices increased from 80 minutes to 130 minutes per day during the
2015–2019 four-year span. After accounting for a reduction in daily desktop Internet
use from 47 minutes to 40 minutes a day, total time spent with online services was
projected to account for approximately 35.5% of time consumers spent with media
in 2019, about the same amount of time spent with television. Average minutes per
day spent with newspapers declined from 17 to 11 from 2014 to 2019 and time spent
with magazines fell from 8 to 4 minutes.
Advertising and marketing dollars have been rapidly shifting to digital services as
well. According to a report by Enberg (2019), digital ad spending, at $283.35 bil
lion, was 45.9% of global ad spending in 2018 and predicted to increase to 50.1%
of the global total in 2019. Digital ad spending already accounted for more than
half of all ad spending in 2018 for a number of countries, including China (65.3%),
the United Kingdom (63.8%), Norway (61.7%), Ireland (58.8%), Denmark
(57.8%), Sweden (56.3%), Australia (55.6%), New Zealand (51.8%) and Canada
(50.2%). Russia, the Netherlands and the United States were predicted to cross this
threshold in 2019. The increasing fractions of advertising and marketing budgets
allocated to digital services reflects in part the natural inclination of advertisers to
follow audiences as they migrate increasingly to online services, but also the fact
52 Steve Wildman
that online services can target and deliver ads tailored to the consumer attributes of
individual audience members with a precision than cannot be matched by offline
media.
The fact that consumers and advertisers found it in their best interests to make
such substantial shifts from offline media to online services is itself evidence that
consumer benefits have increased and that advertisers believe they have received
higher returns on their promotional expenditures since they shifted much of their
advertising and marketing budgets to digital media. The appeal of digital media to
both consumers and advertisers is also reflected in the fact that today virtually all
offline media services, including trade press, make their content available online.
More consequential from a consumer perspective is that the online environment
supports a vast array of services that could exist only online and that offer their users
highly valued features and capabilities that could never have been provided before
Web 2.0 technologies transformed so much of the online environment.
Impacts on Culture and Political Systems

Without question the media sector today impacts culture in more ways and more
diverse ways than before. Other than books and magazines, for most consumers
cinemas and the familiar broadcast and print vehicles were the only easily accessible
media prior to the commercialisation of the Internet. Because the numbers of these
outlets were limited by high costs and constraints on available broadcast spectrum,
their outputs were relatively easily monitored and, for electronic media in parti
cular, legal and regulatory restrictions were imposed to preclude or limit access to
content deemed objectionable for any of a number of politically accepted reasons.
Subsidies and reserved slots in broadcasting schedules were employed to encourage
the supply of content considered merit worthy but likely to be undersupplied by
market forces. Even though they are expressions of culture in their own right, low-
cost content created by individuals and small groups and organisations had little to
no chance of gaining access to the mainstream media required to reach a mass
audience. The situation could hardly be more different today.
Plentiful venture capital funding, low barriers to entry, flexible technology and a
willingness to experiment with new business models have led to the creation of a
multitude of diverse online outlets for media content. Some of these services, like the
online editions of the New York Times and other offline newspapers, exist primarily
to make content that appears in their affiliated offline services available online.
Others, like the major subscription video and audio services that stream content to
their users, such as Netflix, supply types of content that might also be available
through offline TV services, but in massively greater quantities. But there are others
for which there are no close offline counterparts. These include online multiplayer
games and a multitude of online services created to host, aggregate and make
searchable user-created content, including audience members’ comments, posts and
reposts of content originating from both online and traditional media sources.
Access to audiences has indeed been democratised, a goal long advocated by critics
of traditional media. Unfortunately, this democratisation has made immensely more
difficult the accomplishment of other policy goals, including the promotion and
showcasing of types of content policymakers think citizens should see more of and
restricting or denying access to content believed to have harmful consequences if
circulated too broadly, such as violent or sexually explicit content, or even at all, as
with child pornography, hate speech and slander. Because their numbers and carry
ing capacities were limited, offline media outlets were bottlenecks through which
most of the long tail of potentially distributable content was not allowed to pass.
Traditional media served as highly restrictive gatekeepers because their long-term
viability depended on the skill with which they selected the limited amounts of
content they could carry, and, because they knew that their content choices were
monitored by government agencies with the power to impose penalties if legal or
regulatory standards were violated.
This all changed when Web 2.0 technologies were employed to create the inter
active, computationally driven services that dominate Internet media space today.
Cheap server capacity combined with widespread consumer adoption of broadband
and smart phones with relatively high-speed mobile access to the Internet made it
feasible, and in many cases profitable, to distribute online much of the long tail of
content rejected by popular offline media plus an avalanche of content created to
take advantage of opportunities to distribute it online. Included in the latter are the
literally billions of units of user-generated-content that are the foundations of con
tent sharing services such as YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Tumblr and Medium and
social media services like Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat.
The sheer volume of Internet content that is distributed across the huge and still
proliferating set of hosting services constitutes an enormous challenge to policy
makers concerned with the character of online content and the roles online media
play in domestic (and international) politics. What type of regulatory requirements,
for example, might be employed to ensure that a country’s domestic audience for
YouTube is exposed to a reasonable amount of domestically produced content when
users have billions of videos from a worldwide collection of creators to choose from?
When the number of channels was limited, there was a reasonable guarantee that the
domestic content regulators required be included in broadcast schedules would find
an audience simply because audience members’ options were limited. That is
decidedly not the case online. Identifying the countries of origin for videos watched
would be an enormous challenge, but even if this were not the case, as long as
viewers have millions to billions of options to choose from, it is not possible to
ensure that domestically created content will be included in their content selections.
Regulators would be faced with this challenge for any type of content whose online
consumption they want to promote and there are corresponding challenges for types
of content whose consumption they want to restrict or eliminate entirely.
To date the policy response to these problems has consisted largely of require
ments or less formal expectations that online media services police themselves. But
54 Steve Wildman
the limitations of this approach have been vividly demonstrated when content
banned by one online service quickly reappears elsewhere. Consider, for example,
the livestreaming of the 15 March 2019 Christchurch massacre of Muslim wor
shipers on Facebook. Facebook policies prohibit the posting of violent and hateful
content, but in this case its reliance on algorithmic screening and user reports of
policy violations was clearly insufficient. Facebook did not receive its first report of
the video until 12 minutes after the shooting ended. While the video was quickly
removed, by then it had made it on to the broader Internet. Facebook alone
removed an additional 1.5 million copies of the video during the first 24 hours after
it was streamed (Associated Press, 2019). To what extent can new or revised gov
ernment policies improve on this performance? And how would such policies
affect the character of the online services that so many find so valuable?
The same problems arise when trying to come up with effective responses to the
use of online media to deliberatively disseminate false narratives and untruths to
damage political opponents and to undermine the cohesion of democratic societies.
In addition to the issues traditionally associated with the roles of media in political
systems, we now have to worry about ideological echo chambers, fake news,
covert foreign influence in elections, and incitement to engage in extremist actions.
The Need for New Thinking and New Ideas

It is difficult, if not impossible, to create effective policy responses to the challenges
posed by digital media when the economics of the entities that would be subject to
those policies is still poorly understood. This is the case even for those online services
that most resemble their offline predecessors and the difficulty only increases when
we consider services that have little to nothing in common with offline media.
For example, the online subscription streaming video services that feature movies
and television programmes might be viewed as online counterparts to the offline pay
television services delivered by broadcasters and especially by cable companies and
satellite TV providers. However, if we look at Internet native services like Netflix,
Amazon Prime Video and, even some of the streaming video services like Hulu
whose owners also own major television networks with whom they share content,
we see some rather stark differences between their business models and those of
offline television services.
Offline television services deliver their programmes via spectrum-using channels
or their digital facsimiles. For customers of these services, the number of unique
programmes available for viewing at any given time is capped by the number of
channels the services provide, possibly with some augmentation for customers who
actively use digital video recorders to record programmes airing at one time so they
can be viewed later. Because channel capacity is costly at the margin and customer
willingness-to-pay for additional channels declines as channels are added, the
number of unique channels offered by traditional multichannel subscription video
services is typically a few hundred at most. For an offline video service, the online
connection linking it to its customer is the only channel that matters, and the cus
tomer covers this cost when subscribing to a broadband service provider and/or a
wireless service with sufficient bandwidth for watching videos. The cost of the
server capacity required to store online videos is the cost of capacity constraint that
matters most to an online video service and, because the marginal cost of server
capacity is very low, an online video service finds it profitable to expand the
number of programmes and movies available to its customers at any given time to
many times what an offline subscription video service might offer. According
to Statista (Watson, 2019), nearly 6,000 TV programmes and movies were available
to Netflix’ US subscribers in April of 2019, followed closely by the United King
dom, Canada and Greece. All of the top ten countries by this measure had at least
5,000 titles available. (While different sources report different numbers of videos
available to Netflix subscribers, the Statista figures are in the broad middle of this
range and can be considered sufficiently representative for the comparison of
online and offline subscription video services presented here.)
For a legacy television service, a network serves two primary functions. It selects
and acquires the programmes that are carried by a single spectrum-using channel and
fixes the times when those programmes will be shown. But when a viewer can select
any of the thousands of titles offered by an online video subscription service at the
time of her choosing, networks cease to serve any economically meaningful purpose
and simply disappear, along with multichannel subscription services and conceptions,
such as prime time and appointment viewing, that were critical to understanding the
economics of traditional television services. As the offline to online migration of
video services proceeds, there likely will come a point where once thriving lines of
scholarly inquiry begin to be seen more as historical curiosities than foundations for
future research.
An obvious candidate for future obsolescence is the long and venerable line of
literature based on formal models of how competition (or its absence) shapes
broadcasters’ and networks’ programming strategies. Starting with Peter Steiner’s
(1952) simple model that assumed a small and fixed number of ad-supported
broadcasters and a limited number of fixed programme types, this line of inquiry
flourished and over time incorporated new modelling techniques as they emerged
within economics. Most notable were formal models of monopolistically competi
tive markets starting with Spence and Owen’s (1977) modification and application to
television of Spence’s (1976) more general model of a monopolistically competitive
equilibrium and multistage game models of two-sided markets following seminal
work by Anderson and Coate (2005). Wilbur’s (2008) study of US television net
works provided convincing empirical support for predictions arising from this line of
research. But underlying all of this research is the assumption that television pro-
grammes are delivered to viewers by linear networks that have no role to play in an
Internet-based video services market.
How much of the hard-earned knowledge of offline media can be applied to
the new types of media services that have emerged and likely will continue to
56 Steve Wildman
emerge in the online environment is an open question. The multisided platform

perspective on media products and services will certainly retain its relevance
because all media businesses that derive revenue from advertising have at a mini
mum an advertiser and an audience side to their platforms. This remains a vibrant
line of research both for development and elaboration of theory – see Anderson
& Peitz (2019) for new modelling and an overview of much of the earlier work –
and empirical tests of theory as illustrated by Wilbur’s (2008) work on broadcast
television and by much earlier empirical studies of newspaper markets whose
authors recognised the implications of the interdependence of advertiser and
subscriber demands well before more modern theorists began to formalise the
theory and started referring to two-sided markets and two-sided platforms (see, e.
g. Rosse, 1970; Dertouzos & Trautman, 1990; Blair & Romano, 1993).
On the other hand, the people developing formal models of multisided plat
forms have for the most part restricted themselves to platforms with only two sides,
while most of the popular free online services have at least one extra side in addi
tion to the advertiser and audience sides of the formal models, because the business
models of these services include as a third side content supplied by independent
third parties. For search engines, the third-party-supplied content is the websites
that appear in their native search listings, for content sharing services it is the con
tent uploaded by users and other entities trying to reach the audiences these ser
vices attract, and for social media it is user comments and content postings (which
are also shared content). Adding a third side dramatically complicates the mathe
matics of a platform model, and we simply do not know how much the predictions
from models of two-sided platforms will be changed when the number of sides is
expanded to three or more. The tendency exhibited by many online platform
services to keep adding sides by increasing the number of user-valued functions
their platforms can support is another subject that merits serious investigation.
We are also still far from understanding the economic significance of the many other
ways that various online and offline media services differ. For example, offline media
typically pay for or directly incur the cost of producing content after careful and often
costly deliberation because they believe the odds are good that it will attract an audi
ence large enough to generate a profit. Contrast this approach with the strategy
employed by ad-supported video sharing services like YouTube and TikTok that fea
ture short, low-cost, user-supplied videos. These sharing services accept virtually all
content submitted that is not flagged for violating some general content guidelines and
then rely on viral processes to identify videos with the potential to attract a substantial
audience. Under what conditions can the latter approach be profitable and what does
this tell us about the nature of the underlying viral processes and the ways these are
facilitated and shaped by the sharing services? Until we have answers to questions like
these, we cannot say we understand the economics of content sharing services.
These examples are presented to emphasise the more general point that if we look
closely, we will find unanswered questions like these for most, if not all, online media
services, including search and social media. Similar investigations would likely reveal
that most of what we would like to know regarding the evolving relationships between
online and offline media, including the probable futures of long-established offline
media like newspapers and over-the-air broadcasters, remains to be discovered.
The Need for Increased Collaboration between Academics and

policymakers
The design of media policy benefited considerably from policymakers’ collaboration
with academic experts in the past and the need for such collaboration is greater now
than it was then. While there is still much to be learned about traditional media,
scholarly research has already advanced considerably our understanding of the eco
nomics of those industries and this knowledge has been reflected in the design of
media policies. Unfortunately, the often immense differences between media services
that took shape before the Internet was commercialised and the new media services
that have emerged online requires that in many ways we must retool intellectually to
begin constructing analytical frameworks that better account for the character of
online media services than the frameworks that up to this point have served us well.
By and large the research required to develop the new analytical frameworks we need
is being conducted in universities and, as in the past, this is where policymakers will
generally find the experts best qualified to assist with policy design in the future.
University-policymaker collaboration in the past has taken two forms. One is
consultation on policy design choices that have to be made in the present or the very
near future, even if this requires working with a very incomplete understanding of
the affected industries and media services. The other is support for research that can
contribute to the knowledge base required to make better policy choices in the
future – a knowledge base that should have positive spill-over benefits when it is
applied by firms and other players in the media sector. For both types of collabora
tion, it is important that our still very incomplete understanding of the transforming
media landscape be acknowledged. For consultations on current and very near-term
policy decisions, this means accepting the possibility, or even the likelihood, that
better solutions will be discovered as our knowledge of the transformed media sector
advances. Therefore, to the extent possible, policies implemented should preserve
the flexibility needed to make changes in the future at relatively little cost. For
funded research focused on a longer horizon, it is important to remember that part of
the payoff will be in contributing to a knowledge base that can serve as a platform for
future research that can advance our understanding of the media sector still further.
References
Anderson, S. P. & Coate, S. (2005). Market provision of broadcasting: A welfare analysis.
Review of Economic Studies, 72, 947–972.
Anderson, S. P. & Peitz, M. (2019). Media see-saws: Winners and losers in platform mar
kets. CEPR Discussion Paper No. DP12214.
58 Steve Wildman
Associated Press (2019, 20 March). New Zealand shooting: More than 200 users watch live
stream video of Christchurch mosque attacks, but nobody reported it, says Facebook.
South China Morning Post. Retrieved from: www.scmp.com/news/asia/australasia/
article/3002436/new-zealand-shooting-more-200-users-watched-live-stream-video.
Blair, R. & Romano, R. (1993). Pricing decisions of a newspaper monopolist. Southern
Economics Journal, 59(4), 721–732.
Brynjolfsson, E., Collis, A. & Eggers, F. (2019). Using massive online choice experiments
to measure changes in well-Being. PNAS, 116(15), 7250–7255.
Dertouzos, J. N. & Trautman, W. B. (1990). Economic effects of media concentration:
Estimates from a model of the newspaper firm. Journal of Industrial Economics, 39(1), 1–14.
Enberg, J. (2019). Digital ad spending 2019: Global. eMarketer. Retrieved from: www.ema
rketer.com/content/global-digital-ad-spending-2019.
Global Consumer Spending. (2017). Global consumer spending on media content &
technology forecast 2017–2021: Executive summary. PQ Media. Retrieved from: www.
pqmedia.com/product/global-media-technology-forecast-series-2017-21/.
Global Consumer Spending. (2019). Global consumer spending on media content &
technology up. 7% to $1.7T in 2017 on surging demand for digital audio & video
subscription services. PQ Media. Retrieved from: www.pqmedia.com/wp-content/up
loads/2018/05/Global-Spend-17-15107510.pdf.
Rosse, J. N. (1970). Estimating cost function parameters without using cost data: Illustrated
methodology. Econometrica, 38(2), 256–275.
Spence, A. M. (1976). Product selection, fixed costs and monopolistic competition. Review
of Economic Studies, 43(2), 217–235.
Spence, A. M. & Owen, B. M. (1977). Television programming, monopolistic competi
tion and welfare. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 91(1), 103–126.
Steiner, P. O. (1952). Program patterns and preferences, and the workability of competi
tion in radio broadcasting. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 66(2), 194–223.
Watson, A. (2019). Countries with most content available on netflix worldwide as of April
2019. Statista. Retrieved from: www.statista.com/statistics/1013571/netflix-library-size
worldwide/.
Wilbur, K. C. (2008). A Two-sided, empirical model of television advertising and viewing
markets. Marketing Science, 27(3), 356–378.
Zenith. (2019). Consumers will spend 800 hours using mobile Internet devices this year.
News Release, 10 June 2019. Retrieved from: www.zenithmedia.com/consumers
will-spend-800-hours-using-mobile-Internet-devices-this-year/.
4
MANAGING MEDIA FIRMS
Case Studies of Practice-led Research, Actionable
Knowledge and Instrumental Impact
John J. Oliver
BOURNEMOUTH UNIVERSITY
Introduction
When Professor Chris Argyris, the distinguished Harvard University scholar and co-
founder of the field of organisation learning and development, reflected on a lifetime
of academic endeavour he concluded that ‘learning occurs when understanding,
insight and explanations are connected with action’ (2003, p. 1179). Furthermore, he
argued that academic communities should concentrate on generating knowledge that
was useful to solving the problems that practitioners faced in their everyday working
lives. Indeed, he presented a strong case for the implementable validity of management
research and concluded that researchers should not be content with understanding
and explaining organisational phenomena in a way that has internal and external
validity, but should also seek to create ‘actionable knowledge’ to assess theory in use.
In the UK, the Government’s Industrial Strategy ‘Building a Britain Fit for the
Future’ (2017) places an increased emphasis on the academic community to pro
duce research that has impact in the form of societal and economic contribution.
This impact can be achieved in many ways, but principally through creating and
sharing new knowledge that results in the type of innovation that leads to market
growth, improved corporate performance, jobs, new products and services.
This chapter will convey through two case studies the role of Instrumental Impact in
influencing media firm strategy and business practice. Instrumental Impact is con
sidered by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) to be where research has informed
policy debate and decisions and where companies have benefited from knowledge
that has improved business performance, changed management practices and created
jobs. UKRI work in partnership with universities, research organisations, businesses,
charities, and government to provide funding and a support environment that
encourages research and innovation.
60 John Oliver
This chapter presents two questions about how media firms are managed. These
questions were investigated using a practice-led research approach where the media
practice context not only helped to advance knowledge ‘about’ practice, but ‘within’
practice. The answers to these questions are illustrated with two theory-driven and
practically oriented case studies that demonstrate the relationship between theory and
practice and how the findings from the research led to actionable knowledge, imple
mentable validity, and ultimately, instrumental impact with a range of stakeholders.
The questions were:
1. How have media firms managed the digital transition?

2. How can long-term media strategy be developed in an uncertain business
environment?
Underlying Research Philosophy: Pragmatism

A consideration of philosophy in any context provides a breeding ground for much
discussion, as it deals with the complex nature of basic beliefs that underpin the
social and scientific world. Guba and Lincoln (1989, p. 83) point out the problems
of considering different philosophical paradigms, going on to state that ‘there is no
way to answer these questions in an unambiguous and certain way or in a way that
is capable of proof’. Consideration of this statement provides obvious grounds for
contention for the case studies presented in this chapter, particularly as they aimed
to produce actionable knowledge, implementable validity and instrumental impact.
Guba and Lincoln (1989) also argued that the basis of any philosophical debate
should consider the basic assumptions that underpin the relationship between ontol
ogy, epistemology and methodology; all of which will be discussed during the course
of this chapter. Historically, the debate about the best philosophical approach to adopt
in media management research contrasts the conventionalist, positivistic approach
with the constructionist, naturalistic approach. When considering the stance taken in
these research studies, the relative merits of both perspectives were considered and
have been used to develop an appropriate research design for the phenomena being
investigated, whilst at the same time, being mindful of the very real tensions between
producing methodological perfectionism and the realities of producing actionable
knowledge. As such, a ‘pragmatic’ philosophical stance was adopted. Kemmis and
McTaggart (2000) provide support for this approach, arguing that the search for valid
data should not be considered solely on methodological grounds but also on ontolo
gical grounds, believing that ‘there may be a trade-off between methodological
sophistication and “truth” in the sense of timely evidence capable of giving partici
pants critical purchase on a real situation’ (p. 591). Greenwood and Levin (1998),
Revans (1998) and Silverman (2001) also support this pragmatic philosophy, main
taining that the pure empiricist will be more concerned with the appropriateness of
the method to access data to produce a purposeful outcome, rather than dwelling on
the theoretical base of research design.
Managing Media Firms 61
Greenwood and Levin (1998, p. 73) cite John Dewey, the American education
alist and philosopher from the 1880s as the modern architect of the pragmatic phi
losophy. They point out that ‘Dewey’s approach is his steadfast refusal to separate
thought from action … and that he believed the only real sources of knowledge are
to be found in action, not in armchair speculation’. Unfortunately for Dewey, the
modernist research agenda to social science dominated at the time and the separation
of science and practice meant that his pragmatic philosophy remained a marginal and
illogical method to investigate phenomena in social science. However, it has gained a
resurgence with Revans (1998) and Greenwood and Levin (1998) suggesting that
pragmatism directly connects to action in terms of solving specific organisational
problems. Kemmis and McTaggart (2000) developed this line of inquiry by arguing
that ‘the loss of methodological sophistication is a price worth paying in most prac
tical contexts of transformative social action’ (p. 592).
The pragmatic research philosophy adopted for these studies, therefore, embraced
both positivist and naturalist paradigms, the reason being that the researcher believed
that the ontological questions of truth and reality in relation to understanding the
management of media firms in a disruptive digital environment should be answered by
utilising the relative strengths of both paradigms. Adopting a pragmatic research, phi
losophy has enabled the researcher to mix and match inductive and deductive philo
sophies as a pragmatic way of obtaining insight into the questions outlined above.
If media management is to flourish in the years ahead, it should consider the
benefits of theoretical development working in tandem with a consideration of
knowledge that is actionable and produces high levels of implementable validity.
Mierzejewska (2018, p. 19) observed that ‘theories’ have their limitations in the
sense that they are often focused on specific variables that are based on a narrow set
of underlying assumptions. As such, the investigation of a phenomenon usually
concludes with deterministic explanations and a ‘self-perpetuating’ view of a phe
nomenon. As mentioned previously, Argyris (2003, p. 1179) argued that our
understanding and learning about organisational phenomena is best achieved when
understanding, insight and explanations are connected with action. He noted that
whilst many scholars pursue internal validity in the sense that they connect their
ideas to existing theories, much more is to be gained by connecting and validating
their ideas with practitioners.
In essence, what follows in these case studies is a commitment by the
researcher to develop actionable knowledge, implementable validity and the
creation of instrumental impact with media practitioners.
Case 1: How Have Media Firms Managed the Digital Transition?

Dynamic Capabilities Theory has gained traction with media management
researchers in recent years as they seek to explain how the dynamic and increas
ingly digital environment impacts on media firm performance. Several papers by
Oliver (2014; 2017; 2018) examine dynamic capabilities at industry level and
62 John Oliver
individual firm level. These papers presented longitudinal findings on how the UK
Creative Industries had reconfigured human resources with differing performance
outcomes, whilst two firms in particular, Sky Plc and Pearson Publishing Plc, were
explored in order to assess how their strategies, resources and capabilities were
adapted to meet the challenges presented by the digital environment. Their per
formance was also benchmarked against the UK Creative Industries as a whole.
These papers added to the limited knowledge base on industry-level dynamic
capabilities and extends our knowledge on inter-industry comparisons in economic
performance following the reconfiguration of industry resources. They also
advance our theoretical understanding of media firm transformation by using a
multi-disciplinary approach that draws on knowledge from organisational strategy,
dynamic capabilities and firm performance. This integrated approach provides a
more holistic view of strategic business transformation by understanding the stra
tegic arguments that compel firms to reconfigure their resources and capabilities in
a dynamic business environment.
Theoretical Frame
The emergence of widespread digitalisation in 1997 and new media technologies
around 2003 have acted as catalysts for technological innovation and disruption in
many media markets. These drivers of change have persisted, and when viewed
over the long term, provide an ideal context through which to examine the
strategic adaptation of the media industry and media firms alike. Whilst dynamic
capabilities provides the focal theory for this research, the literature has been
examined from an industry level and individual firm level.
The literature on dynamic capabilities continues to evolve, but it is largely frag
mented with little in the way of shared consensus of its precise characteristics, nor
indeed the development of theoretical frameworks that have been rigorously tested
through empirical study. However, the review of literature describes a phenomenon
that has several fundamental components that have consistently featured in studies
published in the field. These common themes refer to adaptation, where the focus is
on reconfiguring resources, capabilities and competencies; this strategic adaptation of
resources aims to produce positive effects on performance; this adaptive process
occurs in a compressed timescale due to the fast-changing nature of market
conditions.
Dynamic Capabilities at Industry Level

The idea that an industry can exhibit dynamic capabilities has been investigated
by a relatively small number of researchers. For example, Zott (2003) developed a
theoretical model that explained intra-firm differences in performance within the
same industry, whilst Lampel and Shamsie (2003) examined the evolution of
capabilities in the Hollywood movie industry. The latter authors found that a
highly turbulent competitive environment created ‘new patterns of competition’

within the industry and ‘new managerial mind-sets’ which tended to dominate
what was considered to be new industry-level capabilities. In particular, they
argued that new capabilities emerged in the form of ‘mobilising capabilities’
which commits resources in such a way as to transform capabilities.
This evolutionary view of industry-level capabilities is supported by Eisenhardt
and Martin (2000) and De Wit and Meyer (2010) who argued that the emergence
of new industry capabilities was determined by two factors. Firstly, that a series of
incremental innovations in products and services led to widespread imitation
within the competitive set. Teece et al. (1997, p. 526) supported this view arguing
that challenger firms simply reproduced the ‘strategic position’ of market leading
firms who had achieved a competitive advantage. Deans et al. (2002) and Pettigrew
et al. (2007) noted that the converging nature of industry-level capabilities essen
tially produced new capabilities that could be considered as the ‘minimum thresh
old’ that was required to satisfy market requirements. Secondly, these new
industry-level capabilities could be developed by firms competing independently
of each other, but that they ultimately converged due to the limiting factors of
technological capability and regulation within the industry. Madhok and Osego
witsch (2000, p. 328) provided a different perspective on the emergence of indus
try-level capabilities. They argued that it was collaborative activity in the form of
strategic alliances between competitive rivals who possessed ‘complementary skills’
and sought to reduce the risks inherent in the innovation process that led to a
convergence of industry-level capabilities.
Dynamic Capabilities at Firm Level

The idea that organisations have dynamic capabilities arose from theorists ques
tioning how firms sustained competitive advantage and superior performance in
high-velocity conditions where ‘the increasing dynamism of the environment’
(Pettigrew et al., 2007) made it increasingly difficult to remain competitive. Many
scholars have built on Teece et al.’s (1997) seminal paper on dynamic capabilities
which argued that it was a firm’s ability to learn, adapt and change its resource base
to produce new capabilities which delivered a series of temporary competitive
advantages over time. In essence, the idea that a firm’s capabilities need to be
‘dynamic’ is a consideration of the competitive environment, its future direction,
and how a firm adapts and reconfigures resources, assets, operating routines and
competencies to improve their effectiveness and competitiveness in the pursuit of
superior performance (Zollo & Winter, 2002; Malhotra & Hinings, 2015).
A central criticism of dynamic capabilities theory is that researchers have largely
ignored the notion of how to move dynamic capabilities from theory into actionable
knowledge. This criticism is to an extent justified, particularly as Dixon et al. (2014, p.
186) referred to dynamic capabilities as a ‘black box’ with unknown contents. Teece
et al. (2016) also called for a more ‘integrated and multi-disciplinary’ approach to our
64 John Oliver
understanding of the role that dynamic capabilities plays in the strategic transformation
of firms. In response to these calls, the work of Oliver (2014; 2017; 2018) presented a
conceptual framework which focused on the management of intangible resources,
skills and capabilities (Knowledge-based View) including having an aspirational strat
egy, persistent communication of the strategy, managerial cognition and sensing skills,
with tangible resources, skills and capabilities (Resourced-based View) including
investment in new organisational processes and routines, product innovation and
development, forming strategic alliances, corporate acquisitions and divestments.
As such, these papers provided illustrative case studies on industry and firm level
dynamic capabilities, transformation and performance that as we will see later,
produced significant levels of actionable knowledge and implementable validity.
Method

The existence of industry level dynamic capabilities and superior performance in
the UK Creative Industries was investigated using the quantitative method of
‘time-series analysis’. This approach provided the most appropriate way to iden
tify industry-level dynamic capabilities and superior performance over time since
it could identify patterns in historical data. The methodological approach used
‘Year’ (1997–2014) as independent variable, and the ‘Number of Employees’
(NE) and ‘Gross Added Value’ (GVA) as dependent variables. The data was
obtained from the Department of Culture Media & Sport website (www.gov.uk)
which hosts a number of publications relating to the creative industries.

Our theoretical understanding of dynamic capabilities at media firm level was
extended by providing an ‘integrated and multi-disciplinary’ approach that exam
ined the links between organisational strategy, dynamic capabilities and media firm
performance. The premise of this research was to enable media management
researchers to understand how dynamic changes in the media environment drive
media firms to adapt and transform their businesses over time.
This study presented data from 1995 to 2017 and used a mixed methodological
approach. Qualitative content analysis was used to gain insight into the strategies,
intangible and tangible resources, skills and capabilities that enabled media organi
sations to adapt and transform their business to the digital environment, whilst
quantitative data was used to ascertain corporate financial performance against his
toric firm, inter-firm, industry and market performance indicators over the long
term. The intention here was to gain insight into the strategic transformation and
performance outcomes of media firms by exploring the issue from different per
spectives by using multiple methods and data sources.
Desk research had identified Pearson Plc (Publishing) and Sky (TV) as two compa
nies from these industries that had undergone a ‘strategic transformation’ over the
course of two business cycles, which importantly covered the disruptive forces of digi
talisation and new media. A qualitative ‘thematic’ content analysis of company annual
reports was used to understand and assess how these organisations had adapted their
strategies, resources and capabilities to changing competitive dynamics over time.
The units of analysis for this study were derived from literature and included:
� Knowledge-based View (intangible resources, skills and capabilities): an aspira

tional strategy, persistent communication of the strategy, managerial cogni
tion and sensing skills.
� Resource-based View (tangible resources, skills and capabilities): investment in
new organisational processes and routines, product innovation and develop
ment, strategic alliances, corporate acquisitions and divestments.
An analysis of each firm’s financial performance was benchmarked against historic

firm, inter-firm, industry and market performance indicators. A number of different
financial measures were used to triangulate corporate performance in terms of the
‘value’ created from the firm’s corporate strategy and resource management. These
were Market Value (£), Revenue (£), and Return on Invested Capital (%). This
data was obtained from Thomson Reuters DataStream and provided historic finan
cial statistics for both Sky and Pearson and the FTSE 100 index which is composed
of the 100 largest companies listed on the London Stock Exchange. The analysis of
Market Value and Return of Capital Invested for Sky and Pearson against the FTSE
100, over the time period 1995–2017, ensured that only those firms (57) who had
consistently appeared in the index for each of those years was used for data analysis.
Results

Examining dynamic capabilities at industry level demonstrated how human resour
ces had been reconfigured in the UK Creative Industries level to produce different
performance effects over time. This strategic adaptation and renewal of human
resources was most visibly demonstrated in the structural changes of the workforce
in the UK Publishing Industry. The industry had been exposed to extraordinary
changes in the macro-environment (e.g. the collapse of the dot.com economy in
2000, the disruption caused by new media technologies and the effects of the
global financial crisis) which had resulted in net number of job losses at 83,500
(a 27% reduction) between 1997 and 2014. However, in terms of dynamic capabilities
theory, the strategic adaption of human resources has delivered superior performance
in terms of productivity. For example, there have been consistent increases in GVA per
employee, which has risen from £20,554 in 1997 to £45,244 in 2014 (+120%).
66 John Oliver
Whilst the human cost of these job losses is incalculable, from an economic point of
view, the long-term reduction in the workforce has delivered vastly improved results
in terms of productivity within the industry.

Examining dynamic capabilities at media firm level introduced an integrated and
multi-disciplinary approach that linked organisational strategy, dynamic capabilities
and media firm performance. This process of ‘intellectual bridging’ (Pettigrew et
al., 2007) between largely discrete fields of strategic management literature pro
vided a more holistic view of strategic business transformation, and to enable media
management researchers to better understand how dynamic changes in the media
environment drive media firms to adapt and transform their businesses over time.
The results from this study demonstrated how an ambitious strategy which invested
in and adapted firm resources to produce new and dynamic capabilities has every
chance of producing superior firm performance in the long term. The findings revealed
that both Sky Plc and Pearson Plc adopted a teleological approach to the setting of
sequential corporate goals, objectives and strategies which had adapted and transformed
each firm to the opportunities provided by an increasingly digital environment.
Both firms had undergone a series of strategic transformations, however, the route to
these transformations differed, with Sky transforming themselves from being a single-
product media firm, into a multi-product media firm with impressive results. In con
trast, Pearson had engaged in five strategic transformations, moving it from being a
holding company, to an Entrepreneurial M-form business, into their current form as a
global, single-product learning company. The number of strategic transformations that
Pearson had undertaken is mostly likely to be the result of their consistent corporate
objective of seeking out potential high-growth market opportunities. With each new
market opportunity there appears to have been major restructuring of their resource
base, with numerous investments, acquisitions and divestments. As a consequence of
their unyielding pursuit of market opportunities, the costs of reconfiguring and
restructuring their resource had hindered their corporate performance.
The findings have also revealed the importance of strategic acquisitions and
divestment to the reconfiguration and transformation of the firm’s resources and
capabilities. Whilst there is a common understanding in the literature about the role
that acquisitions play in accessing new resources and capabilities, there is not the same
level of understanding on how the divestment of strategic assets helps to deliver
resource renewal, strategic transformation and superior corporate performance.
Actionable Research and Conclusions

The conceptual links between dynamic capabilities and firm performance have
been established in literature; however, the integration of knowledge from strat
egy literature conceptualises dynamic capabilities in a more holistic way by
understanding the strategic arguments that compel firms to reconfigure their

resources and capabilities in a dynamic business environment. Certainly the data
presented in these papers illustrate how both firms engaged in high-growth stra
tegies that were executed through a consistent approach to the investment in the
resources that delivered new digital capabilities and competitive advantage.
The research on how the UK Creative Industries and firms had managed the digital
transition was disseminated by the researcher at a business engagement event in the
boardroom of world-class business transformation consultancy, The Hackett Group.
The event entitled Digital Strategy and Business Transformation was attended by
senior executives from the likes of Ofcom, the Financial Times, Astrazeneca and Bell
Pottinger. This initial feedback was exceptional, with delegates commenting that it
was an ‘excellent event that provided different perspectives on digital transformation
and new ideas on how to manage business transformation within their firms’.
Two years on from the event and the levels of actionable knowledge, imple
mentable validity and instrumental impact of the research has been significant.
The research has made a demonstrable impact on UK communications policy and
regulatory decisions relating to Sky Plc, and influenced the public policy debate
on future Internet regulation. One senior executive commented that:
the research enabled us to think differently about Sky’s ‘growth strategy’.

Previously we had been concerned that Sky Plc were moving toward a monopoly
position in the pay-tv market, but Dr Oliver’s longitudinal research presented
them in a different light. Their growth strategy and diversification into new
markets such as broadband, fixed and mobile telephony had in fact contributed to
increased levels of competition in those sectors. As a consequence, we made a
policy decision not to implement more demanding regulatory measures on Sky
Plc. … the research also provided Ofcom with an opportunity to consider our
remit as a communications regulator and the potential areas where we could use
our expertise in the future, most notably in terms of the potential future regulation
of the internet. (Director, Ofcom, UK Communications Regulator)
Furthermore, the research has also created financial benefits for several world-class
management consultancies which have resulted in direct economic impacts in
terms of new jobs and multi-million pound investments made by several
FTSE100 firms. A senior management consultant commented that the research:
influenced our strategic approach to the development of a new Digital Strategy

and Analytics service for our clients. This new consultancy service has now been
successfully launched and several of our FTSE100 clients (amongst others Tesco,
John Lewis and Unilever) have gained insight from this. Some of these clients have
already decided to invest several million pounds into resources creating many new
jobs in Digital services and Analytics departments in their firms and we expect
many more firms to follow. (Senior director, The Hackett Group, London)
68 John Oliver
Case 2: How Do Media Firms Create a Long-Term Strategy in an

Uncertain Digital Environment?
Whilst the digital environment has disrupted many markets, it has also placed existing
and successful media management strategies and practices under scrutiny and eroded
many firm’s sources of competitive advantage and profitability. This case study pre
sents a unique insight into ‘strategy as practice’ and reflects on a scenario-planning
project with UK media industry practitioners who sought to develop a long-term
corporate level strategy for the Google-owned media firm YouTube. It concludes
that the knowledge produced by the project was actionable, and produced high
levels of implementable validity and instrumental impact in terms of the develop
ment of a long-term strategy for YouTube (Oliver & Parrett, 2018).
Theoretical frame
An increasing number of media firms operate in a highly turbulent business envir
onment where rapid changes in digital technologies have undermined the value
propositions, strategies and business models of incumbent firms. This type of
competitive environment places increased scrutiny on the strategic planning tools
that are used to undertake a rational and comprehensive analysis of the competitive
dynamics and inform strategy formulation.
A management tool that enables media executives to develop strategy in uncertain
business environments is scenario planning. While this strategic management tool has
formed part of the strategist’s toolbox for a long time, the increasing level of dyna
mism and uncertainty in many business environments has meant that scenario plan
ning has seen a resurgence in usage. There is a substantial amount of literature that
examines the benefits of this method for strategic planners and executives. For
example, Van der Heijden (2005), Walton (2008), and Selsky and McCann (2008)
argued that scenario planning combined both systematic and imaginative thinking in
a way that could provide a unique insight into the future that leads to the develop
ment of organisational strategy and action. Hamel (1996) also noted that the process
of scenario thinking allowed practitioners to step back from the ritual of strategic
planning and take a broader look at their environment, while Grant (2003) and
Bowman et al. (2007) concluded that it was a useful tool for the purposes of strategy
creation and long-term planning, given its strength in providing qualitative infor
mation and strategic conversations on multiple scenarios of the future.
Method
Whilst there are a number of methodical approaches to operationalising a scenario-
planning project, this study used the approach proposed by Garvin and Levesque
(2005) due to its prescriptive and systematic way of representing future business
environments and its ability to help create a long-term strategic direction for a firm.
The process started with executives considering a ‘key focal issue’ and a time-
frame of ten years to consider plausible and multiple future scenarios. As such, the
key focal issue for this project was: What will be the role of YouTube in the UK
media industry in 2025? This issue was of strategic importance to the media
planning agency as the fast-changing business environment had created a high
level of uncertainty for the firm and its client, and the strategic flexibility of
YouTube’s corporate level strategy going forward was of paramount importance.
This research was based on a non-probability, purposive sample of individuals who
worked in senior operational and planning positions for one of the UK’s top media
planning agencies. The participants were drawn from a variety of departments within
the company and selected on the basis of having experience and expert knowledge of
the UK media industry and YouTube’s operations and competitive strategy. Keough
and Shanahan (2008) and Marcus (2009) noted that scenario planning can be too
subjective and was often based on an extrapolation of team member experiences and
knowledge, particularly among the organisational elite who arrived at an expedient
consensus of what the future will look like from a fixed point in time. In order to
overcome this inherent problem, this research used an independent auditor (Miles &
Huberman, 1994) to validate the proceedings. This person was a senior communica
tions specialist who regularly runs scenario-planning exercises for a leading public
relations consultancy in the UK. His role was to validate the proceedings, ensure that
all participants’ views were fully explored, and that the scenarios were both realistic
and plausible given the vested interest in the success of the media planning agency.
Results
The research identified 49 driving forces that had the potential to shape the UK
media industry in the next 10 years, from which, four ‘Driving Forces’ were
considered and two of these forces were regarded as creating ‘Critical Uncer
tainty’ in relation to the key focal issue. These were:
� Monetisation of video content: when considering the extent to which video

content could be monetised, the group were clear that should YouTube, or
video content more generally, no longer be a popular platform for adver
tisers, then YouTube’s source of revenue would be at risk and new revenue
models would need to be developed.
� Regulation of video content: an increase in the regulation of video content con
sidered issues ranging from the quality control of online video content, to a tigh
tening on the regulation of intellectual property laws. Should there be an increase
in regulation of video content, then YouTube would have to completely change
the way it operates, challenging the fundamentals of the organisation.
In the next stage of the process, four plausible scenarios that explored the role
that YouTube will play in the UK media industry in 2025 were developed.
70 John Oliver
These scenarios presented plausible, alternative hypotheses about how the world
might unfold and highlighted the strategic implications, risks and opportunities
facing YouTube. In each scenario, a range of Offensive and Defensive Strategic
options were presented and discussed.
Actionable Research and Conclusions

The actionable outcomes of using scenario planning as a tool for developing a long
term strategy in unpredictable and future media markets were positive and supports
the findings of Rigby and Bilodeau (2007) and Oliver (2013) who found it to be a
power tool – high usage and high satisfaction – among media executives who used it
to manage business uncertainty. This affirmative view is supported by positive feed
back from other media planners within the agency, and particularly those working
on the YouTube business account. This project also resulted in bringing a range of
people inside the organisation together to socially interact and discuss the scenario-
planning tool’s role in the process of strategic analysis and strategic options develop
ment for other clients. An executive director commented that the research:
OMD are now better able to make sense of often conflicting macro-envir
onmental trends and find more advanced strategic solutions for our clients …
Additional positive outcomes were evidenced by increased levels of staff and
client understanding of the methodology and increased usage of this
approach due to its ability to obtain strategic solutions in a rapidly changing
business environment. (Executive director, OMD, UK)
Additionally, a similar scenario-planning project and CPD training involved Bell

Pottinger, a leading public relations company. The company confirmed that the
research findings had been used by a diverse range of non-media clients to:
help them see how their communications functions may need to adapt to
future strategic challenges. These (clients) have included several government
organisations in South Africa, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, a political
party in Pakistan and an agribusiness in Liberia amongst others … These
programmes generated significant fee income, but most importantly enabled
the above clients to build more resilient communication functions, better
able to deal with the pressures of reactive and proactive communications in
developing and frontier markets. (Partner and director, Bell Pottinger, UK)
Conclusions
If media management is to flourish in the years ahead, it should consider the
benefits of theoretical development working in tandem with a consideration of
knowledge that is actionable and produces high levels of implementable validity

and instrumental impact.
The case studies presented in this chapter demonstrate an innovative research
agenda that examined the strategy, practice and performance effects of media
firms in a dynamic media environment. The research has made a demonstrable
impact on UK communications policy and regulation decisions relating to Sky
Plc and influenced the public policy debate on future Internet regulation. The
research findings have also created financial benefits for several world-class man
agement consultancies, which has resulted in direct economic impacts in terms of
new jobs and multi-million pound investments made by leading FTSE 100 firms.
The significance of this research has also extended outside the UK with a number
of Middle East government agencies changing their strategy practices, operational
structures and capacity building capabilities in strategic communications.
Mierzejewska (2018, p. 29) argued that media management researchers needed
to engage media practitioners with their research and ‘help them solve problems’
which in turn would increase the relevance of media management as an academic
field. Furthermore, she argued that a single minded focus on theoretical develop
ment results in a ‘self-perpetuating’ view of a phenomenon. If we act on the
argument of Argyris (2003) and learn about organisational phenomena and aim to
‘action’ our research, then we as media management researchers will be better
positioned to understand and explain issues that practitioners face every day in their
working lives. It follows then, that the media management academy needs to
concentrate on generating knowledge that is useful rather than generalisable. As we
have seen in the discussion above, much of the research was actionable and pro
duced high levels of instrumental impact. Yet none of the findings were gen
eralisable! The research has, however, resulted in high levels of implementable
validity, where theory has been used to create actionable knowledge.
These case studies present ‘success stories’ of actionable knowledge and more
examples could have been included in the chapter. Equally, other research studies
have been partially successful or indeed a complete failure in terms of producing
knowledge that has led to actionable knowledge and impact. Internal politics,
budget restrictions and having practitioners with the necessary skills to implement
the research findings often act as barriers to implementation. Indeed, previous
work by Oliver (2008) presents reflections on a failed consultancy intervention due
to his presence inside the organisation being considered as a threat, and a resistance
to engage in the proposed methodological approach. Having said that, creating
actionable knowledge, implementable validity and instrumental impact is most
likely to occur if a number of fundamental principles are followed. Firstly, media
management researchers need to focus on research that is important to business,
and can provide an opportunity to create some form of organisational change and
economic impact. So having a practice-led orientation to research is essential, and if
media management researchers can co-create research studies and methodological
approaches with their practice counter-parts, then the possibility of achieving
72 John Oliver
actionable knowledge improves significantly. Secondly, as Oliver (2017) noted,

academics need to emphasise the relevance and currency of their work in both aca
demic and professional practice networks and ensure that they have something to
‘sell’. That something is new knowledge that has the potential to create instrumental
impact by influencing organisational practice or industry bodies and policymakers.
These stakeholders are more likely to engage with your research if it is presented in
non-peer-reviewed practitioner journals. Therefore, it is essential that research
findings are presented and targeted at the stakeholders that you want to influence.
For example, publishing your work in conference and peer-reviewed journals will
aim to establish the robustness of research findings and conclusions to an academic
audience. Publishing in practitioner journals and producing podcasts for busy
practitioners will provide a platform for your research to become relevant and
actionable. Thirdly, engage with practitioners at business conferences and events
because this will not only widen your networks, it is far more likely that you will
produce more innovative research as a result. Finally, researchers need to be
patient. It is rare that actionable research occurs overnight and in the ways that
have been planned. You will need to regularly engage with your networks and
check with practitioners if and how your research is (or is not) being used.
References
Argyris, C. (2003). A life full of learning. Organizational Studies, 24(7), 1178–1192.
Bowman, E. H., Singh, H. & Thomas, H. (2007). The domain of strategic management:
History and evolution. In A. Pettigrew, H. Thomas & R. Whittington (Eds.), Handbook
of strategy and management (pp. 31–51). London: Sage.
Deans, G. K., Kroeger, F. & Zeisel, S. (2002). The consolidation curve. Harvard Business
Review, 80(12), 20–21.
De Wit, B. & Meyer, R. (2010). Strategy synthesis: Resolving strategy paradoxes to create com
petitive advantage: Text and readings. Andover: Cengage Learning EMEA.
Dixon, S., Meyer, K. & Day, M. (2014). Building dynamic capabilities of adaptation and
innovation: A study of micro-foundations in a transition economy. Long Range Planning,
47(4), 186–205.
Eisenhardt, K. M. & Martin, J. A. (2000). Dynamic capabilities: What are they? Strategic
Management Journal, 21(10–11), 1105–1121.
Garvin, D. A. & Levesque, L. C. (2005). A note on scenario planning. Harvard Business
Review, 306(3), 1–10.
Grant, R. M. (2003). Strategic planning in a turbulent environment: Evidence from the oil
majors. Strategic Management Journal, 24(6), 491–517.
Great Britain. Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. (2017). Industrial
strategy: Building a Britain fit for the future. Retrieved from: www.gov.uk/governm
ent/publications/industrial-strategy-building-a-britain-fit-for-the-future.
Greenwood, D. J. & Levin, M. (1998). Action research, science, and the co-optation of
social research. Studies in Cultures, Organizations and Societies, 4(2), 237–261.
Guba, E. G. & Lincoln, Y. S. (1989). Fourth generation evaluation. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Hamel, G. (1996). Strategy as revolution. Harvard Business Review, July–August, 69–82.
Kemmis, S. & McTaggart, R. (2000). Participatory action research. In N. Denzin & Y.

Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 567–605). London: Sage.
Keough, S. M. & Shanahan, K. J. (2008). Scenario planning: toward a more complete
model for practice. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 10(2), 166–178.
Kung, L. (2008). Strategic management in the media: From theory to practice. London: Sage.
Lampel, J. & Shamsie, J. (2003). Capabilities in motion: New organizational forms and the
reshaping of the Hollywood movie industry. Journal of Management Studies, 40(8), 2189–2210.
Madhok, A. & Osegowitsch, T. (2000). The international biotechnology industry: A
dynamic capabilities perspective. Journal of International Business Studies, 31(2), 325–335.
Malhotra, N. & Hinings, C. B. (2015). Unpacking continuity and change as a process of
organizational transformation. Long Range Planning, 48(1), 1–22.
Marcus, A. (2009). Strategic foresight: A new look at scenarios. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Mierzejewska, B. (2018). Theoretical approaches in media management research revised.
In A. B. Albarran, B. Mierzejewska & J. Jung (Eds.), Handbook of media management and
economics (pp. 17–34). London: Routledge.
Miles, M. B. & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook.
Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.
Oliver, J. J. (2008). Reflections on a failed action learning intervention. Action Learning, 5(1),
79–83.
Oliver, J. J. (2013). Media management tools: UK broadcast media executives’ perspective.
International Journal on Media Management, 15(4), 245–257.
Oliver, J. J. (2014). Dynamic capabilities and superior firm performance in the UK media
industry. Journal of Media Business Studies, 11(2), 57–78.
Oliver, J. J. (2017). Exploring industry level capabilities in the UK creative industries.
Creative Industries Journal, 10(1), 75–88.
Oliver, J. J. (2018). Strategic transformations in a disruptive digital environment. Strategic
Direction, 34(5), 5–8.
Oliver, J. J. & Parrett, E. (2018). Managing future uncertainty: Reevaluating the role of
scenario planning. Business Horizons, 61(2), 339–352.
Pettigrew, A., Thomas, H. & Whittington, R. (Eds.) Handbook of strategy and management.
London: Sage
Revans, R. W. (1998). Sketches in action learning. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 11(1),
23–27.
Rigby, D. & Bilodeau, B. (2007). Bain’s global management tools and trends survey.
Strategy & Leadership, 35(5), 9–16.
Selsky, J. W. & McCann, J. E. (2008). Managing disruptive change and turbulence
through continuous change thinking and scenarios. In R. Ramirez, J. W. Selsky & K.
Van Der Heijden (Eds.), Business planning for turbulent times: New methods for applying
scenarios (pp. 167–186). London: Routledge.
Silverman, D. (2001). Interpreting qualitative data: Methods for analysing talk, text and interaction
(2nd ed.). London: Sage.
Teece, D. J., Pisano, G. & Shuen, A. (1997). Dynamic capabilities and strategic manage
ment. Strategic Management Journal, 18(7), 509–533.
Teece, D., Peteraf, M. A. & Leih, S. (2016). Dynamic capabilities and organizational agi
lity: Risk, uncertainty and entrepreneurial management in the innovation economy.
California Management Review, 58(4), 13–35.
Van Der Heijden, K. (2005). Scenarios: The art of strategic conversation. Chichester: John
Wiley & Sons.
74 John Oliver
Walton, J. S. (2008). Scanning beyond the horizon: Exploring the ontological and episte
mological basis for scenario planning. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 10(2),
147–165.
Zollo, M. & Winter, S. G. (2002). Deliberate learning and the evolution of dynamic
capabilities. Organization Science, 13(3), 339–351.
Zott, C. (2003). Dynamic capabilities and the emergence of intraindustry differential firm
performance: Insights from a simulation study. Strategic Management Journal, 24(2), 97–125.
5
CONDUCTING MEDIA MANAGEMENT
ETHNOGRAPHY
A Journey toward Impacting Industry
Stakeholders
Sven-Ove Horst
ERASMUS UNIVERSITY ROTTERDAM
Introduction
This chapter recounts my first experiences as a media management and organisation
studies scholar working with industry practitioners, principally to gather data and
learn their trade. The focus is on my journey with a group of Hamburg-based
change consultants who regularly work with media organisations and support them
in a range of different projects, initiatives and developments at the individual, team
and organisational level. My experiences of working with these consultants span
from 2014 to today and have progressed through six interlinked and partially itera
tive stages. In the following, I describe my experiences in (1) gaining access, (2)
building trust and relationships, (3) gathering data, (4) producing knowledge, (5)
identity-reflection, and (6) reflecting on my influence and relevance. Along these
stages, my impact varied from informing and supporting to shaping and transforming
ideas, values, and practices through ‘working together’. Before detailing these
experiences of building and managing my ‘impact’, I present the scientific and social
relevance and my theoretical framing of this study. The chapter concludes with a
discussion of the framework, summarising my personal impact.
Scientific and Social Relevance of This Study

Making research and knowledge in the field of media management more relevant to
public and private stakeholders is an important and growing topic of discussion
(Achtenhagen, 2016; Küng, 2007, 2010; Lowe, 2016; Murschetz & Friedrichsen,
2017; Ots & Picard, 2015; Picard & Lowe, 2016; Rohn, 2018). This is evident in
current reflections, which challenge us to push our thinking, adapt our frameworks,
integrate new scientific methods, and create relevant insights. These scholarly
76 Sven-Ove Horst
provocations ask, for example, ‘Does media management matter?’ (Küng, 2007),
‘What is so special about media management?’ (Lowe, 2016) or ‘Why are media
managers not interested in media management?’ (Küng, 2010). Essentially, this
reflective development shows that media management has significant questions to
answer for it to be able to sustain its impact and relevance in today’s fast-changing
and interconnected world, which is becoming saturated with digital media (cf.
Chalkley et al., 2017; Deuze, 2012; Lindgren, 2017; Pink & Leder Mackley, 2013),
and thereby becoming more ‘mediatized’ (Couldry & Hepp, 2017; Fredriksson &
Pallas, 2017). Moreover, these questions present a chance to discuss the foundational
aspects of the changing media phenomenon, such as ‘What is a media company?’
(Hess, 2014), and whether media management is or should be a ‘critical discipline’
(Brown, 2016) or an ‘applied one’ (Lowe, 2016). They also present an opportunity
not only to appropriate concepts and frameworks from other disciplines (often gen
eral management) toward the confines of the media industry (cf. Küng, 2017) but
also to create new approaches, new concepts, and new knowledge around what it
means to ‘manage media.’ Asking the question ‘What is media management today?’
could be a chance to broaden our understanding of media management and to go
beyond its current boundaries to include managing media in other industries and
contexts (Horst & Murschetz, 2019; Ots et al., 2015; Rohn, 2018; Horst, Järventie-
Thesleff, & Perez-Latre, 2019). In fact, one might claim that it is important to address
these and further questions to raise more awareness and to create more ‘impact’. This
can be achieved not only through developing and reflecting on the scholarly dis
course but also through influencing, supporting, transforming, informing and
working with public and private stakeholders in the media industry and beyond.
However, despite their importance, meaningful discussions around the relations
between researchers and stakeholders are largely absent from the field, even though
working with stakeholders and ensuring good corporate conduct is an important
avenue of investigation (Adams-Bloom & Cleary, 2009; Apostol & Näsi, 2014;
Habisch & Bachmann, 2017; Karmasin & Bichler, 2017; Poutanen et al., 2016).
Such an engagement with stakeholders is important because of the changing reali
ties, modes of communication, and interaction that digital media bring about
(Couldry & Hepp, 2017; Deuze, 2012; Kember & Zylinska, 2015). Fundamen
tally, digital media are changing the foundations of managing and doing business –
not only in the media industry, but in all industries. Digitalisation influences, for
example, the development of stakeholder relations and our understanding of
strategy (Plesner & Gulbrandsen, 2015), the conduct of marketing campaigns
(Voyer et al., 2017), strategy and sustainability (Porter & Kramer, 2006), the prac
tice and understanding of entrepreneurship (Giones & Brem, 2017; Nambisan,
2018), and the way in which participatory journalism enables stakeholders to co-
create the content and meaning of news (Anderson & Revers, 2018), as well as the
importance of stakeholders for conducting research (Cassell et al., 2009). While we
are clearly witnessing these ongoing changes across organisations and society, we
have no explicit knowledge about the role of media management researchers, their
Conducting Media Management Ethnography 77
stakeholder relations, or their strategies for creating ‘impact’. Therefore, this

research aimed to address the following research question: How can media man
agement scholars build long-term, mutually synergistic relationships with con
sultants in the media industry and ‘impact’ industry practice?
Relevance of the Technique of Ethnography

To answer the research question, I employed ethnography as the research method.
Van Maanen (2011b, p. 151) describes ethnography as a ‘technique of gathering
research material by subjecting the self – body, belief, personality, emotions, cogni
tions – to a set of contingencies that play on each other so that over time – usually a
long time – one can more or less see, hear, feel, and come to understand the kinds of
responses others display (and withhold) in particular social situations.’ Therefore,
ethnographic inquiries are helpful for describing, analysing and reflecting on how to
build long-term synergistic relationships with media practitioners, because researchers
often introduce (new) concepts and ideas to organisations from which strategic deci
sions can be made and new conversations and knowledge can be developed (cf.
Fayard & Van Maanen, 2015, p. 5). Because I am drawing on my own journey as a
‘researcher-practitioner’, my ethnographic approach is classed as ‘auto-ethnographic’
(Doloriert & Sambrook, 2012; Ellis et al., 2011; Ellis & Bochner, 2006; Islam, 2015).
This means I am both a fully versed inside participant in the local activities and a fully
fledged member of the academic community (Vesa & Vaara, 2014, p. 291). In
accordance with ethnography, the following journey is brought to life in a narrative
style with ‘thick descriptions’ (Geertz, 2008), which allow readers to dive into this
context to develop a sense of understanding and ‘transferability’ so that they can
‘vicariously experience these happenings and draw conclusions’ (Moisander & Val
tonen, 2006, p. 29). Next, I talk about gaining access as my first step in the ethno
graphic journey.
Scene 1: Gaining Access

Gaining access is the basis for doing research. Hence, it was also the foundation
for my research ‘in the field’ (Biernacki & Waldorf, 1981; Moisander & Valtonen,
2006; Murthy, 2013; Vesa & Vaara, 2014). My intention was rather humble and
practical, because I simply wanted ‘to have access’. So, how did it start?
As a young researcher, I was fascinated by research on strategy as practice (SAP), a
‘fresh’ strategy discourse that addresses not only the content but more broadly the
way in which strategy is conducted by people in their specific circumstances and
contexts (see e.g. Horst, 2019; Horst & Järventie-Thesleff, 2016; Horst et al., 2019;
Horst & Moisander, 2015; Järventie-Thesleff et al., 2014). Therefore, I was broadly
interested in understanding how consulting organisations functioned, how they
worked with clients, and how they did strategy (Golsorkhi et al., 2015). Now, with
this framing, I proposed my orginial intention to work with the consultants. I
78 Sven-Ove Horst
remember meeting the founder of the consulting company I was ultimately to work
with one evening before Christmas 2013 in the city of Hamburg for dinner, and we
discussed my development at Aalto University in Helsinki. I explained what I was
learning on my pedagogical development programme at the university, how I was
preparing classes, and how I could now (better) see what it meant to be an academic
(a post-doc at the time). I explained I still had much to learn about academia, and
how Aalto University School of Business was providing this entrance for me. For
example, I learned that ‘I needed to have my own data’ as part of my own resources
to do high-quality research. I needed to be independent, yet forward-looking. I
needed to be fresh and innovative, yet enduring in pursuing a topic.
With this in mind, it all came together one evening. I had known the owner of
the consulting company from the time when I was writing my dissertation, but we
had not yet managed to work together. The consultant explained that he was
establishing his own organisation with his own team. Before, he had been working
as a co-founder and acting CEO of an institute that offered counselling and change
consulting services to a variety of customers. Overall, his partners had a stronger
focus on health and clinical therapy, and were more focused on psychology than
on consulting organisations. But now, he wanted to be more independent and to
only work with industry practitioners, teams and organisations. Therefore, he
approached me and said that ‘now would be the time to work together’, and to do
that, ‘I would need to spend time with them and participate in their leadership
development programme’. Only by spending time with them, by learning how
they worked, could I understand the meaning of being a ‘change consultant’.
‘Only through spending time with them,’ the founder reiterated, ‘could I con
tribute to how they make decisions, work together, and aim to develop the firm.’
He wanted me to act as a researcher and as a consultant. The intention was that I
should contribute with my knowledge to the organisation’s operative and strategic
decisions and add a layer of reflexivity to the organisation through being (1) a
surface of reflection and (2) an additional lens with distinct knowledge and cultural
experiences. By accepting this invitation and immersing myself in their organisa
tion, I realised I could ensure access to privileged knowledge not usually available
to outsiders and thus could gain an intimate understanding of being, acting, and
working in this context (Vesa & Vaara, 2014, p. 290).
At the time, I only wanted to have access, so I did not care much about the
enormous amount of time I was going to spend with them. Instead, I felt it was an
important opportunity to obtain access to unique empirical data. We discussed that
I would spend as much time with them as I could, participating in all internal
strategy and organisational development meetings, as well as taking part in their
educational programme offered to clients, through which I could learn more about
change management consulting. In turn, they would grant me access to their
facilities and sit down with me for interviews so that I could document my
experience. As smooth as this may sound, it actually took a long time to unfold.
We had started talking in 2011, yet it was not until the end of 2013 that we finally
agreed on working together. This shows that building trust and relationships may
also, at times, be an important stage preceding the stage of getting access.
Scene 2: Building Trust and Relationships

While getting access took a long time, luckily, once the connection is established,
things can then proceed rather quickly. People now support you and welcome
you because they trust you. Tedlock (2003, p. 165) explains that ‘ethnography
involves an ongoing attempt to place specific encounters, events, and under
standings into a fuller, more meaningful context’. This requires that you genu
inely care about what is going on. The people that you work with need to see
and know that you do not just care about yourself and your own goals and
ambitions, for example, for getting data, and that you are open to building shared
goals and ambitions. These shared goals bring confidence to the relationship and
enhance trust.
In this sense, my recommendation is threefold. First, I made it clear from the
beginning that I wanted to collect data, but that I was willing to put in a lot of
energy and effort to work with them on their projects and to give them honest
feedback about their work and ideas, so that they could see some immediate
benefits for their organisation. This meant I needed to attend workshops and
meetings, and started preparing client presentations with them, while also parti
cipating in their development programme. I spent many weeks like that, simply
spending time with them, and absorbing what it meant to be a consultant.
Everybody knew I was there to work with them but also to conduct research. I
was in a dual role. All the time. This shows it is good to manage the expectations
of both parties very clearly. If your intention is to do research, say it clearly and
do it early. Clearly stating one’s intentions is helpful for establishing trust.
Second, my recommendation would be to set your own agenda aside – and to
put theirs first. Because ethnography is about ‘gaining access to the conceptual
world in which our subjects live so that we can … converse with them’ (Geertz,
1973, p. 24 in Yanow, 2012), you may not yet know what is important until you
learn it through spending time in this context. Hence, be prepared to spend time
finding out what is relevant and meaningful to your collaborators, and how you
can connect that with your own research intentions. Similar to getting access to
sensitive contexts (see for example Dundon & Ryan, 2010), the support I
received from the consultants was only possible because I agreed to become one
of them, to spend time with them, to support them, to listen to them and to
participate. Through this, I obtained the ‘complete member-researcher status’
(Doloriert & Sambrook, 2012, p. 84).
Third, you need to build a basis for working with people. In this sense, net
working, being attentive, being open and actually listening to people are impor
tant, because you never know what you might want to do your next research
project on, or on what topic you may be asked to write a book chapter or article.
80 Sven-Ove Horst
This relates to the third scene in my ‘tale of the field’ (Van Maanen, 2011b)
regarding gathering data.
Scene 3: Gathering Data

Generally, Alvesson and Sköldberg (2009, p. 85) describe how ethnography
assumes having an open mind vis-á-vis the object of study:
Naturally some theory or frame of reference must direct the work, but the
purpose of this is to give some direction and system to the task, rather than
to get in the way of crucial observation and analysis. Research success also
presupposes ample access to comprehensive and abundant data of different
kinds, and competence at handling these. Furthermore, personal involve
ment, flexibility and the opportunity for close contact with the subject of
interest are required. (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2009, pp. 85–86)
With this in mind, I knew that semi-structured qualitative interviews or even

unstructured open-ended reflective interviews might be an important form of data
gathering, because they would allow different forms of textual analysis. But I did
not yet know what other kinds of data would become important in the future.
After all, as the ways of doing research progress, we experience that data-sets grow
richer and more diverse. Therefore, I wanted to preserve an openness and flex
ibility to what I could do with my data and therefore I requested, and obtained,
permission to video-tape workshops, audio-record meetings, take pictures of the
setting, and to slip in short reflective interviews with my colleagues after an event. I
took notes, wrote emails and made comments on documents. Overall, I retained
this openness toward data as long as possible and basically tried to document
everything.
Thinking back to this time, I was in a luxurious position, because I did not have
any teaching responsibilities, and had very little thesis supervision, and hence, I
could focus on spending more time in the field, collecting data, and making con
nections and experiences. Not knowing how much time I could spend with them,
my dual mode as a researcher-practitioner was ‘always on.’ In this sense, I got lucky
with my consultants because they let me become one of them and in turn, they
opened their hearts and minds to my dual role as a researcher-practitioner or
practitioner-researcher, depending on what we were working on. Furthermore,
the more they grew accustomed to me taking pictures or recording our sessions,
the easier and less obtrusive it became. I experienced that I was spending time
writing notes because it felt important. I usually sat down to record reflections with
the founder after a session with clients, because these seemed meaningful and this
process served as a way to enhance my reflexivity of the practice, as well as pro
viding solid material for analysis. I took pictures because I thought they might help
highlighting the way in which the consultants work, from which we could develop
better descriptions for their clients and possibly a better branding of their services
on their homepage, and not just because I needed visual data for my multimodal
qualitative research (cf. Jarzabkowski et al., 2015). This stage is important because
you are (partially) seizing the opportunity to think as a researcher, at least pre
dominantly, and instead start focusing on being and thinking as a practitioner.
Auto-ethnography allows one to immersively understand how strategy work

is experienced by different organisational members, not only top managers, and
offers means for such analysis. (Vesa & Vaara, 2014, p. 291; emphasis added)
My ‘impact’ on their work during this period was subtle, but important. It was
based on how we could use the data I was gathering and the way in which I was
gathering it for a reflective development of their organisation. They spent as
much time listening to my reflections as I contributed to their ideas and chal
lenges. Through my participation and collection of data, they increased their own
reflections of their everyday and strategic issues, which in turn enabled them to
describe their products from new angles, to focus more on what clients may
want, to make more reflective decisions, and to ‘strategise’ in a more reflective
manner.
Scene 4: Analysing and Interpreting Data and Producing

Knowledge Together
The process of data analysis and interpretation in ethnographic research is an
intersubjective construction of the world the researcher means to describe, rather
than just a mirror reflecting that world in a one-to-one correspondence (Yanow,
2012, p. 34). This means, through the ‘experience of taking close to the same
“shit” others take day-in and day-out (or, if not taking it directly, hanging out
with others who do)’, the fieldworker is able to describe and interpret what is
going on in a similar manner as a native (Van Maanen, 2011a, p. 220). The
researcher effectively builds up a reservoir of internalised knowledge from and
around that practice, and this creates the basis for their knowledge construction.
Only now that I am sitting down to write these ideas for this chapter, have I
consciously thought about how to frame, interpret and theoretically understand
what I experienced. While I was in the field, I simply enjoyed working as a
consultant, working with external clients, developing the consultants’ brand,
strategising how to best present their/our offerings, and participating in their
leadership development programme, which helped enrich my personal horizon
and my ways of acting, being and feeling. Through the process of being in the
field, I also grew as a person.
When I finally sat down to analyse my data, it was about constructing a story,
reflecting on how I felt, and what I had learned. It was about revisiting my field
notes, looking at the pictures and video clips, connecting my impressions with
82 Sven-Ove Horst
different theoretical lenses, and creating a reflexive interpretation of the work

from different angles. In this sense, ‘theory is thus both a resource for guiding
fieldwork and an outcome of the thinking process which is stimulated by the
interplay in the researcher’s mind of theory and field experience’ (Watson, 2012,
p. 19). But this is only possible, if we can draw from a ‘deep collaboration with
the organisation being studied’, because only that ‘allows for substantial latitude in
both how we interact with practitioners and how we report on our findings’
(Vesa & Vaara, 2014, p. 291). This deep collaboration creates the basis for shared
interpretation and the co-construction of knowledge.
It was clear that the synergistic relationship we created together also had a gen
erative impact on the consultants’ own interpretation of their work practices, the
ways in which they could more clearly express the nature of their work, and how
they could develop their firm. We used the different forms of my documentation
(audio files, notes, pictures, etc.) as a surface for self-reflection and constructive
work enhancement. Through recalling elements of our last meetings, by looking at
the pictures together, and by going over the notes we took, we developed
descriptions, understandings, and new conceptions of our/their work, and tried
answering a number of practical questions, such as how we could make learning
outcomes more tangible for clients and how we could use pictures to better market
the services. This shared construction of knowledge and visibility enabled strategic
action to be taken on an aggregate level. Organisationally, I acted as a source of
reflection, which increased their reflexivity on what could be done to develop and
position the firm more strategically. It created a mirror through which short
comings in current practices could be revealed, which, in turn, helped finding
solutions for making the pitches to clients more tangible, how to facilitate better
knowledge management in the organisation through the use of cloud-services, and
an updating of the structure and content on the company website. This exemplifies
that through constructing meaning and knowledge, we were able to make a gen
erative impact together.
Scene 5: Reflective Identity Work

Active and conscious self-development is the basis for building long-term syner
gistic relations with public and private stakeholders. As Alvesson and Sköldberg
(2009, p. 86) sustain, ethnography gives more scope to the researcher as a person
and allows for flexible (self-)development. Similarly, Tedlock (2003, p. 165)
explains that ‘the ongoing nature of the fieldwork connects important personal
experiences with an area of knowledge; as a result, it is located between the inter
iority of autobiography and the exteriority of cultural analysis’. This highlights that
a crucial part of my own development was implicated as an outcome in the process
of doing research in this setting.
During the course of my research, I realised I was actively working on my identity
as I was becoming a consultant. In other words, I was conducting ‘identity work’
(Alvesson, 2001; Brown, 2015; Oliver, 2015). This is defined by Watson (2008, p.
129) as involving ‘the mutually constitutive processes whereby people strive to shape
a relatively coherent and distinctive notion of personal self-identity and struggle to
come to terms with and, within limits, to influence the various social-identities
which pertain to them in the various milieu in which they live their lives’. Now,
looking back, I realise how actively I was actually working toward becoming a
consultant. I was adopting their talk. I was using their language, their concepts, their
ways of dressing, their ways of presenting and conducting myself, while among them
and working with them, and even when working with clients. I was actively claim
ing, accepting, negotiating, affirming, stabilising, maintaining, reproducing, and
challenging my sense of self (cf. Schultz, Maguire, Langley & Tsoukas, 2012, p. 3).
The concept of identity work shifts the focus toward seeing identity as an ongoing
accomplishment. It shifts attention to the ongoing processes of enacting ‘how we are
becoming’ certain types of people, consultants or public stakeholders, rather than
defining ‘what we are’ (Schultz et al., 2012, p. 4). In this way, I felt the meaning and
essence of becoming a consultant. I had to stop being only a researcher and had to
become a researcher-consultant or a consultant-researcher ‘hybrid’, creating for
myself a sense of self-identity that included being both a researcher and practitioner,
in various layers and formats (cf. Blomberg, 2005).
This dual nature is not always unproblematic. The potential fluidity of my
identity and identification with ‘being a consultant’, as well as the contextual and
negotiated aspects of my multiple identities – or my multifaceted identity – as well
as the potential conflict(s) with each other are core aspects of the processes of
identity construction and identification (Cornelissen et al., 2007, p. 4). This high
lights that I had to become more conscious of the processes of categorisation,
interpretation and the enactment of myself and from the other consultants. At the
same time, I did not experience uncertainty or a fear of losing myself through
becoming or learning to be a practitioner, because I liked doing/being both:
working as researcher and working as practitioner. Because my intentions of being
a researcher and acting as a consultant were aligned, I never felt that I had to
choose between them. I was in the position to combine both. My research project
allowed me to be flexible and to focus on gathering data and spending time in the
field, while my consultant role supported me in the process of gathering data and
allowed me a chance to reflect more intimately on their products, and to jointly
work with the other consultants toward better strategising in their organisation.
What I can conclude from my experience is the importance of being as attentive
as possible to what is going on and how you want to develop your self-identity.
Only through conscious actions can one learn and make use of being different.
Therefore, it is important to take time to reflect upon what is going on, because in
this uncertainty of development lies the potential for doing good and for doing it
well. As Bauman (2009, p. 63) explains, ‘uncertainty is the home ground of the
moral person and the only soil in which morality can sprout and flourish’.
84 Sven-Ove Horst
Together, uncertainty in outcome and attentiveness to the process are parts of the
nature and grounds for having a reflective impact on industry practitioners.
Scene 6: Ethics and Relevance for Local Stakeholders

Making organisational ethnographies for creating new knowledge and for actively
having an ‘impact’ on industry stakeholders makes it necessary to work reflec
tively with the ethical concerns that this influence and responsibility entail. This
means, being/becoming conscious of what was agreed upon at the beginning,
what you have lived through together, and what you experienced and learned
from one another are key reference points for doing research and managing its
impact.
Becoming more conscious about the ‘social contract’ of doing research and
being an organisational member are important. When doing an auto-ethnography
it is important to become aware of how one may move from a ‘more observa
tional, less explicitly interventionist role to a more actively interventionist one’
(Yanow, 2012, p. 37). This includes the need for reflecting upon the ethical issues
regarding one’s own responsibility while ‘having an impact’ on local stakeholders.
However, this is not unproblematic when one shifts from one role (e.g. a passive
researcher) toward another (e.g. an active, participatory member). For Yanow
(2012, p. 37), this is problematic because a researcher may not know enough
before the full research–analysis cycle is finished to warrant making presentations
and giving feedback to stakeholders. This is because, as she admits, in many cases,
the researcher may not have had any training or ‘licence’ to perform such a role,
which brings to attention ethical, professional, and moral concerns (Yanow,
2012). Yanow (2012, p. 37) sees problems here in that organisational members
might not be ready to hear, or may not even want to hear, the researcher’s
feedback and thus she calls for critical ethical self-questioning:
How will this role impact the organization? Established research relation
ships? One’s research role? The ongoing research? To whom should such
feedback be given: all members, mid-level managers, the CEO, members of
the board? What is the best timing, for the research project or the organiza
tion, to give it? (Yanow, 2012, p. 37)
This highlights the importance of being aware of one’s influence and ethical
responsibility. Hence, we as researchers should come to better understand our
role and influence: What I say matters. What I say may have an impact that I may
or may not intend. How I work with my stakeholders matters. This is particularly
true for an auto-ethnography:
Ideally, an auto-ethnographer is both a fully versed inside participant in

strategy-making and a fully-fledged member of the academic community.
Hence, auto-ethnography is a tall order in today’s academic world and

requires a clear awareness of its pragmatic and ethical ramifications on the
part of the researcher. It is indeed difficult to be both a successful academic
and an active strategist in an organisation. (Vesa & Vaara, 2014, p. 291)
At the same time, I would like to point toward a different interpretation regarding
this matter. While these reservations are important, especially because they ensure
good scientific conduct and prevent unnecessary mistakes, they are also written
from the angle of the ‘pure’ academic, who is primarily concerned with doing
high-quality research, not the researcher who is worried about losing industry
connections that took a long time to build, or about not having access to the
organisation anymore. This means, these considerations, as important as they are,
are rather one-sided. Seeing them from viewpoint of a practitioner, I have learned
that they/we want feedback. They/we want to know and learn and to get better in
the services we provide. This is the core of reflective impact.
The better the relationship, the more trust you have with one another, the more
sensitive the topics can be to which feedback may be given. When the other
practitioners trust your judgement and value your knowledge, they also expect you
to tell them honestly what you perceive and think. This needs to be framed con
sciously as one particular interpretation, but it can be just as valid and important as
their own interpretations. Your ideas, interpretations and influence are just as good
and necessary, because you have become part of their organisation. Therefore, it
becomes important to ask questions concerning your ethical responsibility, such as:
� Should I actually withhold information, even if it is important for the others

to know, just because it may influence my research objectives?
� Should I refrain from sharing my interpretations, because others may not like
them, even though I find them valid and morally relevant?
� What ethical position would I construe for myself if I withhold relevant
information from the other practitioners?
� Can I factually position myself as a researcher, without seeing myself also as a
practitioner that has an important role to play in this context?
� Can I or should I see myself as a practitioner, without taking note that I am
also a researcher with a full-time job at the university?
� What influence would I like to have in practice? And what influence am I
actually having?
� How is my influence co-constructed with the other practitioners in this
context?
� What is our relationship toward one another, and how is this changing
through working together?
� What are we learning from one another? What is the transformational
potential of this?
86 Sven-Ove Horst
My experiences with the consultants indicated that it is important to become

an active ethical subject. It is key to have concerns about the dual role of the
researcher-practitioner to ensure one can live up to one’s ethical considerations in
practice. Moreover, it is important to negotiate these reflexive questions not only
internally but openly with and in relation to the other practitioners in the orga
nisation that you have become a part of.
Negotiating this ethical responsibility is the foundation for the ultimate impact one
may have on industry stakeholders at this stage. This is because knowledge about the
research phenomenon is co-constructed with the other practitioners. Furthermore,
one’s contribution as a practitioner in the context of the practice is co-constructed
with the others. This means, as a researcher, one needs to make sure not to shy away
from one’s moral and ethical responsibility as an acting practitioner, and must live up
to this responsibility through conscious and reflective practice. This may produce
more tangible and more relevant knowledge for the public and private stakeholders.
Discussion and Conclusion

The chapter makes two contributions to the field: (1) a theoretical contribution to
understanding the nature of building and exerting influence on industry stake
holders, and (2) a methodological contribution to describing the nature of con
ducting fieldwork, building relationships, gathering data, and reflecting on one’s
‘impact’ and self-development as an ethnographer in the field. The impact on the
industry stakeholders was elaborated as part of a journey across six stages of
development. On this basis, three broader categories of impact were constructed:
preparatory impact, generative impact and reflective impact. This is visualised in
the graphic below (see Figure 5.1).
FIGURE 5.1 The Nature of Impact on Industry Stakeholders over Time

Firstly, the impact on public and private stakeholders began, in this case, through
gaining access and building relationships with the practitioners. The impact was
exploratory in nature. In these two stages, I put my own agenda aside and focused
on working together, learning, and adapting to the context I was in, laying the
foundations for sustained collaboration. The idea at this stage was more about
informing, listening and enabling knowledge sharing, idea development, and trust
building. For these reasons, this is called the preparatory impact. Secondly, my jour
ney progressed through various stages of gathering data and co-producing knowl
edge. This could be seen in a stronger focus on aligning our goals, which were
about gathering data, learning from one another, and interpreting the data toward
producing knowledge and new insights, as well as contributing to being a part of
their team/group. Our joint focus was on being successful together and working
generatively toward new ideas that could also enhance their organisational and
strategic practices. We used my research activities constructively for developing
new ideas for the marketing of the organisation, such as by enhancing the
description of their services, visualising activities in new ways, and creating new
ideas for business pitches to clients. Therefore, this form is called the generative
impact. Thirdly, the following two stages marked a move toward enhanced reflex
ivity in actions and in impact. While I was developing as a practitioner/researcher
hybrid, I was also becoming more aware of the continuous nature of my impact. I
became aware that I could not ‘not have an impact’. Therefore, I took the time to
reflect upon the development of my self-identity as a researcher-consultant. I asked
myself what my impact should be and how I could best use my opportunities for
informing, supporting, facilitating, reflecting and transforming (with) my industry
stakeholders. Therefore, this form of impact is called the reflective impact.
The chapter outlines my experiences and difficulties in developing relationships
with industry stakeholders. It reveals that these relationships can sometimes take a
long time to develop (in my case, from before 2013 to 2019 onwards). This exem
plifies that building productive relationships should not be expected to just be about
gathering data, viewing the field and writing up the report, as is suggested by many
project plans and funding agencies. Instead, we need to learn that to achieve a more
reflexive influence, such as a generative impact or reflective impact, one might need
prolonged and intensive personal engagement with people in the field. Essentially,
the research outcome is inherently uncertain and can only be productively co-cre
ated over time. Furthermore, this research shows that building a mutually synergistic
relationship is necessary to achieve joint success in a collaborative engagement with
industry stakeholders. When starting a joint project, it may not be clear what direc
tion the project will take, and it may need to be mutually constructed over time.
However, there is a great potential for creative collaboration that cannot be foreseen
ex ante, but that can be explored through engaging in an open-ended research
process and genuine industry-participation. Similarly, as an ‘emergent strategy’ in
media management (Horst & Järventie-Thesleff, 2016; Horst et al., 2019), the actors
need to harness their skills for letting the future emerge (Chia, 2017). On this basis,
88 Sven-Ove Horst
‘impact’ may better be understood as an open-ended process of inquiry toward

genuine engagement with public and private stakeholders.
These outcomes are also relevant for other scientific studies, because if we want to
create more elaborate concepts and better theories that enable us to create more
meaningful impact for industry stakeholders (Achtenhagen, 2016; Mierzejewska,
2018; Murschetz & Friedrichsen, 2017; Picard & Lowe, 2016; Rohn, 2018), we
need to continue questioning if we are a critical discipline that aims to foster change
and transformation (Brown, 2016). We need to address and revisit what scope our
research area has; for example, through asking what media management is (Küng,
2017) or what a media company is (Hess, 2014). Ultimately, we need to con
tinuously push our thinking and possibly widen our scope in order to ‘redefine’ what
media management is or can be (Achtenhagen, 2017; Horst et al., 2019; Horst &
Murschetz, 2019; Ots et al., 2015; Rohn, 2018).
The research is relevant for industry practitioners and decision-makers alike,
because it shows the synergistic nature of the impact as well as the complexity and
uncertainty of building productive relationships. Since research outcomes are often
expected to be delivered within short time-spans, this chapter takes a contradictory
stance and highlights that meaningful research outcomes may only surface after rather
long periods of engagement with the field. The pressures from funding agencies tend,
therefore, not to necessarily be supportive of producing novel insights but instead
push researchers toward seeking short-term wins and rephrasing existing knowledge,
thereby restricting reflection and the problematising of fundamental issues about
developing knowledge in the field. This may lead to distortions and misconceptions
of the research–practice relationship, and possibly even reduce the opportunities for
preparatory, generative and reflective impact in the long run. Yet, we know that
proximity and co-location are key for producing creative ideas (Bhansing et al., 2018).
Therefore, this research shows that the research impact should not be seen as an ‘add
on’ to research projects, but as a natural and constitutive element of genuine research,
which is co-produced with industry stakeholders.
The chapter is not without limitations, and it is worth highlighting these. The
style of writing draws upon my own ‘close observation of and involvement with
people in a particular social setting’ (Watson, 2012, p. 16) and presents one inter
pretation of how I created and managed my impact on specific industry stakeholders.
The story and the knowledge from these experiences are as much a co-construction
between me (the researcher) and situational members (the industry stakeholders)
(Yanow, 2012, p. 34) as they are only one particular interpretation of events and
developments. However, the strength in this inquiry is seen in ensuring ‘access to
privileged knowledge not usually available to outsiders and an intimate under
standing of what it is and feels like to [impact industry stakeholders in this setting] –
with all its limited information, unpredictability, emotional upheaval, lack of
resources, and constraining sociomaterial conditions’ (Vesa & Vaara, 2014, p. 290).
To conclude, I want to highlight the importance of ‘giving more to others
than receiving yourself’ (Onaran, 2019, p. 209). This is not only a fundamental
rule in networking, but also an underlying feature for developing long-term

synergistic relationships with public and private stakeholders. As one of the fore
most experts on female digital media networking, Onaran (2019) explains that
‘networking is not a one-way street’. This means, networking is not about con
necting with others just to obtain access and data, but about being open, trying to
understand others, giving support and sharing ideas. This is the basis upon which
good interactions with public and private stakeholders are based, and from which
meaningful impact can emerge.
References
Achtenhagen, L. (2016). Developing media management scholarship: A commentary to
Picard and Lowe’s essay. Journal of Media Business Studies, 13(2), 117–123.
Achtenhagen, L. (2017). Media entrepreneurship: Taking stock and moving forward.
Adams-Bloom, T. & Cleary, J. (2009). Staking a claim for social responsibility: An argument
for the dual responsibility model. International Journal on Media Management, 11(1), 1–8.
Alvesson, M. (2001). Knowledge work: Ambiguity, image and identity. Human Relations,
54(7), 863–886.
Alvesson, M. & Sköldberg, K. (2009). Reflexive methodology: New vistas for qualitative research
(2nd ed.). London: Sage.
Anderson, C. W. & Revers, M. (2018). From counter-power to counter-Pepe: The vagaries
of participatory epistemology in a digital age. Media and Communication, 6(4), 24–35.
Apostol, O. & Näsi, S. (2014). Firm–employee relationships from a social responsibility
perspective: Developments from communist thinking to market ideology in Romania.
A mass media story. Journal of Business Ethics, 119(3), 301–315.
Bauman, Z. (2009). Does ethics have a chance in a world of consumers?Cambridge, MA: Har
vard University Press.
Bhansing, P. V., Hitters, E. & Wijngaarden, Y. (2018). Passion inspires: Motivations of
creative entrepreneurs in creative business centres in the Netherlands. The Journal of
Entrepreneurship, 27(1), 1–24.
Biernacki, P. & Waldorf, D. (1981). Snowball sampling: Problems and techniques of chain
referral sampling. Sociological Methods & Research, 10(2), 141–163.
Blomberg, J. (2005). The coming of age of hybrids: Notes on ethnographic praxis. Ethno
graphic Praxis in Industry Conference Proceedings, 2005(1), 67–74.
Brown, A. D. (2015). Identities and identity work in organizations. International Journal of
Management Reviews, 17(1), 20–40.
Brown, C. (2016). Media management: A critical discipline? In G. F. Lowe & C. Brown (Eds.),
Managing media firms and industries: What’s so special about media management? (pp. 83–100).
Heidelberg: Springer.
Cassell, C., Bishop, V., Symon, G., Johnson, P. & Buehring, A. (2009). Learning to be a
qualitative management researcher. Management Learning, 40(5), 513–533.
Chalkley, T., Hobbs, M., Brown, A., Warren, B. & Finn, M. (2017). Communication, digital
media and everyday life (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Chia, R. (2017). A process-philosophical understanding of organizational learning as
‘wayfinding’: Process, practices and sensitivity to environmental affordances. The Learn
ing Organization, 24(2), 107–118.
90 Sven-Ove Horst
Cornelissen, J. P., Haslam, A. S. & Balmer, J. M. T. (2007). Social identity, organiza

tional identity and corporate identity: Towards an integrated understanding of pro
cesses, patternings and products. British Journal of Management, 18(S1), S1–S16.
Couldry, N. & Hepp, A. (2017). The mediated construction of reality. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Deuze, M. (2012). Media Life. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Doloriert, C. & Sambrook, S. (2012). Organisational autoethnography. Journal of Organi
zational Ethnography, 1(1), 83–95.
Dundon, T. & Ryan, P. (2010). Interviewing reluctant respondents: Strikes, henchmen,
and Gaelic games. Organizational Research Methods, 13(3), 562–581.
Ellis, C. S., Adams, T. E. & Bochner, A. P. (2011). Autoethnography: An overview. His
torical Social Research / Historische Sozialforschung, 36(4(138)), 273–290.
Ellis, C. S. & Bochner, A. P. (2006). Analyzing analytic autoethnography: An autopsy.
Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 35(4), 429–449.
Fayard, A.-L. & van Maanen, J. (2015). Making culture visible: Reflections on corporate
ethnography. Journal of Organizational Ethnography, 4(1), 4–27.
Fredriksson, M. & Pallas, J. (2017). The localities of mediatization: How organizations
translate mediatization into everyday practices. In O. Driessens, G. Bolin, A. Hepp & S.
Hjarvard (Eds.), Dynamics of mediatization: Institutional change and everyday transformations in
a digital age (pp. 119–136). Cham: Springer.
Geertz, C. (2008). Thick description: Toward an interpretive theory of culture. In T. S.
Oakes & P. L. Price (Eds.), The cultural geography reader (pp. 41–51). London: Routledge.
Giones, F. & Brem, A. (2017). Digital technology entrepreneurship: A definition and
research agenda. Technology Innovation Management Review, 7(5), 44–51.
Golsorkhi, D., Rouleau, L., Seidl, D. & Vaara, E. (2015). Introduction: What is strategy as
practice? In D. Golsorkhi, L. Rouleau, D. Seidl & E. Vaara (Eds.), Cambridge handbook of
strategy as practice (pp. 1–20). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Habisch, A. & Bachmann, C. (2017). Media management in the digital age: Toward a
practical wisdom-based approach. In K.-D. Altmeppen, C. A. Hollifield & J. van
Loon (Eds.), Value-oriented media management: Decision making between profit and respon
sibility (pp. 181–188). Cham: Springer.
Horst, S.-O. (2019). Strategisches Handeln von Start-ups im Kontext der Mediatisierung: Eine
empirische Analyse der kommunikativen Praktiken der Markenführung. In C. Kochhan,
T. Könecke & H. Schunk (Eds.), Marken und Start-ups: Markenmanagement und Kommuni
kation bei Unternehmensgründungen (pp. 187–211). Heidelberg: Springer.
Horst, S.-O. & Järventie-Thesleff, R. (2016). Finding an emergent way through transforma
tional change: A narrative approach to strategy. Journal of Media Business Studies, 13(1), 3–21.
Horst, S.-O., Järventie-Thesleff, R. & Baumann, S. (2019). The practice of shared inquiry:
How actors manage for strategy emergence. Journal of Media Business Studies, 16(3), 1–28.
Horst, S.-O., Järventie-Thesleff, R., & Perez-Latre, F. J. (2019). Entrepreneurial identity
development through digital media. Journal of Media Business Studies, 1–26. doi:10.1080/
16522354.2019.1689767
Horst, S.-O. & Moisander, J. (2015). Paradoxes of strategic renewal in traditional print-
oriented media firms. International Journal on Media Management, 17(3), 157–174.
Horst, S.-O. & Murschetz, P. C. (2019). Strategic media entrepreneurship: Theory develop
ment and problematization. Journal of Media Management and Entrepreneurship, 1(1), 1–26.
Islam, G. (2015). Practitioners as theorists: Para-ethnography and the collaborative study of

contemporary organizations. Organizational Research Methods, 18(2), 231–251.
Järventie-Thesleff, R., Moisander, J. & Villi, M. (2014). The strategic challenge of con
tinuous change in multi-platform media Organizations: A strategy-as-practice perspec
tive. International Journal on Media Management, 16(3–4), 123–138.
Jarzabkowski, P., Burke, G. & Spee, P. (2015). Constructing spaces for strategic work: A
multimodal perspective. British Journal of Management, 26, S26–S47.
Karmasin, M. & Bichler, K. (2017). Corporate social responsibility in the media industry:
Setting the benchmark or falling behind? In K.-D. Altmeppen, C. A. Hollifield & J. van
Loon (Eds.), Value-oriented media management: Decision making between profit and responsi
bility (pp. 135–146). Cham: Springer.
Kember, S. & Zylinska, J. (2015). Life after new media: Mediation as a vital process. Boston,
MA: MIT Press.
Küng, L. (2007). Does media management matter? Establishing the scope, rationale, and
Küng, L. (2010). Why media managers are not interested in media management: And
what we could do about it. International Journal on Media Management, 12(1), 55–57.
Küng, L. (2017). Strategic management in the media: Theory to practice (2nd ed.). London: Sage.
Lindgren, S. (2017). Digital media and society. London: Sage.
Lowe, G. F. (2016). Introduction: What’s so special about media management? In G. F.
Lowe & C. Brown (Eds.), Managing media firms and industries: What’s so special about media
management? (pp. 1–20). Heidelberg: Springer.
Mierzejewska, B. (2018). Theoretical approaches in media management research revised.
In A. B. Albarran, B. Mierzejewska & J. Jung (Eds.), Handbook of media management and
economics (pp. 17–34). London: Routledge.
Moisander, J. & Valtonen, A. (2006). Qualitative marketing research: A cultural approach.
London: Sage.
Murschetz, P. C. & Friedrichsen, M. (2017). Making media management research matter.
In M. Friedrichsen & Y. Kamalipour (Eds.), Digital transformation in journalism and news
media: Media management, media convergence and globalization (pp. 17–28). Cham: Springer.
Murthy, D. (2013). Ethnographic Research 2.0: The potentialities of emergent digital technol
ogies for qualitative organizational research. Journal of organizational ethnography, 2(1), 23–36.
Nambisan, S. (2018). Digital entrepreneurship: Toward a digital technology perspective of
entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 41(6), 1029–1055.
Oliver, D. (2015). Identity work as a strategic practice. In D. Golsorkhi, L. Rouleau, D.
Seidl & E. Vaara (Eds.), Cambridge handbook of strategy as practice (pp. 331–344). Cam
bridge: Cambridge University Press.
Onaran, T. (2019). Die Netzwerkbibel. Wiesbaden: Springer.
Ots, M., Nyilasy, G., Rohn, U. & Wikström, P. (2015). Media business studies as we see
it: Why does it matter, for whom, and how do you get published? Journal of Media
Ots, M. & Picard, R. G. (2015). A new chapter in the history of Journal of Media Business
Studies. Journal of Media Business Studies, 12(1), 1–2.
61–72.
Pink, S. & Leder Mackley, K. (2013). Saturated and situated: Expanding the meaning of
media in the routines of everyday life. Media, Culture & Society, 35(6), 677–691.
92 Sven-Ove Horst
Plesner, U. & Gulbrandsen, I. T. (2015). Strategy and new media: A research agenda.
Strategic Organization, 13(2), 153–162.
Porter, M. E. & Kramer, M. R. (2006). Strategy & society: The link between competitive
advantage and corporate social responsibility. Harvard Business Review, 84(12), 78–92.
Poutanen, P., Luoma-Aho, V. & Suhanko, E. (2016). Ethical challenges of hybrid editors.
Rohn, U. (2018). Media management research in the twenty-first century. In A. B.
Albarran, B. Mierzejewska & J. Jung (Eds.), Handbook of media management and economics
(pp. 425–441). New York: Routledge.
Schultz, M., Maguire, S., Langley, A. & Tsoukas, H. (2012). Constructing identity in and
around organizations: Introducing the second volume of ‘Perspectives on process orga
nization studies.’ In M. Schultz, S. Maguire, A. Langley & H. Tsoukas (Eds.), Con
structing identity in and around organizations (pp. 1–18). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tedlock, B. (2003). Ethnography and ethnographic representation. In N. K. Denzin & Y.
S. Lincoln (Eds.), Strategies of qualitative inquiry (pp. 165–213). London: Sage.
Van Maanen, J. (2011a). Ethnography as work: Some rules of engagement. Journal of
Management Studies, 48(1), 218–234.
Van Maanen, J. (2011b). Tales of the field: On writing ethnography. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Vesa, M. & Vaara, E. (2014). Strategic ethnography 2.0: Four methods for advancing
strategy process and practice research. Strategic Organization, 12(4), 288–298.
Voyer, B. G., Kastanakis, M. N. & Rhode, A. K. (2017). Co-creating stakeholder and
brand identities: A cross-cultural consumer perspective. Journal of Business Research, 70,
399–410.
Watson, T. J. (2008). Managing identity: Identity work, personal predicaments and struc
tural circumstances. Organization, 15(1), 121–143.
Watson, T. J. (2012). Making organisational ethnography. Journal of Organizational Ethno
graphy, 1(1), 15–22.
Yanow, D. (2012). Organizational ethnography between toolbox and world‐making.
Journal of Organizational Ethnography, 1(1), 31–42.
6
EVALUATING ACTION RESEARCH TO
INNOVATE DIGITAL JOURNALISM
REVENUE MODELS
Clare Cook
MEDIA INNOVATION STUDIO, UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL LANCASHIRE
Introduction
Publishers globally are delving deeper into the digital shift to explore the issue of
business sustainability. For independent niche media operating in financially and
politically pressured environments, survival has never been easy, but may never have
been more difficult than it is today (Cook, 2016). From some of the world’s most
media-restricted countries, publishers and journalists are forced into exile in order to
exercise their right to share alternative viewpoints. Often considered criminals in
their home countries, state-sponsored personal and electronic attacks silence them.
Their capacity for income generation often remains limited due to internal factors
such as lack of resources and business knowledge (CIMA, 2007), and externally due
to operating in flawed markets with limited viable advertising revenues (Pon et al.,
2017). Limited audience buying power and apathy constrains the potential for reader
revenues (Schmidt, 2015). Revisiting media in the Global South after three years,
financial survival remains the biggest worry for media outlets, followed by political
risk and physical safety (Schiffrin, 2019). In sub-Saharan Africa, indirect funding
models from print-based advertising dominate newspaper models with digital rev
enues being less than 10% of total revenue (Gicheru, 2014). Squeezed from the one
side by erosion of the traditional advertising-led business models, platform inter
mediaries and increased competition that has challenged the entire industry, and
from the other side by increased political pressures, the overall finding is that inde
pendent media in developing countries are primarily reliant on donor funding.
Mapping and case study methodologies have been used primarily to chart any move
away from donor dependency to diversified revenue strategies. Some independent
media organisations in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East are generating revenue
from advertising, sponsorship, training workshops or complementary activities such as
94 Clare Cook
consulting services, public relations and book sales (Ismail, 2018). There are a few case
studies of independent media start-ups in India which are sustained by a combination of
grant funding and advertising revenue as well as use of native advertising and affiliate
marketing (Sen & Nielsen, 2016). Likewise, some independent media outlets in Latin
America are utilising new business models such as memberships or subscriptions (Brei
ner, 2014). Mixed revenue models or cross-subsidising of media businesses with com
plementary for-profit business activities is growing in developing countries (Cook,
2016). Analysing 100 digital native start-ups in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico
found that revenue diversity is critical to sustainability, including events, training,
membership, crowdfunding, and native advertising with more than 65% reported they
were earning revenue in at least three ways (Warner & Iastrebner, 2017). Yet when
assessing the effectiveness of revenue diversity as proportional share of each revenue to
total income, non-profit sites do not perform better because of revenue diversification
(Massey, 2018), and local advertising is by far the most dominant revenue source. As
such, it is too early to determine if revenue diversification goes hand in hand with sus
tainability. There is little knowledge about firm day-to-day business operations (Cook,
2019) and much less about possible route maps forward.
Meanwhile, media firms seeking sustainability are looking outwards, as well as
inwards, to explore opportunities that lead to revenues. Taken quite broadly there
are a number of examples in free markets that could be described as a collaborative
revenue approach. For example, Piano is a federated paywall specialist that launched
a common payment system for paywall agreements with nine Slovak publishers in
2011. It offers a software solution to pool content from distinct media providers
behind a shared paywall and divide earned revenues between participating firms. In
politically pressured environments, collaborations have formed around advertising
networks. MCIL Multimedia Sdn Bhd in Malaysia established a premium publishers
marketplace platform in 2018 which was the first and largest media consortium of a
digital publisher-led programmatic advertising marketplace in Malaysia, reaching
60% of Malaysia’s digital population, with 11.4 million unique visitors per month.
The consortium’s goal was to provide advertisers with more control to layer their
own data, audience insights and programmatic advertising across the nine con
tributing publishers giving exclusive access to real-time mobile inventory and crea
tive advertising formats in a bid to compete with Google and Facebook for market
share and revenue. There is no definition of such collaborative revenue models for
digital journalism nor research on how digital technologies can facilitate such
opportunities. At a time when industry is carving out new collaborative ways of
capturing revenues, this research asks what is the effectiveness of action research in
the emergence of new collaborative approaches to digital revenue models.
Action Research
The research gaps discussed in the previous section highlight the need for a
broader, more integrative research perspective on revenue creation and capture.
Digital Journalism Revenue Models 95
How can we avoid the enduring limitations that focus on the known limitations
rather than the unknown possibilities? Action sciences offer a broad response by
exploring the ways practice and life are agents for new knowledge. The three pri
mary strands can be grouped as action learning (pedagogical process that involves
learners working and reflecting together on real-time problems occurring often in
organisations, mainly in-company, management and leadership development) action
research (participatory and humanistic model for transformational change from a
collaborative approach to research inquiry) and other forms of inquiry (action,
appreciative, collaborative, co-operative, developmental action). Distinctions lie pri
marily with the mode of operation, boundary of the researcher as decision-maker in
the action process, and when or how academic knowledge is created. The action
sciences are an apparent blind spot in the media management literature, despite
having a wider community of scholarly support in development, education and
management literatures. Action learning has received some attention. For example,
Oliver (2008) evaluates the researcher’s role, time constraints and resistance to change
in the failure of an action learning intervention with a UK television company and
proposes action learning more broadly as a particularly well suited methodology for
organisations seeking strategy formulation in unpredictable and competitive envir
onments. Action learning shares many common values and positions on knowledge
validity with action research, however, it is more happily rooted in practice com
munities tackling context-specific in-company performance challenges. The shared
philosophical grounding is pragmatism favouring a ‘future orientated instrumentalism
that tries to deploy thought as a weapon to enable more effective action’ (West,
1989, p. 5). Pragmatism is the philosophical underpinning, that knowledge is
acquired responding to the confrontation with reality through action.
With its focus on a participatory process, linking practice and questioning on sig
nificant real-world issues to instigate change improvements, action research is a par
ticularly appropriate process of inquiry here. It has four key characteristics. Firstly, it is
an inductive journey-based approach. The origins are broad and lie in the work of
social scientist Lewin (1948, p. 206) who advocated ‘a circle of planning, action and
fact finding’ through a bottom-up orientation with a hermeneutic that all under
standing is context-dependent. Secondly, curiosity and inquiry are stimulated by
questioning and doubt that become the driving force for agenda setting and change.
Knowledge is uncertain, provisional and generated through a transaction between
agent and environment, through intermediate situations and is arrived at through
collaboration and consensus (Hammond, 2012). Answers are tentative and open to
modification (Berlin & Hardy, 2000) through an iterative process developing living
knowledge, questioning on significant real-world issues (Elden & Chisholm, 1993).
Third, it is a model for transformational change fundamentally aimed at overcoming
a relevance gap by increasing knowledge and improving practice. With its action-
orientated focus on ‘social improvement’ (McNiff & Whitehead, 2006, p. 14), action
research helps to investigate an environment and gain ‘immediate and deeply rele
vant understandings of the situation’ (Stringer 1996, p. 32) because it is an ‘evolving
96 Clare Cook
process of coming to know rooted in everyday experiences’ (Reason & Bradbury,

2008, p. 5). Lastly, and particularly when working with a small community, it has the
dual purpose of ‘providing practical advice and advancing knowledge’ (Locke, 2001,
p. 14). Mutual sense making and collective action helps those involved to resolve the
problems they see as important through a ‘collaborative approach to investigation’
(Stringer, 1996, p. 9). Between and across a range of stakeholders, new relationships
can form through open dialogue and new communicative spaces. This allows for
new meanings and possibilities to emerge as divergent views are compared and
contrasted (Guba & Lincoln, 1989).
Action research is currently limited to a handful of digital journalism studies and
nothing is known about its effectiveness to innovate around journalism revenue
models. Grubenmann (2016) and Wagemans and Witschge (2019) argue for more
action research to understand convergence processes: the former through the lens of
editorial managers and the latter to understand innovation process. Appelgren and
Nygren (2014) explore the development of data journalism at seven Swedish tradi
tional media companies, but stop short of evaluating action research as an approach.
Such practice-based applications can emerge first-hand insights into the progress of
citizen-led news media in Australia (Flew & Wilson, 2010) or evaluate co-creation as
a method for open journalism (Aitamurto, 2013). Applied to journalism issues,
Hautakangas and Ahva (2018) find action research an effective way for Finnish
journalists to understand their professional concerns by developing an understanding
of conciliatory journalism. Similarly, Thomas (2016) finds that time taken to engage
and collaborate with local communities in Rwanda through slow journalism breeds a
more culturally responsive form of journalism. Answering calls for action research to
act as a ‘framework for collaborative research between media organisations and
scholars in order to develop problem focused and resolution-oriented outcomes
fostering innovativeness in digital journalism’ (Grubenmann, 2016, p. 163) it is tested
here for its effectiveness to innovate around revenue models.
Emerging an Action Research Approach

The intention was to gain a holistic view of collaborations as experimental practice
in determining revenue opportunities among media in exile or restricted environ
ments beyond donor dependency. Rather than approaching the issue of revenue
models at the individual firm level, it proposed to look for collective responses to
ultimately similar needs. It asked what such digital revenue opportunities could be
and how they could be actioned whilst challenging normative assumptions of
competition and dominant corporate discourse around journalism business models.
The open-ended approach of inductive action research was fitting for this
exploratory work. The phased approach included contextual analysis followed by a
two-day atelier with a range of stakeholders in the media development sector.
Dewey’s systematic approach to inquiry involves five steps, which can be sum
marised as recognising a situation is problematic, considering different definitions
of the problem, developing a possible line of action in response, evaluating

potential actions and taking actions to address the situation (Morgan, 2014). A
gradual and ongoing process of understanding the problem facing exiled and poli
tically pressured media emerged across two years to gain a deeper empathic sense, a
broader mind set and a better understanding of context. Core to action research is a
cyclical process, which typically embraces two layers of cycles (Coghlan & Brydon-
Miller, 2014). The conceptualisation phase included desk-based research, work
shop participation and mapping studies as part of three grant-funded initiatives.
FOJO Media Institute’s Strengthening Media in Exile programme was a three-year
programme of training interventions to strengthen the organisational capacity of
their partners in exile. It identified lack of knowledge on how to strengthen their
capacity, lack of time and money, and challenges in managing staff, resources and
financial sustainability. It also found a strongly expressed need for a coordinated
network for exiled media. A further study was commissioned by Internews Europe
comprising of 27 semi-structured interviews with media organisations and repre
sentatives of the donor community. The overarching aim was to offer an assess
ment on how to kick-start a culture seeking to circumvent a cycle of grant
dependency and, within that, what initiatives were delivering commercial reven
ues. It focused on three categories of revenue: grants, private donations and earned
income. It successfully surfaced, shared and mapped information about new sources
of income besides grants, as well as helped the donor community better understand
how they could assist those groups. It stopped short, however, of emerging solu
tions or deeper lived insights. Finally, workshops aimed at supporting a 15-country
exiled media network was spearheaded by Open Society Foundations. These
varied activities enabled a process of rigorous inquiry, acquiring information (data
collection) reflecting on that information (analysis) in order to transform under
standing about the nature of the problem under investigation (theorising) to get
‘increasingly sophisticated’ understandings of the problems being faced (Stringer,
1996, p. 10), then disseminated to scholars and industry.
Action-Phase: Atelier
From this contextual analysis, possible actions to address the problems were devel
oped. An atelier was designed to include a series of facilitated panels, activities and
interactive knowledge exchange. Such is the day-to-day pressure on media under
threat that opportunities to explore wider possibilities for innovation or experi
mentation are rare. Participants developed their understanding of barriers to revenue
generation, collaborations, collaborative revenue concepts and potential new revenue
opportunities. The aim was to step back from daily operations and institutional prio
rities and reflect on future revenue possibilities less bounded in day-to-day realities.
Action through a facilitated atelier held in December 2014 funded by the Research
Council UK New Economic Models in the Digital Economy answered that need by
creating a forum for exchange and exploration beyond piecemeal, individual revenue
98 Clare Cook
issues to facilitate a group process for collaborative inquiry and experimentation

(Stringer, 2007). The main aim was to maximise the usefulness of the atelier outcomes
for the community and not focus on generalisable or replicable outputs (McNiff &
Whitehead, 2006). The primary focus was to understand in what ways fragile media
might be more financially resilient through a collaborative approach amongst them
selves. In order to respond to the main question, research aims were developed to (1)
articulate and define collaborative revenue capture as a model, (2) explore and eval
uate how digital technologies can facilitate collaborative revenue capture, (3) assess the
extent to which collaborative revenue capture can be used for the benefit of the
exiled media sector and (4) for donor representatives and those working in the sector
to leave with clearer ideas and roadmap for adoption mechanisms.
It is an important aspect of action research to allow marginalised groups to find ways
to tell their own story. In so doing, it is rooted in a liberationist tradition that extolls
the dangers of relying on an elite top-down innovation process. The aim was to
empower people to construct and use their own knowledge: an alternate system of
knowledge production based on people’s roles participating in data gathering and
analysis, and controlling the use of the outcomes. Journalists from different regions and
countries were invited as we assumed that the problems pertaining to revenue models
would vary and felt it would be valuable to use these differences as idea springboards.
We also brought together stakeholders from a diverse range of expertise: from business
models, revenue streams, advertising networks, grant organisations, creative and digital
technologists as well as a significant number of stakeholders: media under threat
representing Iran, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Syria and Sri Lanka, Jordan,
Azerbaijan and Ukraine (11). We did not rule out any type of media platform or
company, which we hoped would enable practitioners to broaden their focus from
their immediate concerns and restraints and examine varying perspectives (Stringer,
2007). However, all media were on the edge of a media system in some way either
due to exile or political exclusion. With limitations on licences and distribution for
print and broadcast media, most exiled media focus primarily on digital platforms.
There were many media that could not attend due to the atelier’s budget limitations
and visa restrictions. Representatives from the media development community inclu
ded Rory Peck Trust, Open Society Foundations and Internews Europe (three)
alongside journalism experts and innovators (six) business experts (four) and academics
(six). As such, the atelier set out to achieve a conscious and meaningful integration of
numerous perspectives on practice, research, expert knowledge and activism appro
priate for the complex and panoramic view needed to stimulate new knowledge on
revenue models.
At the planning stage, the two-day atelier was designed to move through cycles of
curiosity, reframing, articulation, connection and idea development. There were six
genres of activities across two days: idea brainstorming via an ideas wall; small focused
discussion groups; structured anonymous question and response sessions; mini pre
sentation panels; plenary discussions; and ideas lab, market and development. A series
of planned questions were addressed through this inquiry process including
definitions, factors for success, barriers and obstacles. At the first stage, the aim was to
capture what people were curious about and what they really wanted to see as a
desired outcome of working together. Participants formed pairs with someone they
did not know well and discussed two questions: What does success look like for exiled
or restricted media organisations? What is the most successful collaboration they have
personally been involved with? Pairs then joined another pair to form fours and share
the main points of their discussion. The aim was to build energy in the room and
build connections of trust between the participants. This ensured everyone had equal
voice and established a model for sharing and listening in a deeply focused way,
offering every participant the chance to develop their own thinking. A mini panel
from experts probed what is collaboration thus widening out exposure of exiled
media to collaboration and innovation in the sector. This started to focus thinking on
what forms and purpose collaborations can take.
We singled out the issues and practices that the journalists themselves regarded as
problematic and then explored: What determines the financial resilience of exiled
media organisations? What are the obstacles to building and sharing revenues?
What forms of collaboration would be of most use to exiled media organisations?
This was a World Café format with table hosts and groups mixing after timed
rounds. Large paper tablecloths were used for groups to make notes of their ideas
and views during discussions. One person on each table volunteered to act as table
host, and started to focus the discussion in on money and the scope for collabora
tion between and involving exiled media organisations. This revealed what were
the most obvious areas for collaboration. The preliminary idea of collaborative
revenue capture was presented followed by plenary discussions on the potential for
collaboration to generate revenues for exiled media. With new discussion partners,
reflections, ideas and questions were added to the ideas wall.
At the second day, we brainstormed and planned more tangible, experimental
projects. The ideas lab focused mixed groups of five on how digital technologies can
be used to create new shared revenue streams for exiled media organisations. These
ideas were developed into mini presentations and feedback. At the ideas market
participants chose the idea they would most like to do more work on and organised
groups accordingly. This idea of voting with your feet allowed people to follow
passions and interests. A further ideas development phase gave teams the opportunity
to explore and work up in more detail the strongest ideas, with input from a wider
group of participants. Questions included how to turn ideas to reality including team
and resourcing requirements, the business model, testing and innovation, and success
measures. The final ideas were evaluated and feedback given, before considerations
were explored in plenary discussions on next steps and adoption mechanisms.
Outputs
Two facilitators and the researcher typically were guiding the discussions, and a
multimedia practitioner captured photographic evidence of handwritten notes and
100 Clare Cook
brainstorming activities. Anonymous tablet-activated interactive brainstorming

software was used to capture observation discussions (about 30 pages in total). This
allowed responses to structured questions to be recorded, and viewed on a digital
wall. Ideas were further explored using written notes and idea mapping facilitations
in physical form, which were captured using photography. Together these com
prise this study’s primary research material. However, we also interacted with the
journalists beyond the atelier meetings in informal online and offline discussions
and wrote personal memos during the entire project: the analysis is informed also
by these activities. Lewin (1948, p. 210) states the need to ‘record scientifically the
essential happenings during the workshop’. Documentation that somehow charts a
tacit inquiry research process becomes increasingly important in making the neb
ulous nature of future-facing industry-focused practice accessible to others, in par
ticular to people in the wider profession. The project overall consisted of a number
of key outputs (images, online report and social media).
Analysis
The embedded nature of action research in a social setting make it difficult to divorce
data collection and analysis, and analysis with action planning or interventions
(Coghlan & Brydon-Miller, 2014). Data analysis was in one sense integral to and
ongoing throughout the process. Collaborative or participatory data analysis, where
community members or stakeholders were actively involved in the data analysis
process, took place during the event. For example, the interactive brainstorming
software viewed on a digital wall enabled participants to vote in real time on
responses to structured questions, analyse responses into themes, connect topics and
sub-topics. During idea brainstorming via the ideas wall or World Café discussions,
participants synthesised discussions and prioritised action points. Developing visuali
sations of the data assisted in summarising and categorising to aid understanding and
interpolating. These included drawings, mind maps, word clouds and collages in
both physical and digital form. This analysis focused on seeking out agreement and
disagreement and to both resolve any contradictions or ambiguities and appreciate
the extent of diversity (Coghlan & Brydon-Miller, 2014).
A phase of enhanced focus on data analysis after the atelier took an overview,
made sense and generated understanding and insights from the base of evidence
and reflection that had emerged during the project, with a view to contributing
to new knowledge. The qualitative data outputs from the atelier were treated
with thematic analysis. Deep immersion in the data identified key themes and
associated sub-themes. Thematic codes were developed to build a comprehen
sive, contextualised and integrated understanding of the structured data outputs,
which in turn were applied to the text-based outputs to mark the occurrence of
specific themes in different places in the data set. Patterns and groupings were
noted and assertions developed. An interactive online report of the event was
collated and disseminated as it is during writing up that the final learning and
understandings surface as they are articulated and the story emerges (Coghlan &
Brydon-Miller, 2014). This emphasis on scholarly rigour was important in
advancing academic knowledge through understanding the action as research.
Ethics and Intellectual Property

As action research claims a set of liberationist ethical norms including mutual
respect, openness, participation for the co-generation of knowledge, it raises a
unique set of ethical and governance challenges. The research was conducted in an
ethical manner. As this was participant research involving human subjects it was
based on informed consent. In line with established research ethics, human parti
cipants were fully informed about the aims, methods and uses of the research. It
was important that anonymity was honoured where requested in consent forms
due to the politically sensitive position of some participants. Participants were able
to opt out of recorded materials such as photographs. The purpose was to focus on
the revenue models and as such it was not deemed necessary to attribute initiatives
or reflections to individual participants. Personal data was only collected by the
project leader where necessary for the provision of travel and communication.
Explicit consent was offered for those working with pseudonyms. Data storage
conformed with contemporaneous protocols. This atelier was held under the
Chatham House Rule. As such participants were free to use the information
received and generated, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s),
nor that of any other participant, were revealed. There was no social media hashtag
for the event to avoid participants being identified by association. Safety and that of
other participants was ensured by steps to prevent locations being identified where
necessary, by avoiding geographic social sign-in software, or using encrypted soft
ware if required.
The iterative and complex processes of knowledge generation made it oper
ationally impossible to attribute particular findings and ideas to particular indivi
duals. As a result, authorship of publications or products developed through action
research are ‘intensely problematic’ (Greenwood et al., 2006, p. 83). Intellectual
property rights are generally designed to exclude others from using a firm’s ideas
and inventions while action research implies a willingness to allow knowledge
sharing. As it was the intention to develop ideas which were appropriate for further
research, testing or development, engagement with intellectual property agree
ments was required from the start, with participants informed via an information
sheet. The hosting university retained the copyright of materials created as a result
of, or during the atelier. While the university reserved the right to commercially
exploit any ideas or products, it was the intention to share (quantum to be agreed)
any revenues that may have been generated with the participants. Any intellectual
property agreements were subject to collaboration agreements post event accord
ing to expressions of interest, steered by the university.
102 Clare Cook
Discussion
Following an extensive period of contextualisation, the atelier opened a space for
self-reflexive discussions. Practitioners were reorientated on their shared challenges
and deeper understanding of revenue opportunities. In resolving their different
perceptions and opinions, participants had the opportunity to develop a deeper
understanding of the situation they faced, and how it might be improved. It turns
on its head the notion that power concentration resides in the hands of a few,
making sure ‘the voices of the most powerless groups tend to go unheard, their
agendas ignored and their needs unmet’ (Stringer, 1996, p. 36).
Collegial interaction and conversation became a fundamental component of the
experience. A participatory spirit of honesty and candidness over traditionally secre
tive experiences of business was needed to emerge new non-hierarchical forms of
revenue creation and capture. The setting enabled direct and open relationships from
heterogeneous participants to generate diverse viewpoints. Disconfirmation had the
effect of refining the growing collective understanding and the process acted as a
leveller across open and anonymous discussions from varied stakeholders. This was
particularly important for journalists in exile, often vulnerable having experienced
atrocities. Stakeholders interpreted the principles of collaborative revenue capture
with varying levels of commitment and depth. The culture of honest collaboration
resulted in a synergy to yield high-quality interpretations.
Action research allowed for subject-subject approaches over subject-object.
Compromising distance, the academic’s role was as facilitator ‘as a catalyst to assist
stakeholders in defining their problems’ (Stringer, 1996, p. 22) by contributing
professional expertise and planning, to present connecting factors for participant’s
own analysis. By participating, the scholar abandoned a passive observing and
neutral position in favour of one of participant observation to induce change
(Ospina & Anderson, 2004). Experiencing research in this way allowed the
researcher to fully reflect the complexity of the current media landscape through
the process-orientated perspective of emergent phenomena. It also leveraged the
academics relatively unburdened position away from day-to-day pressures of the
newsroom and profit incentives. It was also a mode of working to adopt a learner’s
attitude. The researcher and the researched contributed and shared knowledge as
equals. This position allowed for small-scale theorising to specific problems in
specific contexts (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994). Here the application was knowledge
sharing about lived business models as an instrument for social action.
Adopting this methodology on the topic of revenue collaboration was a particular
challenge. It aimed to positively shape the revenue experiences of otherwise fragile
media. Business thinking on revenues are entrenched in the inherent nature of the
corporate worlds of competition and advantage-seeking. For both profit and non
profit media there is a tendency to incorporate or conflate the values and agendas of
capitalism with its emphasis on measurement, profit, production and control into all
areas of progressive discussion. This is a fundamental problem to pragmatism because
it is not ‘of giving but of taking advantage’ (West, 1989, p. 27). When issues relating
to money are filled with tension, political economy contentions and real-life frus
trations ‘inquiry will always be a moral, political and value-laden enterprise’ (Denzin,
2010, pp. 424–425). Business understanding for example is often thwarted by the use
of jargon or esoteric subject matter, inflated notions of success, fear of revealing fail
ures, or lack of clarity on what can or cannot be disclosed by whom.
The emphasis here was on experimentation, and the richness in pooling thinking
emerged a wide range of new revenue options worthy of further trial. We set out to
go further than just describe and discuss. While insisting on business and organisa
tional relevance, it offered a rare opportunity for media managers and stakeholders to
explore a research inquiry for mutual benefit. A pragmatism underpinning provided
action research with a dialectical perspective on the generation of knowledge: we
came to know the world through our actions and interaction within the world as
‘we face gaps in what we know and new problems to address’ (Hammond, 2012, p.
603). Four categories of collaborative revenue models emerged: technology, rev
enue-based systems, coordinating action and journalism production. The suggestions
were not intended as a typology of collaborative revenues; this would be better
achieved with methodologies better suited to mapping, and would be a worthy
addition to the literature. However, the multiplicity of opportunities around part
nerships and joined-up initiatives that could lead directly to revenue creation and
capture poses a powerful argument about how central the core principle of colla
boration is for journalism’s economic viability in the digital economy. We can see
that there is an appetite for approaches which preserve niche and independence
while offering strength and resilience economically.
The revenue initiatives deemed most of benefit were not actionable at firm level
and required some degree of collaboration. This raised important issues on trans
ference. A management or representational body to action or implement the sug
gestions into an impact phase of action research would be needed. The absence of
such a coordinating level of media management thwarted the transfer of ideas in
the real world thus emerging important implications for media development actors
to support or facilitate the necessary coordination activities needed to unlock col
laborative approaches that could strengthen independent media. Individuals spear
headed the most successful actions beyond the atelier. The complexities of
collaborating as a unified ‘body’ of exiled or restricted media were acknowledged.
There were several barriers to collaboration both practically (language, country
by-country differences) operationally (shared ethical and legal frames) and ideolo
gically (finding a shared mission and vision).
Conclusion
Action research has a role to play as a solutions-orientated approach. Here a con
ceptualisation phase and atelier offered a holistic view of collaborations as experi
mental practice in determining revenue opportunities among media in exile or
104 Clare Cook
restricted environments as they tried to carve out resilient digital revenue models
beyond donor dependency. A rapidly evolving and competitive global marketplace
has accelerated the demand for agile and experienced managers. Action research
can have a positive and noticeable impact on a manager’s development in such
areas. Particularly during the atelier, it was a way of challenging normative
assumptions of competition and dominant corporate discourse around journalism
business models. Action research was methodology to move beyond an expla
nation of the now to emerge exploratory pathways for a forward-facing industry.
It allowed for learning on the nature of collaboration and factors needed for
success as well as lived experiences around revenue generation beyond the scope
of qualitative methodologies tackled on a one-to-one basis. Critical reflection by
themselves, peers and close stakeholders allowed participants to generate their
own knowledge. This allowed for the invention of their own new practice theories
and attitudinal change.
Bridging a research-relevance gap, it focused on sourcing new knowledge whilst
also improving practice. This study raised issues about how to reconcile tensions
between action and research, and how they relate to each other. Measured in
research terms, the methodology was particularly slow-burn and requires uniquely
placed academics committed to an open-ended cycle of contextual and iterative
learning. It relied on a unique set of competencies, connections and motivations
open only to a few academics comfortable to work at the intersection of industry,
practice and theory. It was particularly limited in emerging traditionally scientific and
instrumentalist findings. In order to reach the rigorous standards of scholarity, data
and processes must be systematic. In turn, such a commitment can open new
opportunities to further extend the collaborative balance of practitioner and aca
demic with collaborative or participatory data analysis. It provides rich subject-on
subject compared to subject-on-object insights with the capacity to address power
imbalance. To overcome criticism that action research tends towards the do-gooder,
axiological choices and motivations must be transparent throughout.
Transferring research into action was more problematic. Money is an inherently
touchy subject for media managers and ideation around revenues is problematic due
to normative values of non-disclosure. The revenue initiatives proposed required
further championing and coordination, which did not exist. Some scholars conclude
that action research is a contradiction in terms (Hammersley, 2004) suggesting that
action and research remain different kinds of activity. While theoretical and practical
understanding of a problem determines a close alignment between research and
actions, the reality is that one does not necessarily result in the other.
The full evaluation and impact of the interventions here, however, will require
further measure and analysis. There is no fixed end-point to action research. These
inquiries will continue along a broad research journey from multiple sources of
knowledge, driving research and development around new revenue models. It is
possible for participants to enact interventions that recursively generate learning
within and beyond media organisations, and the wider community. Such a process
needs to develop appropriate research ethical and governance frames. Therefore,

the approach goes some way to demonstrate new knowledge around revenue
models may emerge from unorthodox practical forms of research when conducted
in a rigorous way to go beyond explanation of the now and emerge exploratory
industry pathways. However, real-world application is more problematic.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Research Council UK under New Economic
Models in the Digital Economy.
References
Aitamurto, T. (2013). Balancing between open and closed: Co-creation in magazine
journalism. Digital Journalism, 1(2), 229–251.
Appelgren, E. & Nygren, G. (2014). Data journalism in Sweden: Introducing new meth
ods and genres of journalism into ‘old’ organizations. Digital Journalism, 2(3), 394–405.
Berlin, I. & Hardy, H. (2000). The proper study of mankind: An anthology of essays. New
York, NJ: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Breiner, J. (2014). Business models for new digital media. News Entrepreneurs. Retrieved
from: http://newsentrepreneurs.blogspot.com/2014/08/on-5-continents-thousands-of
digital.html.
CIMA. (2007). Sustainability of media: Center for International Media Assistance.
Retrieved from: http://cima.ned.org/media-development/sustainability.
Coghlan, D. & Brydon-Miller, M. (Eds.) (2014). The Sage encyclopaedia of action research.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Cook, C. (2016). Fragile finance: The revenue models of oppositional news outlets in
repressive regimes. International Communication Gazette, 78(6), 514–535.
Cook, C. (2019). Adapting to the digital unlocking journalism resilience: Adapting a digital busi
ness model to promote press freedom. Paris: Wan-Ifra.
Denzin, L. (2010). Moments, mixed methods, and paradigm dialogs. Qualitative Inquiry, 16(6),
419–427.
Denzin, N. K. & Lincoln, Y. S. (1994). Handbook of qualitative research. Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage.
Elden, M. & Chisholm, R. F. (1993). Emerging varieties of action research: Introduction
to the special issue. Human Relations, 46(2), 121–141.
Flew, T. & Wilson, J. (2010). Journalism as social networking: The Australian youdecide
project and the 2007 federal election. Journalism Theory, Practice & Criticism, 11(2), 131–147.
Gicheru, C. E. (2014). The challenges facing independent newspapers in sub-Saharan Africa.
London: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.
Greenwood, D. J., Brydon-Miller, M. & Shafer, C. (2006). Intellectual property and
action research. Action Research, 4(1), 81–95.
Grubenmann, S. (2016). Action research: Collaborative research for the improvement of
digital journalism practice. Digital Journalism, 4(1), 160–176.
Guba, E. G. & Lincoln, Y. S. (1989). Fourth generation evaluation. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Hammersley, M. (2004). Action research: a contradiction in terms? Oxford Review of Edu
cation, 30(2), 165–181.
106 Clare Cook
Hammond, M. (2012). The contribution of pragmatism to understanding educational

action research: Value and consequences. Educational Action Research, 21(4), 603–618.
Hautakangas, M. & Ahva, L. (2018). Introducing a new form of socially responsible jour
nalism: Experiences from the Conciliatory Journalism Project. Journalism Practice, 12(6),
730–746.
Ismail, Z. (2018). Strengthening the financial independence of independent media organisations.
Birmingham: K4D.
Lewin, K. (1948). Resolving social conflicts. Selected papers on group dynamics (1935–1946).
New York: Harper.
Locke, K. (2001). Grounded theory in management research. London: Sage.
McNiff, J. & Whitehead, J. (2006). Action research: Living theory. London: Sage.
Massey, B. L. (2018). Testing the revenue diversity argument on independent web-native
news ventures. Digital Journalism, 6(10), 1–16.
Morgan, D. L. (2014). Pragmatism as a paradigm for social research. Qualitiative Inquiry, 20(8),
1045–1053.
Oliver, J. (2008). Action learning enabled strategy making. Action Learning: Research and
Practice, 5(2), 149–158.
Ospina, S. M. & Anderson, G. (2004). The action turn. In D. Coghlan & M. Brydon-
Miller (Eds.), The Sage encyclopaedia of action research (pp. 19–21). London: Sage.
Pon, B., Donner, J., Locke, C. & Kishor N. (2017). Paying attention to the poor digital
advertising in emerging markets. Retrieved from: www.cariboudigital.net/wp-content/
uploads/2019/01/PayingAttention-to-the-Poor.pdf.
Reason, P. & Bradbury, H. (2008). The Sage handbook of action research. London: Sage.
Schiffrin, A. (2019). Fighting for survival: Media startups in the Global South.
Retrieved from: https://www.cima.ned.org/resource/fighting-for-survival/.
Schmidt, C. (2015). Viability of alternative online news media in developing and transition
countries. Universities, Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development in Africa:
German African University Partnership Platform for the Development of Entrepreneurs
and Small/Medium Enterprises. Retrieved from: https://ideas.repec.org/h/sau/ueedcc/
05066-078.html.
Sen, A. & Nielsen, R. (2016). Digital journalism start-ups in India. Oxford: Reuters Institute
for the Study of Journalism.
Stringer, E.T (1996). Action research: A handbook for practitioners. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Stringer, E. T. (2007). Action research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Thomas, H. M. (2016). Lessening the construction of otherness: A slow ethics of journal
ism. Journalism Practice, 10(4), 476–491.
Wagemans, A. & Witschge, T. (2019). Examining innovation as process: Action research
in journalism studies. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media
Technologies, 25(2), 209–224.
Warner, J. & Iastrebner, M. (2017). Inflection point impact, threats and sustainability a
study of Latin American digital media entrepreneurs. SembraMedia. Retrieved from:
http://data.sembramedia.org/wpcontent/uploads/2017/09/Inflection-Point-Sembra
Media-eng-7-20.pdf.
West, C. (1989). The American evasion of philosophy: A genealogy of pragmatism. London:
Palgrave Macmillan.
7
EXAMINING AD AVOIDANCE
CONSUMERS
A Collaborative Study with the Ad Blocker
Industry
Lisa-Charlotte Wolter and Sylvia Chan-Olmsted

HAMBURG MEDIA SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
Introduction
As media consumers take control of their media environment, digital advertising and
marketing communications practitioners are increasingly concerned about the
adoption of technology for ad avoidance purposes, particularly as they compete in
the attention economy. The use of ad blockers to avoid online advertising is espe
cially prevalent in Germany. It was reported that the German ad blocker user rate is
twice as high as assumed and that the country has the highest blocked mobile sessions
in the world. The use of ad blockers presents difficult challenges for the ad-supported
media sector and advertisers. Publisher websites become less attractive for campaigns
if the users are actively avoiding ads in their media use journey. Surprisingly, the
motives of media users to install ad blockers are not principally to avoid ads per se.
More dominant motives are security needs (30%), interruptions (29%), slowing speed
(16%), too many ads (15%) and privacy concerns (10%) (Page Fair, 2017). Studies
have also concluded that the ad blocking behaviour is not as much about the lack of
context for the ad but about the irrelevance of ads that leads to a negative brand
perception (AudienceProject, 2018). These insights suggest that ad blocker users are
not necessarily or uniformly ad avoiders. Understanding the differences between ad
blocker user and non-user groups might offer industry solutions that better serve the
consumers while alleviating the challenges to today’s advertisers and marketers.
In recent years, technology has enabled more means of circumventing ad blockers.
Advertisers are also sceptical about reaching a target group which seems to actively
avoid advertising through the use of ad blockers. This presents an interesting industry
dilemma – should advertisers assume ad blocker users collectively as active ad avoi
ders that have little value to them? Such an assumption has significant implications
when the usage of ad blockers is likely to rise. As demonstrated, the use of ad
108 Lisa-Charlotte Wolter and Sylvia Chan-Olmsted
blockers and their consumer profiles are important issues for the digital advertising
and publishing industries. However, there exists a knowledge gap as there are no
empirical studies which systematically investigate the nature of ad blocker users and
the differences between ad blocker users and non-users.
To examine the users of ad blockers from an ad avoidance perspective, a collabora
tive research team of international researchers from the University of Florida, Hamburg
Media School, and one of the leading anti-ad blocker companies in Germany, tisoomi,
was formed in 2018. This study is the first translational academic-industry project that
addresses the growing issue of ad annoyance, ad avoidance and ad blocker use.
The Collaborative Research Project

The collaboration between academics and practitioners offers a wide spectrum of ben
efits. It allows the combination of scientific expertise and methods with the hands-on
knowledge gathered from practice, therefore leading to a direct and practical use of the
study’s findings as well as different approaches and methods for the collection of data.
An industry–academic collaboration also elevates the impact of traditional scholarly
research. The topics of ad avoidance and the growing use of ad blockers are relevant to
today’s media environment and pose significant challenges to the media and advertising
industry. Advertisers are increasingly querying the effectiveness of online adverting and
media companies with business models relying on online ad revenues are in the burden
of proof for their platforms. Many are concerned about the effectiveness of online ads in
the target group of ad blocker users, but little is known about this consumer segment.
Therefore, this collaborative project between media researchers and industry partners
has the potential of delivering meaningful impacts with industry relevance. From a
scholarly perspective, the non-proprietary nature of the consumer data enables the
dissemination of gained knowledge to the academic community, contributing to the
scientific literature regarding the construct of ad avoidance and online consumer char
acteristics. The nature and process of the project is elaborated next.
Project Origin
The industry partner, tisoomi, initiated this project. Tisoomi is a company based
in Hamburg, Germany, offering innovative solutions for challenges from the use
of ad blocker related technology. Its management has years of experience in
online marketing and advertising. The company is relatively small and focuses on
finding innovative means of understanding ad blocker usage in contexts. Tisoomi
aims to help publishers and marketers raise their revenues by increasing access to
audiences formerly not accessible due to their use of ad blockers. One challenge
tisoomi faced in this process is advertisers’ scepticism whether the user group of ad
blockers is of value because their ad avoidance behaviour and their differences
from the non-user group. Tisoomi was interested in learning as much as they can
about the variances between the two consumer segments.
Examining Ad Avoidance Consumers 109
Project Aims and Expectations

The key research question for the project is to investigate how the target group of ad
blocker users differs from non-users. With this as a starting point, the researchers from
Hamburg Media School and the University of Florida began the literature review to
fine-tune the project with specific aims and expectations. The initial conceptual fra
mework was then chosen to centre on the ad avoidance construct. The academic
research team, with limited budgets and access to technologies, agreed to perform
the tasks of study design, data analysis and report/manuscript preparation, while the
industry partner was responsible for providing access to un-primed participants (to be
explained in more detail later). Both parties were committed to implementing a
conceptually rigorous, unbiased and scientifically profound examination of the
research question and affiliated hypotheses. It was also agreed that tisoomi would
financially support the recruitment of subjects, and the academic team would have the
freedom to design the study and disseminate the results in scholarly outlets. The aca
demic team, in return, would address the aforementioned key research question,
prepare briefings and deliver final results in the form of summary reports and industry
conference presentations.
Collaboration Process and Funding

After establishing the mutual objectives and expectation, the academic team,
including both lead researchers and doctoral students, embarked on an in-depth
literature review to finalise the research model and study design. The doctoral
students served as apprentices to learn about the process and intricacies of inter
acting with and briefing the industry partner. The biggest challenge of the colla
boration was to provide a scientifically sound study while addressing the needs of
the industry partner in terms of obtaining practical, actionable insights. This was
especially taxing when trying to keep the length of the online survey manageable
for the participants. To fulfil the expectations of the industry partner as well as
those of the researchers, the study finally focused on gathering deeper insights
about the general advertising perceptions, the attitude toward online ads as well as
the usage of ad blockers, using theoretically sound ad avoidance constructs.
After initial Skype meetings to get acquainted and discuss the research approach,
the team began the project in the spring of 2018. While the researchers conducted
the desk research, defined the constructs and model, and created the online
survey using well-regarded constructs pro bono, the partners covered the dis
tribution of the survey via banner ads in various online outlets. Tisoomi chose
and coordinated the sites, on which the banners were shown. Since the data
generation was largely done by tisoomi, the industry partner had a rather high
involvement in the data collection phase of the study. It also invested significant
expenditures by funding all the banner ads costs. During the collection, the
researchers monitored the participation via the online-tool Qualtrics and directed
the distribution of the survey to user or non-user in order to derive two target
groups of relatively equal sizes. The collaboration process was smooth during the
data collection phase.
Research Method
In this case, working with an industry partner proved to be especially bene
ficial because they offered a valuable and unique way of data collection.
Instead of gathering data with a panel – the typical approach for online based
studies – the researchers were able to gather data directly from the publishers’
sites via an artificial campaign. Specifically, the participants were not screened
or primed regarding their ad blocker usage because the distribution of the
online survey was executed by banners which the industry partner placed on
various leading websites in Germany during spring 2018. The websites used
were diverse with 10% – Community; 14% – Family/Fashion/Cooking; 6% –
Games; 28% – General Interest; 21% – News/Magazines; 13% – Sport; and
8% – Tech. The expertise and financial resources of the partner allowed this
study to specifically reach the target group in their natural user habitat,
while – due to the way the banners were put online – discerning whether the
participant used an ad blocker or not. This approach is innovative in that the
ad blocker usage was not self-reported but technically assessed, providing a
more accurate picture of the usage status.
The researchers used the survey platform Qualtrics to create two online sur
veys respectively adjusted to ad blocker-user and non-user. Qualtrics offers a
wide range of functionalities from simple questionnaires to detailed research
projects. For this project, the possibility to create, test and monitor the partici
pation of the surveys in real time proved to be essential in coordinating with
tisoomi for user quotas. Tisoomi distributed the survey through banner ads with
the incentive of winning a prize. Technical measures were taken in order to
recognise whether the user, who saw the banner, used an ad blocker or not.
Consequently, users were redirected to the appropriate survey after clicking on
the banner. This procedure enabled the classification of ad blocker-users and
non-users based on actual technical configuration instead of self-reported
information, improving the usage accuracy while reducing the priming effect.
Over the course of five weeks in spring of 2018, about 75 million ad
impressions were delivered by tisoomi in order to recruit the participants. The
nature of the websites, which displayed the banners, aimed to cover a wide
variety of user content. The banners used were distributed in the advertising
formats 300x250, 300x600, 728x90 and 800x250. In total, 560 participants
were recruited. 299 of those used an ad blocker, while 261 participants did
not. Interestingly, 19% of the ad blocker users were unaware of their usage of
an ad blocker or unsure whether they were using one or not.
Literature and Project Study Design

Until today, knowledge about the use of Internet ad blocking software as a
form of online ad avoidance is very scant. Some scholars have noted the
potential difference in Internet use pattern between ad blocker users and non
users (Despotakis et al., 2017). Others, e.g. Miroglio et al. (2018) found that
installing ad blockers substantially increases both active time spent in the
browser and the number of pages viewed. From a publisher view, Despotakis et
al. (2017) pointed out the need to differentiate two groups of Internet users
based on whether they use ad blockers or not. The premise is that there is much
heterogeneity in ad sensitivity between ad blocker users and non-users. Des
potakis et al. (2017) thus argued that ad blocking can be beneficial to the pub
lishers as it improves the effectiveness of marketing by filtering out ad-sensitive
users for more targeted ad serving on the rest.
Value of Online Ads

While appraising an ad, information value is taken into consideration and
perceived as a positive attribute by users. Online users acknowledge ads as
informative if new products, valuable product details and comparative facts
regarding the product are presented (Logan et al., 2012). The information
value of ads is of great importance as it enables the users to gather informa
tion about the advertised product or service which is related to the indivi
duals’ needs and desires (Celebi, 2015).
Online users have a greater enjoyment once the online ads are engaging and
not solely informative (Kelly et al., 2010). In the case of ads being congruent with
the displayed editorial unit or eminent product involvement, the users are
expressing a higher involvement caused by the increased entertainment value
(Van den Broek et al., 2018). Users who browse the web in order to be enter
tained are likely to be attracted by salient ads on the bases of a higher cognitive
capacity to process the ads (Bang et al., 2018). Ads which are perceived with a
considerable relevance attributed to the personal intrinsic needs, values and
interests of the users are gaining greater attention (Van den Broek et al., 2018).
This determination is based on the self-referencing theory by Rogers et al. (1977)
which defines that personally stimulating ads increase persuasive effects and
therefore enhance the positive response toward ads. Advertising provokes certain
economic value for the user, namely the free usage of most online websites,
comparison shopping, social networking, video entertainment, and the greater
the appreciation of these advantages, the greater the positive attitude toward
advertisements (Redondo & Aznar, 2018). Comparing ad blocker-users and non
users, it is crucial to grasp their value set regarding online advertisements.
Therefore, we include information, entertainment, personal and economic value in our
online advertising target comparison.
Negatives of Online Advertisement

If users perceive online ads negatively, the possibility of unfavourable image
transfers to the advertisers’ brand increases and may result in a dismissive pur
chasing behaviour (Van den Broek et al., 2018). Numerous reasons why online
users carry out ad avoidance exist, whereby we focus on perceived goal impediment,
sacrifice and prior negative experience. While utilising the Internet, users are often
goal oriented and online ads are perceived as a source of disruption, hindering the
users to fluently achieve their desired intention of using the web (Cho & Cheon,
2004). Perceived goal impediment represents the most significant factor influen
cing online advertisement avoidance (Prendergast et al., 2014). In case of dis
played ads being visually salient as well as achieving the task, the users’ level of
goal impediment will diminish (Bang et al., 2018). Sacrificed users experience the
online ad as a feeling of disadvantage, due to the displayed online ads. Emotions
such as annoyance, irritation and risk of losing time, control as well as privacy
occur (Redondo & Aznar, 2018). As a consequence, users often only recognise
the ads once they start to get annoyed by them and thereafter are avoiding ads
more consciously, especially those unfitting the editorial unit (Shin & Lin, 2016).
The greater the extent of the advertisements being specifically targeted on the
user, the more the ads are regarded as annoying and an infringement of the
privacy (Tudoran, 2019) resulting in psychological resistance (Shin & Lin, 2016).
The consumers’ prior knowledge is having a significant effect on the decision-
making process before and during a purchase process including the attitudes and
behaviour toward a product or service. The same applies for users who let their
prior negative experience, namely dissatisfaction and perceived lack of utility as
well as incentive, with an online ad influence their attitude towards the displayed
(Cho & Cheon, 2004) and results in a declining willingness to accept future ads
(Seyedghorban et al., 2016). Especially warnings or beliefs passed on in form of
stories by family, friends or colleagues are highly valued by the users and a greater
level of scepticism arises, contributing to the users embodying a general distrust of
advertisements (Kelly et al., 2010).
Online Ad Avoidance
Due to the fact that the online environment enables users to customise their
behaviour, the avoidance of sources of displeasure is observed by the means of
reducing distractions of the web content (Baek & Morimoto, 2012). Negative
online experience is often related to disturbances concerning the cost, value
and availability of demanded online content and influences the future beha
viour of the users (Prendergast et al., 2014). The attitudinal reactions of users
concerning online ads can be categorised in three essential features such as
affective, behavioural and cognitive ad avoidance.
Taking the affective component of ad avoidance into consideration, users react

by expressing feelings or emotions towards an object resulting in possible avoid
ance of online ads on account of intensely disliking them (Cho & Cheon, 2004).
The users’ negative belief of advertisements is identified as cognitive avoidance, a
psychological defence mechanism. A consequence of cognitive avoidance is the
deliberate avoidance of ads (Prendergast et al., 2014). The greater a negative
assumption of online advertisement, the greater the adverse attitude of the cog
nitive element of ad avoidance (Cho & Cheon, 2004). Behavioural ad avoidance
is distinguished by the users’ proactive performing avoidance other than lack of
attention for instance leaving the page, scrolling down or using an ad blocker
(Baek & Morimoto, 2012). We will include all three dimensions in our study.
Ad blocker usage
In the past users had solely the possibility to avoid online advertisements by
expressing one of the previously mentioned types of ad avoidance. Nowadays,
technology is available to support the online users’ decision to refrain from
advertisements by the utilisation of ad blockers, an automated solution (Kelly et
al., 2010). According to PageFair’s 2017 Adblock Report, the usage of an ad
blocking software is growing exponentially with 615 million devices using such a
service, accounting for 11% of the global online population. If a user is installing
an ad blocker or not is immediately related to the degree of knowledge regarding
the beneficial attributes of the software and it is presumed that the awareness
concerning ad blockers is going to increase globally (Redondo & Aznar, 2018).
As a result of the development of sophisticated marketing tools which take the
users’ preferences into account and enable to display more targeted ads, the
adoption of ad blocking or filtering appliances have advanced (Johnson, 2013).
Hence, ad blockers provide the users with an extensive control over unsolicited
ads and are regarded as a convenient and easy application (Redondo & Aznar,
2018). According to the study by Seyedghorban et al. (2016), users who choose
an increased restriction of online ads by availing of an ad blocker perceive ads to
be less goal restraining. As previously mentioned, prior negative experience is a
considerable reason of ad avoidance and represents the most significant reason of
users installing ad blockers (Van den Broek et al., 2018). The grounds for users to
install an ad blocker differ. The main justifications for the application are security
aspects such as the perceived risk of viruses and malware concerns (30%) as well as
ads being considered interruptive (29%). Further motivations are speed (16%) in
terms of slow website loading times, the enormous number of displayed ads
(14%) and privacy concerns (6%) due to the fact that advertisers increasingly uti
lising personal data by the means of creating specifically targeted ads (PageFair,
2017). Overall it can be stated that negative feelings evoked by the elements of
ads are the main factor related to adopting an ad blocker (Tudoran, 2019).
Summarising previous research findings, we will focus on the perceived value

as well as negatives of ads from a consumer perspective. We assume that these
two dimensions have an impact on ad avoidance. Based on the described ad
avoidance literature above, we will investigate ad avoidance effects based on three
dimensions: affective, behavioural and cognitive. Figure 7.1 illustrates the con
ceptual framework this study adopted. It explored how perceived positives/
negatives of ads and consumer characteristics affect different types of ad avoid
ance. The behavioural ad avoidance was operationalised by the use of ad blocker
as measured through tisoomi technology.
Main Findings
The final sample skewed toward male respondents, especially for the user group.
75.7 % of the ad block-user and 66.5 % of the non-user self-reported to be male.
Regarding its age, the overall sample includes a variety of age groups. The user
group is slightly younger than the non-user group (69% vs 80% for 18–54), but
FIGURE 7.1 Conceptual Model

the non-user group has more millennial participants. The sample skewed toward
middle/low income participants.
From the perspective of consumer characteristics, the differences between the
two groups were rather small. While both groups have similar income levels, the
non-user group has slightly more people from the lower income segments. User
and non-user groups have similar levels of education. About 2/3 of the participants
have high school and above education. Looking at the media use overall, the
respondents spend a lot more time on the Internet and mobile devices than on
traditional media. Users use newspaper and streaming more than non-users. On the
other hand, non-users watch more TV and use more mobile and slightly more
Internet. Similarly, there is also no significant difference in terms of consumer
attitude toward online advertising between users and non-users. Overall, non-users
reported slightly more positive attitudes toward online advertising than users.
In terms of perceived positives/value, non-users reported slightly higher per
ceived values than users across all four types of ad value. Still, no significant dif
ference in the perceived positives or value of online ad between users and non
users was found. While non-users reported slightly higher perceived negatives
than users across all four negative ad perceptions, in total there is no significant
difference in the perceived negatives of online ad between users and non-users.
In terms of the predictors of ad avoidance, four factors – Internet usage, informa
tion value, goal impediment and lack of utility – were found to affect the ad blocker
users’ tendency of affective avoidance of online ads either positively or negatively.
For ad blocker users, Internet use and the negative perceptions of goal impediment,
as well as lack of utility, contribute to affective ad avoidance. Of all these, the per
ceived goal impediment is the most important factor that positively influences ad
blocker users’ affective ad avoidance. The more the users perceived online ads to be
goal impeding, the more likely they would exhibit ad avoidance affectively. Per
ceived informative value, on the other hand, can negatively influence ad blocker
users’ affective avoidance. The more the users perceived online ads to be informative,
the less likely they would exhibit ad avoidance affectively.
Looking at the predictors of affective avoidance of online ads for ad blocker
non-users, five factors were found to affect the non-users’ tendency. These factors
were goal impediment and sacrifice as well as informative value, streaming usage
and age. For non-users, perceived negatives of goal impediment and sacrifice
contribute to affective ad avoidance. Perceived sacrifice is the most important
predictor that positively influences non-users’ affective ad avoidance.
In terms of predictors of cognitive ad avoidance, six factors were found to affect
the ad blocker users’ tendency of cognitive avoidance of online ads: newspaper
usage, Internet usage, perceived negatives of sacrifice, lack of utility, informative
value and entertainment. For ad blocker users, newspaper/Internet usage and per
ceived negatives of sacrifice and lack of utility contribute to cognitive ad avoidance.
Perceived sacrifice is the most important factor that positively influences ad blocker
users’ cognitive ad avoidance. The more the users felt that online ads sacrificed
their control or privacy, the more likely for them to exhibit ad avoidance cogni
tively. Perceived informative value and entertainment value can negatively influ
ence ad blocker users’ cognitive ad avoidance. The more the users perceived online
ads to be informative and entertaining, the less likely for them to exhibit ad
avoidance cognitively.
For non-users, four factors were determined: sacrifice, informative value,
mobile usage and TV usage. For non-users, perceived sacrifice is the most
important factor that positively influences non-users’ cognitive ad avoidance. The
more the non-users felt that online ads sacrificed their control or privacy, the
more likely that they would exhibit ad avoidance cognitively. Informative value,
mobile usage and TV usage, on the other hand, can negatively influence non
users’ cognitive avoidance. The more the non-users felt that online ads are
informative, the more they use mobile devices and TV, the less likely they would
exhibit ad avoidance cognitively.
Regarding the last dimension, three factors were found to affect the ad blocker
users’ tendency of behavioural avoidance of online ads. Those are goal impedi
ment, sacrifice and entertainment value. For ad blocker users, perceived negatives
of goal impediment and sacrifice contribute to behavioural ad avoidance. Goal
impediment is the most important factor that positively influences ad blocker users’
behavioural ad avoidance. The more the users felt that online ads impeded their
goals, the more likely that they would avoid ads behaviourally. Perceived enter
tainment value can negatively influence ad blocker users’ behavioural ad avoid
ance. The more the users felt that online ads were entertaining, the less likely that
they would avoid online ads behaviourally. For non-user, five factors were found
to affect the ad blocker non-users’ tendency of behavioural avoidance of online
ads: goal impediment, sacrifice, income, streaming media use and informative
value. Perceived negatives of goal impediment and sacrifice contribute to beha
vioural ad avoidance in a positive way. Sacrifice is the most important predictor
that positively influences non-users’ behavioural ad avoidance. The more the non
users felt that online ads sacrificed their control or privacy, the more likely that they
would avoid online ads behaviourally. Income, streaming media use and especially
perceived informative value of online ads can negatively influence non-users’
cognitive avoidance. That is, the more the non-users felt online ads were infor
mative, the more they streamed, and the higher income they have, the less likely
they would avoid online ads behaviourally.
Overall, ad blocker-users are younger than the non-user. Users also read more
newspapers and use streaming-services more often than non-users. Non-users
consume more TV and use their smartphone as well as the Internet in general more
often than the ad blocker-users. Looking at the differences regarding ad avoidance,
there is no significant difference between user and non-user on the three dimen
sions (affective, cognitive, behavioural). However, while the non-users and users as
a whole did not differ significantly, as discussed above, there are important differ
ences in the drivers of their ad avoidances.
Main Conclusions
The study lasted about six months and both industry and academic collaborators
agreed that the results contribute to their understanding of the ad blocker users and
ad avoidance phenomenon. Process-wise, after the data collection and analysis
were completed the researchers made an internal presentation to the industry
partner via Skype. With the audience background and objectives in mind, the
presentation focused on the comparison of the user and non-user groups and the
different drivers of ad avoidance with minimal academic jargon in statistics and
theories and more market implications. In particular, statistical values were trans
formed into percentage increases for easier comprehension. Follow-up industry
presentations were made in leading online marketing events like the AdBlocker Day
at Online Marketing Rockstars and the OMK Lüneburg. The first public pre
sentation took place at the Publisher Business Conference 2018 in Hamburg,
which was hosted by the collaboration partner tisoomi. As collaborators, the
researchers and tisoomi team presented the results jointly to industry practitioners
in Germany. The value for the business partner tisoomi was to gather independent
research results, which could be used for B2B communication in the advertising
industry. The study served as base to foster the discussion about an important topic
with different stakeholders, e.g. advertisers, publishers and media agencies. From
the academic side, the results were re-analysed using more statistical processes fol
lowing the industry reporting. The completed manuscript, authored by both the
lead researchers and doctoral students, was accepted for presentation at a leading
advertising academic research conference and subsequently prepared for refereed
journal submission. The results also delivered relevant knowledge for advertisers.
Since the investment in advertising is costly, it is important to better understand ad
blockers’ attitude toward advertisement in comparison to non-users and also get
granular information about the cognitive, affective and behavioural ad avoidance
behaviour of the special target group. The results showed that the target group of
ad blocker-users should not be ignored as a target group per se. This again is a
fruitful result for all publishers, whose business model is built on income from
online advertising. We recommend that publishers investigate the attitude of their
specific target group of ad blocker-users since it increases their target groups in the
advertising selling market.
The most interesting insight of this study is the relationship between the findings
and intuition expressed by the industry practitioner prior to the study. Tisoomi
expressed to the research team that they had doubts about the assumed differences
between ad blocker groups based on their experiences. It was the trigger for their
funding of the study. However, it was essential for both the researchers and
industry partner to ensure that the study was conducted independently. Therefore,
while the topic of the project was identified based on a business need of the
industry, the investigation was performed without that influence. In this
case, the results not only confirmed the partner’s suspicion but also offered
insights on why that might be the case. Of course, there is the likelihood
that results would be contrary to the industry view; that is why the study
design and conceptual framework must be developed independently with
topical but not directional input.
Another lesson from the project is the importance of communication. Because
of the high involvement of the industry partner during the data gathering process, a
very close and interactive project management was necessary. Frequent commu
nication via email and telephone was deemed necessary to coordinate the dis
tribution in real time according to the participation results gathered via Qualtrics.
The higher involvement – compared to usual data gathering processes – of both
parties led to more time commitment in coordination. Another aspect of com
munication was in the approach and content of communication. Working on a
project with industry practitioners means there is a need of adjusting the language
of communications due to different levels of understanding in scientific methods
and priorities. We recommend researchers to communicate this to the industry
partner right from the start in the first meeting to ensure mutual understanding of
the standards and processes. It is also essential to keep flexibility in mind when
building an academic survey and explain to the industry partner the differences
between the survey aiming for refereed publication with typical market research
surveys. Furthermore, it is important to take time in the set-up of the project to
discuss the whole process, especially regarding the methods, deeply and step-by
step, while clarifying questions arising in order to prevent confusion during the
project itself.
Another lesson is the difficult battle between speed vs. accuracy and depth.
While practitioners want the results as fast as possible, because they are usually
working under time pressure, researchers are more likely to extend the timeline in
order to obtain rigorous results. Unfortunately, practitioners tend to underestimate
the expense and therefore the time a study like this takes, which is a topic that
should be addressed very early in the collaboration. The industry partner needs to
understand from the beginning that there can be no ‘quick and dirty’ solution to
get academic sound results. On the other hand, researches need to limit the com
plexity of research projects to an agreed upon amount and time to benefit both
parties mutually.
Overall, the expectations of the collaborative research project were met in a
timely manner. The results were disseminated in both the industry and academic
communities as planned. The knowledge gained was shared with the industry
practitioners in appropriate public forums and led to active discussions. In fact,
various industry practitioners expressed interests in working with the researchers
for follow-up studies in this area after the conference presentations. This reinforces
the importance of sharing collaborative research project outcomes in an industry, as
long as the language and content priority are adjusted appropriately. The presence
at important industry conferences can lead to future collaborative research projects
that are relevant and impactful. The project concludes with the preparation of
academic dissemination through a scholarly conference and refereed journal. At

this point, the research team needs to shift their focus to the aim and process of the
academic outlets. The key of success then is the foresight to design the study
comprehensive enough from the beginning to accomplish both goals.
Acknowledgements
We thank Yoojin Chung and Xiaomeng Lan from University of Florida as well as
Michelle Lucas and Jana Schamuhn from Hamburg Media School for their help in
the project, especially in the literature review and data collection phase. We would
also like to thank our research partner tisoomi, in particular their CEO Michael
Siegler, who supported the research project with financial and time resources.
References
Baek, T. H. & Morimoto, M. (2012). Stay away from me: Examining the determinants of
consumer avoidance of personalized advertising. Journal of Advertising, 41(1), 59–76.
Bang, H., Kim, J. & Choi, D. (2018). Exploring the effects of ad-task relevance and ad
salience on ad avoidance: The moderating role of online use motivation. Computers in
Human Behavior, 89(12), 70–78.
Bang, H. J., & Lee W.-N. (2016). Consumer response to ads in social network sites: An
exploration into the role of ad location and path. Journal of Current Issues & Research in
Advertising, 37(1), 1–14.
Benway, J. P. (1999). Banner blindness: What searching users notice and do not notice on
the world wide web (Dissertation). Rice University.
Celebi, S. I. (2015). How do motives affect attitudes and behaviors toward online adver
tising and Facebook advertising ? Computers in Human Behavior, 51(10), 312–324.
Cho, C.-H. & Cheon, H. J. (2004). Why do people avoid advertising on the Internet?
Journal of Advertising, 33(4), 89–97.
Despotakis, S., Ravi, R. & Srinivasan, K. (2017). The beneficial effects of ad blockers.
SSRN Electronic Journal. Retrieved from: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstra
ct_id=3083119.
Johnson, J. P. (2013). Targeted advertising and advertising avoidance. RAND Journal of
Economics, 44(1), 128–144.
Jung, A-R. (2017). The influence of perceived ad relevance on social media advertising:
An empirical examination of a mediating role of privacy concern. Computers in Human
Behavior, 70(5), 303–309.
Kelly, L., Kerr, G. & Drennan, J. (2010). Avoidance of advertising in social networking
sites: The teenage perspective. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 10(2), 16–27.
Koshksaray, A. A., Franklin, D. & Hanzaee, K. H. (2015). The relationship between E-
lifestyle and onlineAdvertising avoidance. Australasian Marketing Journal, 23, 38–48.
Logan, K., Bright, L. F. & Gangadharbatla, H. (2012). Facebook versus television: Adver
tising value perceptions among females. Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, 6(3),
164–179.
Miroglio, B., Zeber, D., Kaye, J. & Weiss, R. (2018). The effect of ad blocking on user
engagement with the web. WWW '18: Proceedings of the 2018 World Wide Web
Conference, April 2018, pp. 813–821. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1145/

3178876.3186162.
Moore, J. J. & Rodgers, S. L. (2005). An examination of advertising credibility and skep
ticism in five different media using the Persuasion Knowledge Model. American Acad
emy of Advertising conference proceedings. Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.
net/publication/313748628_An_examination_of_advertising_credibility_and_skep
ticism_in_five_different_media_using_the_persuasion_knowledge_model.
PageFair. (2017). The state of the blocked web: 2017 global adblock report. Retrieved
from: https://secureservercdn.net/198.71.233.13/dca.b64.myftpupload.com/wp-con
tent/uploads/2017/02/PageFair-2017-Adblock-Report.pdf.
Prendergast, G. P., Tsang, A. S. L. & Cheng, R. (2014). Predicting handbill avoidance in
Hong Kong and the UK. European Journal of Marketing, 48(1/2), 132–146.
PWC. (2018). Global entertainment and media outlook 2018–2022. Retrieved from: http
s://www.pwc.com/gx/en/entertainment-media/outlook/perspectives-from-the-global
entertainment-and-media-outlook-2018-2022.pdf.
Redondo, I. & Aznar, G. (2018). To use or not to use ad blockers? The roles of knowledge
of ad blockers and attitude toward online advertising. Telematics and Information, 35(6),
1607–1616.
Rogers, T. B., Kuiper, N. A. & Kirker, W. S. (1977). Self-reference and the encoding of
personal information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35(9), 677–688.
Seyedghorban, Z., Tahernejad, H. & Matanda, M. J. (2016). Reinquiry into advertising
avoidance on the Internet: A conceptual replication and extension. Journal of Advertising,
45(1), 120–129.
Shin, W. & Lin, T. T.-C. (2016). Who avoids location-based advertising and why?
Investigating the relationship between user perceptions and advertising avoidance.
Computers in Human Behavior, 63(10), 444–452.
Tudoran, A. A. (2019). Why do online consumers block ads? New evidence from con
sumer opinion mining and sentiment analysis. Online Research, 29(1), 144–166.
Van den Broek, E., Poels, K. & Walrave, M. (2018). An experimental study on the effect
of ad placement, product involvement and motives on Facebook ad avoidance. Tele
matics and Informatics, 35(5), 470–479.
8
LOCATION-BASED SERVICES IN
REGIONAL MEDIA COMMUNICATION
Insights from a Research Project
Harald Rau and Annika Ehlers

OSTFALIA UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES AND JÖNKÖPING INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS SCHOOL
Introduction
Location-based services (LBS) – applications that create value for the user through
geo-localisation (Masters, 2014) – gained significantly relevance in recent years. By
2015, 90% of adults in the US had used LBS on a mobile phone. The European
market for LBS demonstrated a strong growth in 2016, which was expected to
continue for the following years (EGNSSA, 2017). At the same time, the importance
of mobile media in communication processes increased drastically (Goggin, 2010;
Heinemann & Gaiser, 2014; Nayak, 2016). Its relevance is also evident for journal
ism: ‘many people have shifted the ways they access the news in everyday life, with
mobile devices gaining much significance’ (Westlund & Färdigh, 2014). Mobile
news statistics show that 85% of adults in the US had received news on their mobile
device at least once, and, in particular, young adults used their smartphones to access
news (Lu, 2017). In 2018, smartphones were outpacing laptops and desktop com
puter as the access medium to news (Fedeli & Matsa, 2018).
Integrating LBS into the production and use of mobiles sounds promising for the
media industry: Nyre et al. (2012) supposed a high potential for GPS-equipped
phones in local journalism, as the integration of LBS in mobile news apps might
allow innovative forms of news production, aggregation and presentation that,
again, might increase the value of communication for the recipients. More pre
cisely, the combination of the two technologies might enable a more ‘contextual
user experience and an easier search for news as well as an easier comprehension
and visualisation of local news’ (Schmitz Weiss, 2013). However, looking at the
media markets, we can hardly observe any cases where media organisations have
successfully integrated location-based features in their (news) media products
(Ehlers & Rau, 2018b).
122 Harald Rau and Annika Ehlers
Following these arguments, the overall research question for the project reads
as follows: what opportunities emerge from LBS-technology for regional media
organisations (and other regional stakeholders), and how can/will it be used?
This chapter will present our three-year (2017–2020), EU-funded LBS project as a
current example for an applied research project that focuses on media innovation. After
an overview of the relevant literature and the state of research, the project will be
introduced. Hereby, we will not only present research-related findings but share
insights in the planning of a research project that involves several project partners (aca
demia and practice). In particular, we will shed light on the theoretical, methodological
and practical challenges of researching media innovation, as well as the ‘soft’ organisa
tional factors for media and management scholars and managers in the media industries.
Literature Review: Exploring the Field

The project started with literature reviews in three fields: the state of the art and
the development in location-based services (LBS) in general; the development of
hyperlocal journalism, as well as the future of local journalism; and the use of LBS
in journalism and media production and distribution.
We surmise that the majority of contributions that focus on LBS in media were
published at the beginning of the 2010s. In addition, there are only a few publica
tions that consequently explored LBS in the context of news and information media
(Nyre et al., 2012; Schmitz Weiss, 2013). Hence, we see a major gap for further
research of the use of LBS, particularly in regional and local media and from the
perspective of smaller and medium-sized content producers. Leading industries in
terms of local or hyperlocal information-based services are retail, transport and
logistics – linking media management advertising to retail solutions seems to be the
only LBS topic consequently being focused on (Fang et al., 2016; Luo et al., 2014;
Banerjee & Dholakia, 2008; Bruner & Kumar, 2007; Leek & Christodoulides, 2009;
Butcher, 2011; Unni & Harmon, 2007; Skeldon, 2011; with an empirical approach
also Gidofalvi, Larsen & Pedersen, 2008; Xu, Oh & Teo, 2009; Mazaheri, Rafiee &
Khadivi, 2010 introducing new network technology; Xu et al., 2011 investigating
the influence of content relevance and delivery time; Molitor, Reichart & Spann,
2012 analysing location-based coupons on consumer behaviour).
Location-Based Services
A uniform understanding of the LBS has not yet been established (Basiri et al.,
2015). Despite different approaches, we use a definition that researchers agreed
was characteristic for LBS: LBS can be defined as services that identify the geo
graphical position of a user’s mobile device and that provide the user with per
sonalised information based on their position (Martin et al., 2010). By connecting
the location with associated information, LBS generates an added value for the
user through associating information with a context.
Location-Based Services 123
The research field of LBS is quite interdisciplinary, but, at the same time, it is
strongly orientated towards technological issues. The Journal of Location-Based Ser
vices (Taylor & Francis, 2007–) is dominated by geographical and IT-orientated
research. Papers from such areas as management are rarely found. The Web of
Science (Clarivate Analysis) database lists around 6,400 articles on LBS (March
2019), of which 68% are IT and telecommunication papers and 36% are marked
as papers from an engineering background. Less than 3% are management orien
ted and even less address, for example, sociological topics.
Hyperlocal Journalism
The second field that we can take literature from is the area of hyperlocal jour
nalism. Hyperlocal media is not LBS from the technological point of view and can
be seen as a submarket (Yang & Chyi, 2011). Still, hyperlocal media projects often
deal with different ideally audience-shaped (Tang & Lai, 2018) formats of local
media distributions and new organisational structures in the production routines or
concerning business models (Cook & Sirkkunen, 2013), even including micro-
payment (Hayes & Graybeal, 2011). Such projects are discussed as new solutions in
challenging local media ecologies (Lowrey & Kim, 2016). Hence, the literature on
hyperlocal journalism adds a broader perspective on the development of local
media in terms of legacy media organisation, as well as entrepreneurial journalism
(Brouwers, 2017), start-ups and non-profit organisations. Even though this is still a
relatively small field, we could see the topic emerging particularly in the UK in the
last years (White et al., 2017).
Concepts of ‘hyperlocality’, on the one hand, refer to a distinct spatial proximity,
such as a town, village, single postcode or other small, geographically defined com
munity (Halkosaari et al., 2017). On the other hand, the majority of the definitions
refer to hyperlocal media projects as defined by Metzgar et al. (2011): ‘hyperlocal
media operations are geographically-based, community-oriented, original-news
reporting organisations indigenous to the web and intended to fill perceived gaps in
coverage of an issue or region and to promote civic engagement’ (p. 774). Hence, the
term ‘hyperlocal’ functions as a proxy for describing different functions of media
projects and organisations, rather than concretely referring to geographical proximity.
As mentioned, hyperlocal media is not necessarily connected to any kind of
technology use. In most cases, locally produced content is spread via websites, apps
and social media groups that do not imply any distribution determined by spatial
proximity. The literature in this field still implicates that there is a need of local and
hyperlocal information both in rural as in urban areas. LBS could support an effi
cient distribution of such information and media outputs. Hyperlocal projects
could, therefore, be one major field of applying localisation technology and trying
different concepts of localisation, before legacy media adapts the technology –
especially in comparably small (media) market environments, where changing
business models is a rare alternative (cf. Donders et al., 2018).
Localisation in Mobile Journalism

Locative journalism explores the connection between local journalism and mobile
news. The concept refers to journalism that ‘incorporates a place, space, and/or
location (physical, augmented and virtual) into the process and practice of journalism’
(Schmitz Weiss, 2014). In comparison to the discussion on hyperlocal news, this
concept incorporates the idea of using localisation technology, such as GPS positions.
Westlund (2013) refers to locative news as ‘an important area of innovation for news
publishers’, while Nyre and colleagues (2012) discuss locative journalism as a chance
for local newspapers – localisation can strengthen the local focus and the commu
nication with the local community as a key asset of local news organisations. From
the user perspective, locative news is experienced as more interesting and informative
(Øie, 2012). ‘Locative news is surely a new way of marshalling, mediating, and
making sense of place … through projects of emplacement and by the movement in
and through places by objects, technologies, and users’ (Goggin et al., 2014). Nyre et
al. (2012) resume that, from the technical side, it is easy to design a medium that
affords location-dependent journalism. From the content side, it is fairly difficult to
establish a new writing practice among journalists to exploit the new possibilities.
One contribution that empirically focuses on the diffusion of LBS in the field of
journalism is by Schmitz Weiss (2013). Her analysis of the US media market shows
that geo-location features were only used for service purposes, and a connection
between news stories and locations did not occur. Accordingly, she identifies a gap
between news organisations and consumers: even though we can observe a high use
of LBS by smartphone consumers, media organisations use geo-location features in
their mobile apps only for traffic and weather. ‘Legacy news organisations analysed in
this study show that they are failing to keep up with the demand based on what news
consumers, particularly young adults, are doing and using on their smartphone’
(Schmitz Weiss, 2013).
Project
In the following paragraphs, the setup of the project is described and critically
discussed. The focus here lies on the particularities of managing the project and
the collaboration with partners.
Objective, Agenda and Adjustments

The objective of the multi-level research project is to identify opportunities and
risks of location-based services (LBS) for local or regional media communications –
exemplified for two selected regions in the state of Lower Saxony (Germany). The
core target is to identify models of success for the digital transformation of regional
media communications by involving different regional stakeholders and national
and international experts. Therefore, the aim is to sustainably address the issue of
content-related possibilities and the associated acceptance of local services, instead

of simply concerning technical aspects.
Originally, the following research steps were defined in advance: first, we sys
tematically elaborate the relevant literature; second, a Delphi will explore current
and future fields of application for LBS within regional media communications in
conjunction with international experts in the field; third, focus group sessions
with representatives of regional stakeholders (journalism, sports, culture, and
regional economy) are held to examine opportunities and challenges on the
regional level; and, fourth, quantitative studies are set up to examine usage beha
viour and patterns of recipients mobile media usage. However, already in an early
stage, difficulties of the research topic were encountered: there is no truly thorough
overview of the market of applicable and employed technologies within the field.
Additionally, LBS refers to various research fields (cf. supra). While research on
LBS is at an advanced stage concerning aspects of information technology as well as
concrete applications, conclusive offers of application are spread amongst various
sectors. Furthermore, concrete communication offerings using LBS are barely
applied on the regional or local level. Accordingly, the amount of work increased
attendant to research, which led to extensive reconsiderations and adaptions of the
project. To get a sufficient overview about the state of the art, both in research and
practice, we decided to broaden the field in two ways. Firstly, the scope was
broadened to general LBS applications to get best practice examples from other
fields, such as retail or transportation. Secondly, the exploration was shifted to the
international level to investigate cases in the bigger and more technology-driven
markets of North America and Asia. With this broadly conceived exploration stage,
other methodological challenges arose: how to analyse the international state of the
art in LBS and locative media in a scientifically reasonable way, when there is no
one market or one database, but, instead, information, actors and services spread
everywhere. Thus, we worked on a combination of an exploration combined with
elements of classical quantitative content analysis.
Partnerships, Application and Funding

The project originated from a conversation among two colleagues from Ostfalia
University of Applied Sciences and Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences
during a conference of the German Communication Association in 2012. In
2012, potential industry partners were contacted and business meetings with both
universities and media and IT companies were organised.
From an early stage within the project, it was decided which funding line was
to be pursued. Today, this is considered rather positive: once it was clear which
funding framework the application would file, all further project partners could
be specifically addressed. We decided to apply for the European Fund for
Regional Development (EFRE). It required a regional setting, which meant the
end the project relied on the support of regional stakeholders. That is why, from
the beginning, important players of regional communication were addressed.
To increase the success rate while addressing managers from the industry
directly, one should consider which of possible partners could benefit most from
the potential. As this project was located within the field of regional or even local
media communication, two regional based newspaper publishers had been
involved. Top management of the two enterprises saw different departments in
charge to support our project, and they respectively engaged different functional
areas – leading to a major challenge right from the very first meeting, as the Neue
Osnabrücker Zeitung was represented by their editor-in-chief and the Braunschweiger
Zeitung was represented by their head of marketing. Consequently, this resulted in
varying opinions and goals. This duality gave a new spin to the project, and it was
one of the reasons that we integrate both a journalism marketing view – at the end
to support our exploratory study of LBS market.
First talks on the concrete project started in spring 2013. At that time,
project partners representing regional media enterprises were already con
tacted – their reactions were positive, and they had been integrated fast. So,
in this case, finding partners for the cooperation in industry had been no
challenge at all. Essentially, this project developed into collaboration between
the universities Ostfalia (Salzgitter) and Osnabrück (Lingen), the Braunschweiger
Zeitungsverlag (newspaper publisher), the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung (newspaper
publisher) and the IT-Dienstleistungsgesellschaft mbH Emsland (information and
service enterprise). These project partners were supported by Treiß-Media, a
small media company that provides an industry-specific service called Location
Insider, offering a daily newsletter that publishes white papers and business-
talks on a monthly basis.
In 2014, both universities worked on the application, which was submitted in
2015. The application was phrased by the collaborating scientists only. During the
actual application, none of the industry partners had any influence on the exact
wording, planned research steps and used methods. It is our recommendation not
to over-expand exchanges in the early stages of a project, as this might narrow the
horizon to smaller problems of the contributing business partners, rather than
creating a big picture driven by research gaps.
Only by the end of 2016, everyone involved was informed about the accepted
application and, thereby, the release of funds. In early 2017, both universities
advertised for one position each and were successfully able to fill them. The fund
ing started in fall 2017 with a three-year timeframe: the entire project was split
between the two selected regions and the two schools. It allowed them to hire one
research assistant per region. The project partner in Osnabrück was able to install
one full-time researcher, and, at Ostfalia University, two half-time jobs were cre
ated, which simultaneously enabled the suitable candidates to further qualify
themselves to join the university’s master programme.
Methodology and Results

Despite the systematic analysis and combination of the different literature streams,
different methodological approaches were chosen to explore the field of (news)
media and communication.
A first overview over the situation in the German media market gave a broad
content analysis of German news applications in 2017 (Ehlers & Rau, 2018b).
Based on the (available online) database of the German Commission on Con
centration in the Media (KEK), we chose a census of all news organisations to
depict the German media system appropriately. All 511 national, regional and local
newspapers, 439 public and private national, regional and local radio stations, 317
national, regional and local TV channels (public broadcasting and privately owned)
were checked regarding whether they had a news media smartphone application.
Of the 623 found news apps, 32% used some localisation, but, in the most cases, it
remained unclear why the application was collecting spatial information. Only in a
handful of cases was there actual value of integration spatial proximity in the dis
tribution of news. This is in line with Schmitz Weiss findings from 2013 and it also
show that, in the last five years, there was no significant development in products
or services incorporating LBS in media communication.
To get a better understanding of the state of the art of LBS apps in general, we
conducted a market exploration, using around 200 international cases that were
mentioned in the industry newsletters Location Insider, Street Fighter or Tech Crunch.
We first used qualitative analysis to find common themes, dimensions and cate
gories (such as technology, functions etc.) and then conducted a quantitative con
tent analysis using the previously established features. The analysis showed
interesting aspects, such as the observation of a trend leading to indoor LBS solu
tions (e.g. with Beacons).
At the same time, we conducted research on the regional level, including actors
mentioned in the project application. To investigate the potential LBS providers’
perception on the local level, five guided focus group discussions were conducted
in the city Brunswick with representatives of relevant sectors (tourism, culture,
journalism, trade and sports). The discussions were transcribed and analysed using
Mayring’s approach of qualitative content analysis. In the discussions, huge chal
lenges became clear: if smaller players want to survive, their applications need
clearly communicated benefits. Otherwise barriers caused by certain privacy con
cerns (cf. Limpf & Voorveld, 2015) or a perceived lack of usefulness are perceived
as too high.
Additionally, two quantitative surveys were conducted in the region. First, we
tested the technology acceptance for LBS in an everyday context (Ehlers & Rau,
2018a), surveying 243 participants with an age range of 18 to 76 years and vary
ing levels of education. The analysis based on the unified theory of acceptance
and use of technology (Venkatesh et al., 2003) showed the importance of ful
filling performance expectation, effort expectations and hedonistic motivation to
create services that will be accepted by the public. The survey also displayed that
LBS already play a big role in people’s everyday life in Germany: LBS are reg
ularly used for navigation and transportation services, as well as, for example, in
gastronomy. Also, participants share their locations in social media and messaging
applications to connect with others. Privacy concerns were, in this survey, smaller
than initially expected. In a second survey, 452 young adults (18–35 years) from
both rural and urban areas in Lower Saxony were asked about their local identi
fication and their use of local and non-local digital, as well as analogue, media
(Ehlers & Rau, 2018b). The results show that young adults are interested in news
about their city and tend to care about events and happenings in the local
environment. They access this information mainly via news websites and through
social media feeds.
Contributions of the Project

In sum, the project established a sustainable basis and prepared the ground for
further research. The results contribute to an order of a rather diffuse object of
research (cf. the paragraphs on the state of research), providing a better overview
of the matter and, thereby, building a bridge between different traditions and
approaches. Furthermore, the project introduced a market exploration that com
bines an explanatory approach with quantitative content analysis. The outcome
enriches future and even current diffusion research in terms of information tech
nology innovation by combining economically pragmatic and analytical approa
ches of communication sciences. The project has, at its current state, expanded
the gap between the theoretically possible and the practically executed and has,
therefore, demonstrated that innovations are often assessed too optimistically and
are underestimated considering their practical use. It is to be expected that the
upcoming Delphi study will approach this gap between experts who are con
vinced of ‘enabling’ and who constantly refer to the cost-benefit relation.
The main contribution to media management research this project offers is the
following: location-based services could be a game-changing technology for regional
media communication. But these services are, up till now, descried very poorly by
management of legacy media. This, however, can offer opportunities for new actors
in the market or societal driven media by using participatory communication strate
gies, both requiring different media management approaches. Future research might
also view this as a starting point. Projects that incorporate future-oriented innova
tions need exactly this kind of multi-facetted perspective from all sorts of different
disciplines – which, after all, might be the most important finding of this project.
Challenges in the Project

Apart from the purely research-related aspects (methodology, definitions, sig
nificant outcome, different traditions dependent on disciplines, etc.), especially
the ‘softer’ and mostly administration- or communication-related (timeframe,

coordination between project partners, hiring research assistants, and adminis
trative framework) factors will be considered in this section.
Aspects of Time: Between Application and Kick-Off

Usually, the time between the application and the approval of a request, respec
tively the release of funds for national and international research projects, can lie
between one and a half and two years. Adding the fact that the work on an
application starts about a year in advance, there is no doubt that this poses a core
challenge to the success of a project. In our case, nearly three years lay between
the first idea and the confirmation for funding.
Research projects in the field of media management regularly focus on inno
vative technologies, including innovative practical routines such as media recep
tion. With innovation related topics, a time frame of several years might already
change a project’s purpose. Some particular aspects might even lose in value over
time, some gain attention respectively, as was also the case during this project.
Location-based services (LBS) have undergone major changes. Big players, such as
Google, have expanded their LBS by great measures and, thereby, stretched their
edge over competition significantly. In the meantime, a large amount of services
in the shape of mobile applications have joined the market.
It must be noted that during this project, we were successfully able to show an
outstandingly weak adoption of technologies and options of LBS in the field of
local and hyperlocal journalism, which is probably a question of community
structure (cf. Becker et al., 2010). Yet, we were able to transfer some considera
tions from the initial application. In recent years, the field of LBS has not evolved
in terms of velocity as much as it could have. This activity blackout led to the
implementation of a very broad international market exploration in the process of
our project (not intended in advance).
The lengthy periods also have an influence on the structure of the staff.
Research assistants opening the field and working on the application left the
university before being able to start and work in the funded project. Various
changes and transitions of responsibilities were a challenge for management –
right from the beginning of the project.
Human resource management

In addition to the previous challenge, all positions within projects (such as the
one that we are talking about) are temporary – fixed just for the duration of the
individual project. These positions remain as some kind of interim solution for
qualified young researchers in the field of media and communication science,
even if they might seek the possibility of gaining a doctorate. In this project,
fluctuation has been well documented. To be precise, three employees left during
the project duration for other job offers, and the staff member who originally
coordinated the application left the university right before successfully raising the
funding. Continuity within the project presents itself as one of the principle
challenges. As for all new research assistants joining the scientific world, the first
major task is to get up to speed within the discipline. Furthermore, they will have
to be able to put themselves in the position of those who, up to the present
point, have designed the project.
Industry Versus Academia: Differing Timeframes and Priorities

The problem of a transformed structure of personnel is even more problematic with
industry partners. For example, the head of marketing at one of the two newspaper
companies involved (with whom all arrangements concerning the application had
been made in advance) left the company a few weeks after starting the project. Gen
erally, the chosen project region sees a high amount of staff turnover in legacy media
resulting from increasing economic pressure. During the project, various waves of
reengineering changed the structure of the associated media companies in the
Braunschweig-Salzgitter area. This exemplifies the pressure on the field in general.
In our experience, the top management of media companies mainly act in reac
tion to current market realities, and proactive measures take a backseat. This is sup
ported by the fact that the local media practice partners did not actively involve
themselves during the project. However, upon inquiry, the practice partners
expressed deep interest in the cooperation. Equally, it became obvious that it is the
promise of quick and economically tangible success that attracts legacy media to the
applied sciences. This results in the collision of two worlds, researchers prioritise
differently than managers. For researchers, it is always the topic itself that is in focus:
they seek to gain knowledge and approach a phenomenon in an unbiased manner in
concentric circles, discussing and broadening the field of possibilities, also doing so
when it comes to the results of empirical research. In contrast, a manager must make
decisions, weigh the pros and cons, reach a sound verdict in a short amount of time,
assess the possibilities that might advance their business and, thereby, increase the
total turnover.
Considering the LBS project, the topic bares little relevance to the daily business
of managers in media companies. We believe that this is the case since, first, there
are several competing innovations that might be valuable for media organisations
and, second, publishing houses increasingly feel the need to invest in engagements
that bring quickly generated revenues. Managers in German local media companies
seem to rather follow successful competitors’ models, such as the reengineering of
newsrooms or the testing of new online payment models. We observe high pres
sure on operative activities, which prevents strategic thinking and moves the focus
away from the actual communication output of media companies. Overall, strate
gically designed research projects, such as this, receive insufficient attention due to
other more pressing daily operations.
Unclear Structures in the Industry

Additionally, it is hard to clearly demarcate the industry: since there is no one LBS
industry, we are facing a variety of different players in the market. At the same
time, we strive for data that allows a benchmark. Since media organisations rarely
use LBS, we broadened our focus to analyse how LBS are used in other industries,
such as retail or tourism, to derive best practice examples and to increase the
awareness of different possibilities in terms of technology and functionality. Con
sidering the enormous dynamics of LBS that can be observed worldwide, even
market experts are hardly able to gain an overview of all available successful appli
cations. Therefore, it has been challenging to extract best practices, which is
indispensable for proper application development in applied settings.
To find an answer to those challenges, we had to look for alternative data
sources, which we finally found in such professional newsletters as Location Insider,
Street Fighter or Tech Crunch. Those allowed the extraction of cases of LBS products,
firms using LBS in some way and developers working on LBS solutions. As
described above, we based our market exploration of the LBS industry on those
newsletter cases, which were analysed in a systematic qualitative and quantitative
content analysis following the standards of social sciences. This method seems to
deliver interesting information, but it is quite time consuming to complete.
Slow Diffusion in Media Industries

As already mentioned, LBS are rarely used in media production and distribution.
Accordingly, we can refer to a slow observed diffusion rate in the industry. The
diffusion of innovation deals with ‘the process by which an innovation is commu
nicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system’
(Rogers, 2003). In our project, mobile news applications with LBS features are
defined as the innovation. The adaption of innovation not only refers to indivi
duals but also to organisations. Here, media enterprises come into place: in the
professional context, the diffusion of innovation mainly relies on the process of
initiation and the process of implementation (Rogers, 2003).
Media industries, in our case, implemented the media innovation slower than
expected at the beginning of the research project. The content analysis of news
apps of German legacy media organisations showed that the diffusion of innovative
LBS approaches is eminently slow (Ehlers & Rau, 2018a) – which is in line with
the findings of Schmitz Weiss (2013). Apparently, there was no significant devel
opment from 2013 until 2018. This, at the same time, leads to the fact that man
agers in the industry, e.g. in news media, have a limited understanding of the
concept and the meaning of LBS. Thinking about conduction interviews with
managers form legacy media organisations, they can barely be seen as experts in the
field and, most probably, would not able to give any new insights in the topic.
Hypothetical Audience Research

Resulting from the point mentioned above, we are facing challenges in impact and
audience research. Firstly, the (quite technical) term LBS is poorly known by survey
participants. Accordingly, in every survey that researches on different aspects of LBS
usage, the topic must be introduced by describing the concept of LBS and by giving
examples. We observed that most people are now aware that the applications they
use in everyday life, such as map services or applications for public transport, are
actually LBS. Even with an introduction to the concept, we can hardly ensure the
validity of self-reported LBS use.
Secondly, since only a few media products use localisation technology, scholars
must keep their research either on a general level or – when going more into detail –
default to hypothetical questions (Rau & Ehlers, 2017). This means that we can
research motives, intentions and actual behaviour of general LBS use fairly well, but,
in the context of localised media, we face huge limitations. Since most of the parti
cipants had never used media outlets that incorporated some sort of localisation
technology, we can do two things: we can ask for an interest describing a hypothe
tical platform with distinct functions; or we can measure the general interest in local
news and events, as well as the general usage of any kind of LBS, before combining
those measures to estimate an interest in localised news media applications. Both
options come with validity flaws and problematic assumptions. We had neither been
able to refer on pilot tests, such as Putzke et al. (2010) did to examine the mass cus
tomised newspaper, nor to reflect on a broad basis of studies conducted before
starting our project – to stay with the example of mass customisation, several studies
can already be cited by starting off in 2010 (e.g. Schoder et al., 2006; Ihlström &
Palmer, 2002; Kaplan et al., 2007; Franke et al., 2009). We do not see any possibility
to cope with that research design challenge – so, we decided to work on transpar
ency, to discover all technological options and to deliberate applicable technologies.
Rather than analysing actual applicable and promising solutions, we summarise pos
sibilities. With that, the project’s outcome could be seen as a rich source for future
managerial decisions. Finally, we can hardly give advice to project partners from the
industry about the need and the acceptance of localised media applications.
Challenges of Prototyping
Since there are only few LBS apps related to (news) media out in the market, it is
challenging to collect data of the actual objective use of such services. Unlike the
self-reported LBS use (see above), measuring the actual technology use (e.g. usage
times or patterns) would provide valuable additional information. Hence, it
would make sense to build a prototype – or even a fully operating LBS applica
tion – to find out more about the actual use of LBS in local and regional media.
However, we encountered several challenges regarding the practical imple
mentation of the prototype. Research teams creating platforms and applications
with test users to measure user experience and usability aspects are typically
located or strongly related to IT research groups. Without resources for the
development of applications in the research team, the whole undertake becomes
not only complicated but, most of all, expensive. In the case of news media LBS,
not only the technical framework but also the content of the application must be
developed – and, to generate as realistic usage data as possible, the content must
be maintained and updated regularly. That means that to test a running system
with at least a small group of users, both journalistic and programming work
needed to be integrated into the project. Since team members are most likely to
be hired because of their research-orientated skills, and third parties doing the IT-
work might be too costly – so, the prototype development needs to be out
sourced to additional complementing projects, such as student projects or by
involving practitioners and programmers. Here, we encountered another diffi
culty: in such ‘add-on’ projects, it will be difficult to meet the diverse expecta
tions and requirements.
Further Reflections
The following key insights can be summarised. Cooperation and coordination among
all project associates remained during the phase of application. After the release of
funds, there was the occasional exchange among the project partners, yet there was
hardly any commonly coordinated processing and developing of the project –
probably because there was no partners in the lead, none of the two universities
involved were heading the project and no principle investigator was installed. Even
though the project ran successfully, a closer exchange and more interaction of all
involved parties might have led to an even richer outcome. This could be pinned as
a learning for future projects: to plan, hold and protocol meetings (online or off-
line) more regularly in a fixed schedule that must be defined in advance.
The two universities involved developed the project in quite different ways, which
we mostly experienced as an enrichment of the project. Yet, it is interesting that all
associates (from both university and other parties concerned) interpreted the content
of the project in different ways, although it was based on two mostly similar EFRE-
applications. The individual approaches towards regional media communication, which
was brought into the discourse by different researchers involved, enhanced creativity.
All projects that are funded by the EU suffer from a very high number of
administrative requirements. Basically, every single hour of work must be matched
entirely with every single task that has been worked on. With every project being
self-governed, this is a factor that must be crucially considered in terms of the
coordination of the time available. In this case, this requirement must only be met
by the scientific institutes. Nearly 20% of the entire time should be reserved for
meeting administrative aspects (calculating and meeting budgets, protocoling
workload and hours, meeting online system requirements of EU, transferring data
to different stakeholders and writing regular reports).
As we have already mentioned the role of the industry partners, we recommend

setting the goals of a project independent from the contributions of external
partners. It is a specific learning, from previous publicly funded projects, that, in
the end, it is the researchers’ responsibility to oversee resources and the design of
processes. In our opinion (not only concerning the final application), the more
tasks being delegated to practice partners during the scheduled project – such as
acquiring partners for interviews – the tougher the managerial process. Ulti
mately, the success of the project resulted from the fact that the project team did
not necessarily depend on data provided by the project partners and was, there
fore, able to work rather independently.
The retroactive effects of this research project can only be speculated upon. It is
possible to transfer these scientifically gathered results into practical use. As we are
convinced of the value of the topic for media businesses, we also see that it requires a
certain amount of effort and translation work. Casually speaking, scientific studies are
unlike business plans, as the results will neither bare the desired amount of potential
for savings nor concrete profits. This is the factual problem of cooperation between
sciences, even applied sciences for that matter, and business-management practice.
Media management research requires interdisciplinarity – this also could be an
outcome of the project. Yet this criterion could not be met on the backdrop of
the funding constellation. To continue further research in media communication,
the authors recommend the connection and coordination of various disciplines,
namely information technology, journalism research and practical journalism, as
much as media economics and media management.
References
Banerjee, S. S. & Dholakia, R. R. (2008). Mobile advertising: Does location-based
advertising work? International Journal of Mobile Marketing, 3(2), 68–75.
Basiri, A., Moore, T., Hill, C. & Bathia, P. (2015). Challenges of location-based services
market analysis: Current market description. In G. Gartner & H. Huang (Eds.), Progress
in location-based services (pp. 273–282). Cham: Springer.
Becker, J. U., Clement, M. & Schaedel, U. (2010). The impact of network size and
financial incentives on adoption and participation in new online communities. Journal of
Media Economics, 23(3), 165–179.
Brouwers, A. D. (2017). Failure and understanding within entrepreneurial journalism.
Journal of Media Business Studies, 14(3), 217–233.
BrunerII, G. C. & Kumar, A. (2007). Attitude toward location-based advertising. Journal of
Interactive Advertising, 7(2), 3–15.
Butcher, M. (2011). Cultures of commuting: The mobile negotiation of space and sub
jectivity on Delhi’s metro. Mobilities, 6, 237–254.
Cook, C. & Sirkkunen, E. (2013). What’s in a niche? Exploring the business model of
online journalism. Journal of Media Business Studies, 10(4), 63–82.
Donders, K., Enli, G., Raats, T. & Syvertsen, T. (2018). Digitisation, internationalisation,
and changing business models in local media markets: An analysis of commercial media’s
perceptions on challenges ahead. Journal of Media Business Studies, 15(2), 89–107.
Ehlers, A. & Rau, H. (2018a). Acceptance as core factor for the success of LBS. In P.
Kiefer, H. Huang, N. Van de Weghe & M. Raubal (Eds.), Adjunct proceedings of the 14th
international conference on location based services (pp. 207–212). Zurich: ETH.
Ehlers, A. & Rau, H. (2018b). The future – a question of time and place: Mobile jour
nalism and localized news. Paper presented at The 68th annual conference of the
international communication association, Prague, Czech Republic, 24–28 May 2018.
European Global Navigation Satellite Systems Agency (EGNESSA). (2017). Spotlight on loca
tion based services. Retrieved from: www.gsc-europa.eu/news/spotlight-on-location-ba
sed-services.
Fang, Z., Yang, Y., Xu, Y. & Li, W. (2016). Boost movie ticket sales by location-based
advertising: A Bayesian VAR approach. Journal of Media Economics, 29(3), 125–138.
Fedeli, S. & Matsa, K. (2018). Use of mobile devices for news continues to grow, outpacing
desktops and laptops. Retrieved from: www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/07/17/
use-of-mobile-devices-for-news-continues-to-grow-outpacing-desktops-and-laptops/.
Franke, N., Keinz, P. & Steger, C. (2009). Testing the value of customization: When do
customers really prefer products tailored to their preferences. Journal of Marketing, 73(5),
103–121.
Gidofalvi, G., Larsen, H. R. & Pedersen, T. B. (2008). Estimating the capacity of the loca
tion-based advertising channel. International Journal of Mobile Communications, 6, 357–375.
Goggin, G. (2010). Global mobile media. London: Routledge.
Goggin, G., Martin, F. & Dwyer, T. (2014). Locative news. Journalism Studies, 16(1), 41–59.
Halkosaari, H., Rönneberg, M., Laakso, M., Kettunen, P., Oksanen, J. & Sarjakoski, T. (2017).
Concept design of #hylo—Geosocial network for sharing hyperlocal information on a map.
In G. Gartner & H. Huang (Eds.), Progress in location-based services (pp. 309–327). Cham:
Springer.
Hayes, J. & Graybeal, G. (2011). Synergizing traditional media and the social web for
monetization: A modified media micropayment model. Journal of Media Business Studies,
8(2), 19–44.
Heinemann, G. & Gaiser, C. (2014). Social - Local - Mobile: The Future of Location-based
Services. Heidelberg: Springer.
Ihlström, C. & Palmer, J. (2002). Revenues for online newspapers: Owner and user per
ceptions. Electronic Markets, 12, 228–236.
Kaplan, A. M., Schoder, D. & Haenlein, M. (2007). Factors influencing the adoption of
mass customization: The impact of base category consumption frequency and need
satisfaction. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 24, 101–116.
Lee, Y. C. (2010). Factors influencing attitudes towards mobile location-based advertising.
In W. Li (Ed.), Software engineering and service sciences (ICSESS) (pp. 709–712). Kaoh
siung, Taiwan: IEEE.
Leek, S. & Christodoulides, G. (2009). Next-generation mobile marketing: How young con
sumers react to Bluetooth-enabled advertising. Journal of Advertising Research, 49(1), 44–53.
Limpf, N. & Voorveld, H. A. (2015). Mobile location-based advertising: How information
privacy concerns influence consumers’ attitude and acceptance. Journal of Interactive
Advertising, 15(2), 111–123.
Lowrey, W. & Kim, E. (2016). Hyperlocal news coverage: A popul ecol perspective. Mass
Communication and Society, 19(6), 694–714.
Lu, K. (2017). Growth in mobile news use driven by older adults. Retrieved from: www.
pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/06/12/growth-in-mobile-news-use-driven-by-older
adults.
Luo, X., Andrews, M., Fang, Z., Phang, C. & Aaker, D. A. (2014). Mobile targeting.
Management Science, 60(7), 1738–1756.
Martin, E., Liu, L., Covington, M., Pesti, P. & Weber, M. (2010). Positioning technolo
gies in location-based services. In Ahson, S. & Ilyas, M. (Eds.), Location-based services
handbook: Applications, technologies, and security (pp. 1–46). Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
Masters, H. (2014). Location based services: Developments and privacy issues. New York: Nova
Science.
Mazaheri, A., Rafiee, N. & Khadivi, P. (2010). Location based targeted advertising using
bayesian network and fuzzy topsis. 5th International Symposium on Telecommunica
tions. Retrieved from: 10.1109/ISTEL.2010.5734103.
Metzgar, E., Kurpius, D. & Rowley, K. (2011). Defining hyperlocal media: Proposing a
framework for discussion. New Media & Society, 13(5), 772–787.
Molitor, D., Reichart, P. & Spann, M. (2012). Location-based advertising: What is the value
of physical distance on the mobile Internet? Retrieved from: https://wcai.wharton.upenn.
edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Spann_Value_of_Distance_Mobile_Internet.pdf.
Nayak, M. (2016). Seventy-five per cent of Internet use in 2017 will be mobile: Report.
Retrieved from: www.reuters.com/article/us-internet-mobilephone/seventy-five
percent-of-internet-use-in-2017-will-be-mobile-report-idUSKCN12S29L.
Nyre, L., Bjørnestad, S., Tessem, B. & Øie, K. V. (2012). Locative journalism: Designing a
location-dependent news medium for smartphones. Convergence: The International Journal
of Research into New Media Technologies, 18(3), 297–314.
Øie, K. (2012). Sensing the news: User experiences when reading locative news. Future
Internet, 4(4), 161–178.
Putzke, J., Schoder, D. & Fischbach, K. (2010). Adoption of mass-customized newspapers:
An augmented technology acceptance perspective. Journal of Media Economics, 23(3),
143–164.
Rau, H. & Ehlers, A. (2017). Location Based Services – alles eine Frage der Akzeptanz. In
W. Seufert (Ed.), Media economics revisited (pp. 257–284). Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag.
Rogers, E. (2003). Diffusion of innovations (5th ed.). New York: Free Press.
Schmitz Weiss, A. (2013). Exploring news apps and location-based services on the smart-
phone. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 90(3), 435–456.
Schmitz Weiss, A. (2014). Place-based knowledge in the twenty-first century. Digital
Journalism, 3(1), 116–131.
Schoder, D., Sick, S., Putzke, J. & Kaplan, A. M. (2006). Mass customization in the
newspaper industry: Consumers’ attitudes toward individualized media innovations.
Skeldon, P. (2011). Location-based ads starting to drive mobile and high street shopping,
US study finds. Retrieved from: http://internetretailing.net/2011/02/location-based
ads-starting-to-drive-mobile-and-high-street-shopping-us-study-finds.
Tang, T. & Lai, C.-H. (2018). Managing old and new in local newsrooms: An analysis of
generation C’s multiplatform local news repertoires. Journal of Media Business Studies, 15(1),
42–56.
Unni, R. & Harmon, R. (2007). Perceived effectiveness of push vs. pull mobile location-
based advertising. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 7(2), 28–40.
Venkatesh, V., Morris, M., Davis, G. & Davis, F. (2003). User acceptance of information
technology: Toward a unified view. MIS Quarterly, 27(3), 425–478.
Westlund, O. (2013). Mobile news: A review and model of journalism in an age of mobile
media. Digital Journalism, 1(1), 6–26.
Westlund, O. & Färdigh, M. A. (2014). Accessing the news in an age of mobile media:
Tracing displacing and complementary effects of mobile news on newspapers and online
news. Mobile Media & Communication, 3(1), 53–74.
White, D., Pennycook, L., Perrin, W. & Hartley, S. (2017). The future’s bright but the
future’s local: The rise of hyperlocal journalism in the United Kingdom. Journal of
Applied Journalism and Media, 6(1), 71–82.
Xu, H., Luo, X. R., Carroll, J. M. & Rosson, M. B. (2011). The personalization privacy
paradox: An exploratory study of decision-making process for location-aware market
ing. Decision Support Systems, 51(1), 42–52.
Xu, H., Oh, L. B., & Teo, H. H. (2009). Perceived effectiveness of text vs. multimedia
location-based advertising messaging. International Journal of Mobile Communications, 7,
154–177.
Yang, M. J. & Chyi, H. I. (2011). Competing with Whom? Where? and Why (not)? An
empirical study of U.S. online newspapers’ competition dynamics . Journal of Media
9
SUSTAINING SMALL TELEVISION
ECOSYSTEMS
Lessons from Policy-Driven Research in Flanders
Tim Raats
IMEC-SMIT, VRIJE UNIVERSITEIT BRUSSEL
Introduction
In recent years, policymakers in small media markets have expressed increasing
concern regarding the sustainability of domestic original television production,
and the respective broadcasting and production industries (Raats et al., 2016).
The pressure on traditional business models and revenue streams, following an
increase in ad-skipping and a migration of advertisement spending to online
players (Lotz, 2007), alongside the surge in competition with video-on-demand
players, particularly succeeding the entrance and popularity of over-the-top
(OTT) players such as Netflix in domestic European markets, have been fuelling
these concerns (Evens & Donders, 2018; Lobato, 2019). Policymakers fear that
increased competition will lead to an even higher fragmentation of audiovisual
production financing, especially in television, where streaming players rarely
compensate for the investments made by broadcasters, the traditional financiers of
domestic television content. In Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium),
the importance of TV production sustainability has been high on the agenda since
then Minister of Media, Sven Gatz, took office in 2015. The Minister emphasised
the increased importance of high-end drama export capacity, the prioritisation of
screenwriting and compelling storytelling, the protection of volume and diversity
of current investments in television and production, and the paramount benefit of
sustaining the ‘flourishing’ independent TV production industry in Flanders.
Over the past two decades, several mechanisms were launched to support
independent TV production in the highly fragile Flemish market. The Flanders
Media Fund (Mediafonds) was launched in 2010 as a support mechanism for high-
quality television. Four years later, an additional decree that obliged TV service
providers (cable distributors, on-demand players) to invest in the production of
Sustaining Small Television Ecosystems 139
original, local TV content was also passed (Raats et al., 2014, 2016). Partly pres
sured by the domestic TV industry, that was keen on receiving higher levels of
support, and inspired by the success of the Danish TV drama production model
(e.g. Novrup Redvall, 2013; Jensen et al., 2016), which had gained international
praise and had generated significant global sales, following the success of The
Killing, Bron/Broen, and Borgen, policymakers felt a strong need to evaluate the
impact of these mechanisms and potentially review current levels of funding for
these mechanisms.
As part of transposing this new policy agenda, the Minister of Media and the
Department of Culture Youth and Media (DCYM) commissioned a first study in
June 2016 and a follow-up study in the summer of 2018. Both were conducted
by Econopolis, a financial consulting agency also engaged in contract research on
creative industries, in collaboration with imec-SMIT-VUB, a research institute
affiliated to the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Both studies can be seen as part of a
larger ‘media ecosystem’ agenda (Donders et al., 2018), based on partnerships and
continuous dialogue with industry and policy, and heavily pushed by a rhetoric of
shared fate (in this case ‘our local content is under pressure if we do not stand
together’) and common adversaries (in this case being Netflix and Google).
The first study (Econopolis, 2017) involved an evaluation of the Flanders Media
Fund and the investment obligation for TV service providers, and the formulation
of recommendations for preserving and increasing Flemish TV content’s sustain
ability. The second study (Econopolis, 2018) was commissioned after a stand-still in
discussions between broadcasters and distributors to reach an agreement on tackling
decreased ad-revenues, following the spectacular uptake in ad-skipping in Flanders
since 2016. Both reports were made available for wider audiences. The research
resulted in a series of recommendations aimed at keeping domestic TV production
sustainable in Flanders. They have directly paved the way forward for a number of
policy decisions taken at the level of the Minister of Media, which include, among
others, an increase of the Flanders Media Fund’s budget, the launch of an invest
ment obligation for OTT players like Netflix (see Donders et al., 2018) and have
formalised dialogue between different media players.
This chapter presents an overview of the collaboration with policymakers and
industry players in these studies. It focuses particularly on the relevance of both stu
dies for policymaking as well as academic research, and the tension between pro
viding future-oriented research that anticipates policy change and providing
evidence-based research to legitimate past policy decisions. In the chapter I first
present the context of the study and the sustainability of domestic television in small
media markets, with a particular emphasis on TV fiction, followed by the second and
third parts in which the research’s process and the outcome of both studies are dis
cussed. The fourth section looks into the pitfalls and advantages of research colla
borations with industries and policymakers. It also aims to provide potential strategies
to mitigate these risks. The lessons learned in this chapter reflect the views of the
author only, who was involved in both studies as one of the lead researchers.
140 Tim Raats
Context of the Studies

New services and players in the audiovisual industry have put pressure on existing
financing models for television content. This is particularly the case for small media
markets, which are characterised by limited resources: for example, public service
broadcasters have a smaller budget than their counterparts in large markets; adver
tising revenues of free-to-air commercial broadcasters are lower compared to larger
markets; there are fewer options for recouping investments through retail and
video-on-demand (Bignell & Fickers, 2008; Berg, 2011; Lowe & Nissen, 2011;
Puppis & Künzler, 2013). This results in limited budgets available for domestic TV
production, which in turn affects the potential of cross-border distribution since
these low-budget series face much harder competition from big-budget TV pro
ductions originating from the US. In Flanders for example, purchasing foreign
drama is 11 times cheaper than investing in domestic drama, while the production
cost of foreign series can go up to nine times the budget of Flemish series (Wauters
& Raats, 2018). Despite the significant cost of domestic production compared to
content acquisition, broadcasters continue to invest large sums of money in
domestic productions. The main reason for this is that domestic drama attracts large
audiences (Picard, 2011). Different forms of policy support have been set up across
Europe in order to overcome the challenges of small markets, most of them in the
form of direct subsidies or indirect fiscal measures for production (European
Audiovisual Observatory, 2017).
However, broadcasters, who are the main financiers of original domestic con
tent, are being hit hard by changing market conditions (see Doyle, 2016; Lotz,
2007; Lobato, 2019). First, media use has shifted towards on-demand (VOD) and
subscription-based services (SVOD) provided by national distributors and telecoms,
or by international OTT platforms such as Netflix, Hulu and Amazon, whose
high-quality offerings for a relatively small monthly subscription fee compete
directly with traditional broadcasters’ offerings. Furthermore, these new players
also invest in competitive high-end and big-budget original programming. While
players like Netflix could provide opportunities for the export of TV drama pro
duced in small markets, it is less likely that they will allocate significant budgets to
original content in small markets.
Secondly, broadcasters have come under increasing pressure due to the shift of
advertising spending from traditional media (print, radio, TV and cinema) to
Internet and mobile advertising, where international platforms such as Google and
Facebook take the highest shares of the market (Evens & Donders, 2018).
According to the European Audiovisual Observatory (2018), more than half of all
online advertisement spending in Europe is commanded by Facebook and Google.
Thirdly, delayed viewing puts significant pressure on free-to-air broadcasting
investments in domestic content. Ironically, the most expensive genres, such as TV
drama, also exhibit the highest rates of ad-skipping, which increases the exerted
pressure on media production’s sustainability. According to data provided by the
European Broadcasting Union (cited in Econopolis, 2018, p. 9), Flanders, together

with Switzerland reached up to 16.7% of ad-skipping in 2017. In peak time and for
TV drama, figures of ad-skipping go up to 65.6%. This is dramatically, especially
since commercial broadcasters in Flanders have always been important for sustain
ing investments in local original production. In fact, for many years, the two main
private broadcasters (DPG Media and SBS) have commissioned higher levels of TV
fiction than public broadcaster VRT (Raats et al., 2014).
Despite increased pressure on domestic content in smaller markets, however,
the success of Nordic Noir or recent popularity of crime drama from the French-
speaking part of Belgium show the potential for revenue generated from export,
and thus the potential for sustaining TV production in small markets. Yet, the
same examples convincingly show the necessity of a clear business strategy and
smart policy choices that puts storytelling and quality at the forefront (Novrup
Redvall, 2013).
Contents and Process of the Studies

This chapter reports on two studies commissioned by the Minister of Media and
the Department of Culture, Youth and Media (DCYM) on the basis of a tender
application that was sent to universities’ research departments and a number of
consultancy agencies. Having experience with government-commissioned
research, Econopolis and imec-SMIT-VUB partnered up to conduct both studies.
The first study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the audiovisual policy and to
formulate policy recommendations that would serve the negotiations between the
government and the Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF) for their management
contract renewal (for the period 2018–2021) (VAF, 2018). The second study was
launched as a follow-up. Following the recommendations of the previous study,
the Minister of Media sought to facilitate a dialogue between broadcasters and
distributors on the issue of ad-skipping and possible mechanisms for intervening
the discussion in case the negotiations would fail.
Methodologically, both studies relied on a combination of document analysis
(annual reports, financial statements), analysis of quantitative data (audience
metrics, awarded projects, budgetary data, etc. obtained from different industry
stakeholders and audiovisual agencies or policymakers) and stakeholder inter
views. For both studies, regular meetings were planned between the research
team and representatives of the Media Cabinet (the Ministerial Department) and
the DCYM (the Government administration). Additional meetings were added
during the process, according to the availability of specific key representatives of
the Government (including the Minister), which further earmarked its strategic
relevance.
Table 9.1 outlines the requested tasks for both studies, and how the research
team split these into subtasks and methods.
TABLE 9.1 Studies and Their Respective Subtasks and Methods
Study Subtasks Methods

Study 1: Assess Creation of an overview of Analysis of data from the Flanders
ment of the support by the Flanders Media Audiovisual Fund (VAF), DCYM,
audiovisual policy Fund and the Stimulation Decree, and distributors; 18 interviews with
in Flanders & pre and a stakeholder evaluation of its key representatives (broadcasters,
sentation of policy effectiveness and efficiency funds/agencies, distributors,
recommendations producers, government)
(2016) Analysis of the budgets of the Analysis of data from the VAF
Flanders Audiovisual Fund
Analysis of the strengths of the Desk research of Danish scholarly
Danish TV drama model given work; analysis of annual reports of
the domestic and international DR, Danish Film Institute,
popularity of Danish TV drama Copenhagen Film Fund,
Nordvision and Nordisk; Eight
interviews with broadcasters,
funds/agencies and producers
in Denmark
Analysis of trends affecting TV Analysis of primary data from
drama production (advertisement, broadcasters and distributors,
cut-backs, new distribution secondary data of market trends
platforms) research reports and databases (e.
g. IHS Market, Statista, etc.)
Calculation of the net cost per Analysis of data from other
window (free-to-air, preview and European markets (UK, France,
VOD) for Flemish content in order Netherlands), input from VOD
to come to a better framework for platforms, distributors, broadcasters
negotiation between producers, and producers
distributors and broadcasters on the
management and exploitation of
secondary rights
Presentation of durable policy Based on the conclusions of the
recommendations overall study
Study 2: Follow- Update on different market trends Analysis of data from broadcasters
up study with the (OTT penetration and market and distributors, and secondary
focus on share, ad-skipping percentages) data from trend market reports
sustainability of and databases
production, Creation of an overview of the Desk research of newspaper
aggregation and different subscription formula and articles, press releases and
distribution of tariffs of cable and telco distributors announcements, data from the
television content for television and pay-tv since the Flemish Regulator for Media
in Flanders (2018) introduction of digital television and consumer representative
organisations
Economic assessment of the Interviews and meetings with
available funding for TV content broadcasters, distributors and
in Flanders producers
Calculation of the impact of Calculation based on data from
ad-skipping on the net revenue ad-skipped viewing and revenue
of private broadcasters in Flanders per advertisement slot
Estimation of the return in different Scenario analysis based on the
potential scenarios preventing part results of the above
or full possibilities of ad-skipping
Outcome of the Studies

The fact that this research clearly served a strategic agenda of the Minister for govern
ment and industry action benefited the public exposure. Both studies were presented in
public (involving press statements and interviews given by the Minister, parliamentary
hearings and additional presentations for industry bodies such as the Media Council).
More importantly, however, the studies also served specific policy decisions.
First Study Outcome

The first inquiry provided a strategy for sustainable TV fiction in Flanders. It
presented a ‘virtuous cycle’ where more public funding would increase budgets
for screenwriting and production budgets, bringing as such benefits to the production
quality and diversity of content, and in turn providing more access to the interna
tional market and return on investment for domestic players. The results revealed a
fragmentation of existing resources: despite increasing pressure on the funding of the
Media Fund, more projects have been awarded support over the years. This resulted
in lower grants per project, which in turn impeded the quality and export potential
of these series. Analysis of all TV drama productions’ budgets from 2009 onwards,
revealed that budgets of TV drama series in Flanders have gone up over the past
decade, from €440,000 per episode (in 2012) to €521,000 (in 2017) (Econopolis,
2017, p. 47) for projects that were awarded Media Fund support. Projects that did
not get support showed an average budget of €264,000 (in 2012) going up to
€304,000 (in 2017).
Five main objectives, each time backed with several recommendations, were
put forward to develop a sustainable audiovisual ecosystem:
1. ‘Evolve toward an integrated film and television policy’: this involves,

amongst others, a better coordination of existing training initiatives in the
audiovisual sector.
2. ‘Everybody contributes to the ecosystem’: the researchers called for struc
tural dialogue between broadcasters and distributors, and an extension of the
existing investment obligation to include players such as Netflix.
3. ‘Put screenwriting at the core of the fiction value chain’: this included a call
for higher grants for screenwriting and prioritisation of screenwriting in
training initiatives.
4. ‘Scale and sustainable funding are crucial’: recommendations included the
possibility of the Media Fund to award sequels as well, award more funding
to less projects, increased involvement of the VRT as a match-maker for
international financial deals, and obliging rights holders to commercialise all
potential windows.
5. ‘More flexibility for the Media Fund’: this included, aside from more
financing, the call to expand support to high-end series as well as online TV
144 Tim Raats
drama, and a call to get additional funding to better monitor market trends
and audiovisual sector’s financial performance. We calculated that ideally,
the Media Fund would receive €13.6 million, with a minimum of €9.5
million to be effective (based on an estimation of the required volume and
award per project).
First Study Impact

The study underpinned the Minister’s decision to grant the Media Fund more
financing; it led to a series of changes at the level of the Film Fund, including a new
categorisation of TV projects (see VAF, 2018), increased support for screenwriting
grants for high-end drama from €25,000 to 75,000 and increased overall grants per
project (up to €1,250,000 per project). The recommendations of the study were
also referred to by the Minister to back a new investment obligation for on-
demand audiovisual players – following regulatory practices in France and Ger
many – as Netflix, to contribute to original Flemish audiovisual production.
Second Study Outcome

The second study provided various insights on the status of delayed viewing and
advertisement income in the Flemish media market. Our own calculations based on
audience data of broadcasters and distributors showed that up to 4% of total viewing
in Flanders (between 18–23h) is taken up by SVOD players such as Netflix. Average
viewing in minutes/day in Flanders slightly increased from 109 minutes (in 2008) to
112 minutes (in 2018), while live viewing decreased from 109 minutes (in 2008) to
83 minutes (in 2018). The data shows that average delayed viewing between 17–24h
reaches up to 32.7% in the commercial target group 18–54, which means that
advertisement losses are much higher than previously expected, as these are peak
hours and thus relevant audiences for advertisers. Comparisons with data from other
countries (collected via broadcasters, EBU and audience metrics companies) revealed
that in terms of delayed viewing Flanders is amongst the highest in Europe (together
with Switzerland), and that a clear link can be established between cable penetration
and delayed viewing. The study found that delayed viewing (contrary to what the
previous study showed) also increased in all genres including sports, news and all
channels, including the public broadcaster whose programmes are not interrupted by
commercials. Estimates based on the total programming budgets of all broadcasters
and distributors (based on undisclosed data received from key industry stakeholders)
show that on average €567 million is invested in original programming. The study
recommended significantly increasing the level of targeted ads as they generate much
higher return for broadcasters, and to explore the potential of a limited number of
non-skippable advertisements, both in catch-up and in recorded programmes. The
study explicitly did not wish to specify an exact number of ads or minutes per hour
and as such, left this open for negotiation.
Second Study Impact

Following the second study, which was delivered at the end of October 2018,
representatives from broadcasters and distributors were invited for a closed meeting
at the Minister’s office, where the results were presented. Stakeholders were invi
ted to provide input and comments on the study’s recommendations in the weeks
following the presentation. While most stakeholders effectively contributed to the
consultation, the effect remains limited. Private negotiations did take place
between industry stakeholders, however, on a highly strategic level and mainly
serving direct interests rather than a joint sustainable solution. On 13 February
2019, a new hearing, a public one this time, was organised by the Flemish Parlia
ment. The study was often referred to, yet the hearing mostly echoed statements
already put forward on several earlier occasions: a need to counter the impact of
ad-skipping, and a call to collaborate on what has been coined as a ‘Flemish Net
flix’ in media and policy discussions. Parallel to the discussions taking place, TV
distributors Telenet and Proximus presented new subscription packages for pre
mium services that were seen as harming the interest of domestic broadcasters,
while broadcaster DPG Media rolled-out an app-based streaming service (with
non-skippable advertisements) in the form of VTM.Go. Unsurprisingly, both
events reduced chances of reaching an agreement even more.
The Perks of Collaborating with Industries and Policymakers

Over the past two decades, the use of research as part of policymaking in Flanders has
markedly increased. This has mostly resulted from the increased importance given to
evidence-based policymaking and the increasing complexity of media economics and
their impact on the Flemish market. Recent studies include, aside from the studies
discussed in this chapter, an evaluation of video game support policy (Raats et al.,
2016), the sustainability of regional broadcasting (PPM, 2016) or stakeholder con
sultations into the role of the public service broadcaster VRT (Raats et al., 2015). The
rationale is that policy decisions are more effective and trustworthy when informed by
all knowledge and insights readily available. Media policy decisions are often sup
ported by contract research from universities or consultancy agencies. Generally, there
seems to be a clear preference in government and industry-driven research for ‘hard
data’, which results in a clear preference for quantifiable findings and making more
qualitative research or mixed methods approaches more difficult to defend, or at least
to be treated with the same attention (Raats, 2019). At its worst, this might result in
research that privileges quantitative data and attractive easy-to-grasp graphs over sci
entifically backed insights revealing significantly bigger complexities. Although both
our studies combined quantitative and qualitative analyses, government and press
communications following from our studies only presented quantitative data.
From an academic perspective, the main advantage of studies like these is the
momentum they create. Being government-commissioned research projects allows
146 Tim Raats
for quicker access to research data, as players often willingly collaborate or feel it is
somehow necessary to get involved as part of keeping government ties optimal.
For the first study, the Film Fund offered quantitative output of support projects
and was open for additional feedback throughout the entire research project. Var
ious senior staff members of media companies shared confidential data during var
ious meetings and follow-up meetings on advertisement revenues, programme
cost, subscription numbers and ad-skipping. The input from the interviews was
highly relevant, involving different confidential aspects that were given in an open
and constructive way, as we were very clear about how we would use the data.
This clearly served the recommendations, which were a translation of concerns and
issues raised in interviews. Another factor which might have benefited this is that
only senior researchers with experience in the field and knowledge of the media
stakeholders and their interests were involved in the interviews and discussions
with industry and policymakers.
Projects like these also allow close collaboration and access to the government
itself, especially in a small market like Flanders. On multiple occasions, in both
studies, the head of the media cabinet and the Minister of Media took part in
meetings on the progress of the work. Furthermore, the momentum created by
these research projects allows an outlet for academic researchers to share their views
and work with broader communities other than their academic peers. Both studies
formed the starting point of our involvement in boards and councils, parliamentary
hearings or informal advice sessions. Indirectly, the research thus forms an inroad
for future data collection, as well as extending the professional network and
increasing visibility of the academic host institution and/or research centre.
The Challenges of Doing Policy Research

Despite the clear advantages, our involvement in these two contract studies also
reveals a series of challenges for researchers in this type of policy-driven contract
research.
Challenge 1: Safeguarding Autonomy and Independence

A first challenge relates to safeguarding autonomy and independence of research
at all times, especially when industry lobbying for a clear policy solution is
intense, and when policymakers have already indicated their intention to progress
in developing measures based on the study, or, when working with data that is
difficult to access and that is provided by third-party stakeholders. Here, it is often
difficult to clarify the validity of the data, which also poses specific challenges
when later transposing the research into peer-reviewed academic publications.
Unsurprisingly, stakeholders that expect to get the biggest gain from the study’s
outcome are usually also the ones that are the most cooperative.
A lot of the potential obstacles related to independence can be discussed

beforehand and even included in the proposal when tendering for a government
study or discussions during the first meetings with the contractor(s). Some aspects,
however, are more difficult to mitigate as they relate to more subtle forms of bias.
For example, in the case of both our studies, the DCYM published very specific
briefings on the different aspects they wanted included in the analysis and which
were considered a priority for the government. In the Media Fund’s evaluation, for
example, several factors were put forward that related to the economic impact of
the Media Fund (number of projects, budgets of projects, export, etc.), while cul
tural and more qualitative factors were not included (partly because they are also
more difficult to ‘measure’). In the second study the central aim was to identify key
trends in ad-skipping and premium content consumption from conducted inter
views with different stakeholders in order to get clear scenarios and ways forward
for industry and policy. However, to what extent these scenarios would be wel
comed by audiences was not part of the study and might have revealed a strong
opposition for scenarios where ad-skipping for television is blocked. This obser
vation is in line with Freedman’s (2010, p. 4) observations on ‘media policy silen
ces’. Freedman warns that policy researchers might be blinded by the ‘current rush
of legislative and regulatory initiatives’ only, rather than focusing on the questions
not asked, the decisions not taken, or, in this case, the research that is commis
sioned at a certain time and in a certain policy context.
More difficult to mitigate, especially since researchers often lack time, capacity and
a forum to actively follow-up on press statements or political rhetoric, is managing a
perceived lack of independence from the researchers, irrespective of the extent to
which this is actually the case. Especially in highly politicised issues, tendentious
questions in debates can be addressed on specific choices researchers made when
including cases and stakeholders, why specific aspects were not considered, why
specific stakeholders’ opinions diverted from what was said in press statements, and
others. Often, factors such as time constraints, lack of data or availability of the sta
keholder are explanatory, yet they might destabilise researchers while presenting and
defending their results. For researchers, the best way to mitigate perceived biases is to
clearly describe why specific cases were chosen and others were not or to what
extent the contractor was involved in defining specific cases.
Challenge 2: No Grip on the Use of the Results by Policymakers

A second problem relates to the use of the evidence and results presented by the
researchers. As Freedman (2008, p. 97) rightfully points out, the relationship
between research evidence and politics is ambiguous, to say the least. Freedman
refers, amongst others, to how evidence is always interpreted according to the
ideological, personal or emotive beliefs and seldom a rational translation of evi
dence into policy. According to Freedman, evidence-based policy tends to mar
ginalise ‘more critical and conceptually minded academics’ (p. 101), which in turn
148 Tim Raats
contributes to a field which becomes ‘instrumental and dominated by corporate

interests’ (p. 101). Recommendations of studies like the ones presented in
this chapter are seldom rationally translated into policies. Instead, they lead to
forms of ‘argument cherry picking’, i.e. when policymakers take out specific
elements that support their claims, plans, budgets or ideological beliefs, etc. while
other aspects are overlooked or are not included in policy based on the research.
This was very much the case in the stakeholder consultations and benchmark
studies conducted in preparation for the management contract renewal between
the Flemish government and VRT, where both defenders and opponents of the
public broadcaster referred to findings of the same report (Donders et al., 2018).
In practice, how useful research results are for policymakers depends on the
easiness to transpose them in terms of cost, legal constraints, number of stake
holders involved, public attractiveness of a measure, and other contextual factors.
For example, in the first study, various concerns were voiced by stakeholders
relating to the investment obligation for service providers of TV fiction (see Don
ders et al., 2018), recommending an amendment to an already complex decree that
would almost certainly not meet the demand of all players and would be difficult to
put into practice. Other recommendations, such as the demand for an obligation
for VOD players, set out from an entirely new arrangement, would gain high
public attention and are thus picked up more easily – albeit highly defendable
according to the report – as a priority for government. In addition, policy-driven
contract research not only aims to shape the development of future policies, it also
helps to legitimise decisions already planned but requiring additional evidence
to support them. In our first study, claims on the necessity for more financing
for the Media Fund were already voiced on various occasions and were also part
of the policy agenda. The results of the study then clearly supported the claims
of the Minister and backed the media cabinet in their call to expand the budget
of the Media Fund.
Challenge 3: No Grip on the Public Discussions of Research Results

It is, thirdly, also difficult to keep control of researchers’ own messages and
recommendations and how they are being framed in policy, press and public
debate. This was very much the case in both our studies. In the first study, the
results of the research were presented in a parliamentary hearing where private
broadcasters were invited. This inevitably narrowed a highly complex policy issue
on how to keep the Flemish audiovisual ecosystem sustainable to a discussion on
how to keep private broadcasters alive. Other factors that did not come up were
how cut-backs on the public broadcaster affect the ecosystem, how private players
are cannibalising their own business by competing in a rat race for producing and
commissioning domestic content, how limited remuneration for authors (screen
writers, directors) affects the number of projects they have to work on and thus
inevitably leading to pressure on quality, or how the highly fragmented education
system for audiovisual professions provides much more skilled professionals than
there are jobs in the industry.
Shortly after its public release, the second study was picked up in the press as a
green light to support the development of a ‘Flemish Netflix’, a partnership-based
SVOD service with Flemish original television content, similar to initiatives as
Britbox (UK), NLZiet (the Netherlands) and Salto (France). While the study
suggested that the addition of a new player would theoretically be realistic in the
Flemish market, it also stated that the success of shared VOD platforms depends
on various factors (willingness of the public broadcaster to contribute, the size of
content catalogues, the ability to produce distinctive new premium content on
the platform, etc.). Discussion on the feasibility of a ‘Flemish Netflix’ player was
highly debated on social media, and often based on inconsistent interpretations of
the study’s opinion leaders.
Challenge 4: Practical Organisation of the Work

A fourth challenge relates to the practical organisation of research. The two studies
were commissioned with a quite strict deadline and had to be conducted within a
limited set timeframe (respectively five and four months). Additionally, especially
when data is required from third parties (for example in the form of interviews and
focus groups), practical constraints come to attention. As a further matter, studies
are often commissioned in preparation of future policy works and have in Flanders
often been running during the summer months, which makes it difficult to reach
stakeholders. In both our studies, and always in close collaboration with the con
tractor, deadlines shifted as the projects progressed, partly due to practical con
straints such as setting up meetings with stakeholders and partly because additional
questions were posed by the government for further investigation.
As researchers, we found that the best way to approach this field was to do
regular follow-up meetings with the same stakeholders, in continuous dialogue
with the cabinet. This approach clearly increases access to important data and
evidence, yet it also intensifies the pressure on the budget and timing of the
project. Furthermore, the work might be asked to be presented in parliamentary
hearings, to stakeholders or academic peers, and as such, might lead to additional
clarifying questions to be asked, which have to be taken into account from the
outset when starting the research. Both our studies have been picked up widely
and researchers have been invited to present the results on various occasions.
Challenge 5: Adapting the Results into a Specific Narrative and

Tone of Voice
A final observation is that presenting evidence and recommendations for policy
makers requires a different tone, style and format than the one used in academic
research. This explains why governments prefer the accessibility and attractiveness
150 Tim Raats
of many consultancy reports. Academic reports and publications often follow a

similar pattern in which a clear research question and hypothesis are put forward,
followed by a literature review, methodological description, analysis and conclu
sions. In contract research like ours, the aim is to present recommendations based
on evidence, which basically implies to use ‘only relevant knowledge and data
necessary as evidence to support the argument is included’ (Young & Quinn, 2002,
p. 19). When communicating with policymakers, the clarity of the message
becomes crucial, yet it represents a challenge when dealing with multifaceted and
complex issues and research (Okaka et al., 2016). Rather than presenting the
diversity of the work or the chronology in which the research took place, the
structure of the report should build towards the recommendations. Writing a
policy report is not policymaking, so researchers need to find a right balance in
terms of detail and prescription. From a policy perspective, the outcome is more
important than the process of the research. Too many precautionary warnings on
how to interpret the data or contextualise and nuance the results, or elaborate lit
erature and methodological descriptions might obscure the clarity of the recom
mendations or the impact of the message. The key is to present findings in a
comprehensible way by simplifying research results and transcending complexity,
without hampering the validity of the results or overlooking necessary details
required to interpret the data in a correct manner.
Researchers may also find it difficult to take a specific position and present a
clear argument in a limited number of words. Based on our two studies, as well as
other research projects for governments and media regulators, we found that the
value of one’s recommendations increases if one gives an indication of: (1) What is
the desirable outcome, and what is the most feasible outcome? (2) What is the
timeframe in which these recommendations need/could (to) be translated into
policy measures? (3) What resources are needed to realise the recommendations? In
the first study, the policy recommendations formed the core of the report. Rather
than developing various chapters with evidence (which, given the various inter
views, data analysis, literature review and case studies, would have been an option),
specific parts of the results were clustered to support five key recommendations (see
above). In order to connect these results with the recommendations, the research
ers used additional statistics, tables and figures to contextualise the Flemish ecosys
tem, and structure the results within a narrative, thus guiding the reader towards
the recommendations. For the second study, an adjacent management summary
containing ten recommendations was provided to the government and selected
industry partners in preparation for future formal negotiations. Both reports were
developed in the form of an extensive slide-set presentation. This structure allowed
researchers to easily communicate progress on the research to the steering group
and develop a document that easily allowed the addition of various evidence,
findings and arguments along the way. The use of a visual and comprehensive
slide-set report allowed broad communication, which also increased the use of the
report in other forms of communication. The downside of the slide-set is that it
does not cover the nuance and detail that is often necessary to avoid specific
interpretations, bias or to clarify specific choices made as researchers. To avoid
misinterpretation, the recommendations in the second study that were provided
separately, were written down in full text.
Conclusions and Discussion

This chapter provided an overview of conducting two policy-driven contract research
projects in Flanders. Both studies followed an increased concern for the sustainability of
the Flemish audiovisual ecosystem, which has been heavily affected by increased ad-
skipping, migration of advertisement revenues, the introduction of new players such as
Netflix and pressure on public spending for original content production.
The chapter has highlighted the clear importance of backing policy by research-based
evidence, and has highlighted both the studies’ direct impact, resulting in specific mea
sures developed at the level of the Flanders Media Fund and Flemish Government, and
its indirect impact, backing the government’s clear wish to enforce an agreement
between broadcasters and distributors, without the necessity of legal intervention.
At the same time, the chapter has highlighted a number of obstacles, mostly
related to the use and interpretation of research results, as well as the challenges of
safeguarding research independence and avoiding policy or industry bias. It
showed that, especially for academic researchers, the format of contract research
also poses challenges in terms of the way results and recommendations are pre
sented. Five challenges were highlighted:
1. Safeguarding independence and autonomy of the research. These could be

partly mitigated by clear communication on the limits of the work and the
context in which the work takes place, as well as clear dialogue with the
contractor.
2. A lack of impact on how the results are used by politicians in future policies,
as they often set out from pragmatic choices. Options to mitigate might be
to prioritise recommendations and be as clear as possible on the feasibility
and outcome of recommendations.
3. A lack of impact on how results will be interpreted and used in public dis
cussions and press; the latter is difficult to manage, yet clarity of the message,
avoiding ambiguities and presenting data in an accessible way might counter
some of the associated struggles.
4. Practical organisation of policy contract research, which could be partly
addressed by involving senior research staff and a highly flexible working
structure allowing multiple tasks to take place in parallel.
5. Presenting the research results in an attractive, comprehensible narrative that
makes it easy for policymakers to interpret the message, while avoiding
redundant research contextualisation (which by no means implies abandon
ing systematic analysis or academic rigour).
152 Tim Raats
Despite the aforementioned challenges, projects like these provide an extremely

important inroad for developing expertise in the field, directly in the form of get
ting access to different forms of stakeholders and data and indirectly by gaining
knowledge that steers future research projects and more fundamental research
tracks. For policymakers, involving media economic and media management
researchers in developing policies, be it in the form of consulted advisors or
through studies like these, is key. Media management researchers can broaden
existing policy perspectives, can underpin decisions by estimating the likely impact,
or add detailed expertise in complex dossiers. In the projects presented, collabora
tion with the media industry and media policymakers in Flanders has been overall
positive, as the Flanders Media Fund/VAF as well as all policymakers involved
have provided access, constructive criticism and debate, and at no time have put
pressure on steering the recommendations in a specific direction. The fact that
studies like these are being commissioned – despite open to criticism – also shows a
clear preference for policies that are backed by a multitude of stakeholders, com
parisons and lessons learned from other markets, and expertise from researchers
with a track record in the field.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank all researchers involved in both studies, all industry
and government partners involved in the studies, and Adelaida Afflipoaie for her
helpful suggestions and comments. The views and experiences presented in this
chapters are the author’s own.
References
Berg, C. E. (2011). Sizing up size on TV markets: Why David would lose to Goliath. In
G. F. Lowe & C. S. Nissen (Eds.), Small among giants: Television broadcasting in smaller
countries (pp. 57–89). Göteborg: Nordicom.
Bignell, J. & Fickers, A. (2008). A European television history. London: Wiley-Blackwell.
Donders, K., Raats, T., Komorowski, M., Kostovska, I., Tintel, S. & Iordache, C. (2018).
Obligations on on-demand audiovisual media services providers to financially contribute to the
production of European works: An analysis of European Member States’ practices. Brussels:
imec-SMIT-VUB.
Donders, K., Raats, T. & Van den Bulck, H. (2018). The politics of pleasing: A critical
analysis of multistakeholderism in public service media policies in Flanders. Media, Cul
ture and Society, 41(3), 347–366.
Doyle, G. (2016). Digitization and changing windowing strategies in the television indus
try: Negotiating new windows on the world. Television and New Media, 17(7), 629–645.
Econopolis. (2017). Doorlichting van het audiovisuele beleid in Vlaanderen. Wilrijk: Econopolis
& imec-SMIT-VUB.
Econopolis. (2018). Leefbaarheid van productie, aggregatie en distributie van audiovisuele content in
Vlaanderen. Wilrijk: Econopolis & imec-SMIT-VUB.
European Audiovisual Observatory (EAO). (2017). Public financing for film and television
content: The state of soft money in Europe. Strasbourg: European Audiovisual Observatory.
European Audiovisual Observatory (EAO). (2018). Online video sharing: Offerings, audiences,
economic aspects. Strasbourg: European Audiovisual Observatory.
Evens, T. & Donders, K. (2018). Platform power and policies in transforming television markets.
Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Freedman, D. (2008). The politics of media policy. Cambridge: Polity.
Freedman, D. (2010). Media policy silences: The hidden face of communications decision-
making. International Journal of Press/Politics, 15(3), 344–361.
Jensen, P. M., Nielsen, J. & Waade, A.-M. (2016). When public service drama travels: The
internationalization of Danish television drama and the associated production funding
models’. The Journal of Popular Television, 4(1), 91–108.
Lobato, R. (2019). Netflix nations: The geography of digital distribution. New York: New
York University Press.
Lotz, A. D. (2007). The television will be revolutionized. New York: New York University Press.
Lowe, G. F. & Nissen, C. S. (2011). Small among giants: Television broadcasting in smaller
countries. Gothenborg: Nordicom.
Novrup Redvall, E. (2013). Writing and producing television drama in Denmark. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Okaka, W., Nagasha, I. J. & Ayikoru, J. (Eds.) (2016). Communicating policy, research and
development: Communication for sustainable development. Saarbrücken: Lambert Academic
Publishing.
Picard, R. (2011). Broadcast economics, challenges of scale, and country size. In G. F.
Lowe & C. S. Nissen (Eds.), Small among giants: Television broadcasting in smaller countries
(pp. 43–56). Nordicom: Göteborg.
Podium Performance Management (PPM). (2016). Studie leefbaarheid regionale tv-omroepen
(2012–2016). Antwerp: PPM.
Puppis M. & Künzler M. (2013). Private television in small European states: Ireland, Aus
tria and Switzerland. In K. Donders, C. Pauwels & J. Loisen (Eds.), Private television in
Western Europe (pp. 85–101). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Raats, T. (2019). Writing policy reports. In M. Puppis, H. Van den Bulck, K. Donders & L.
Van Audenhove (Eds.), Palgrave handbook of methods for media policy research (pp. 611–626).
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Raats, T., Evens, T., Braet, O., Ruelens, S., Schooneknaep, I., Ballon, P. & Loisen, J.
(2014). Duurzame financieringsmodellen voor Vlaamse televisiefictie. Brussel-Gent: iMinds-
SMIT & iMinds-MICT.
Raats, T., Evens, T. & Ruelens, S. (2016). Challenges for sustaining local audiovisual
ecosystems: Analysis of financing and production of domestic TV fiction in small media
markets. Journal of Popular Television, 4(1), 129–147.
Raats, T., Evens, T., Vanhaeght, A-S., Ruelens, S. & Loisen, J. (2015). Stakeholderbevraging
ter voorbereiding van de nieuwe beheersovereenkomst van de VRT met de Vlaamse Regering.
Brussel-Gent: iMinds-SMIT & iMinds-MICT.
Raats, T., Waeben, J., Bleumers, L., Ruelens, S., Vandenplas, R., Vermeulen, L. & Van
Looy, J. (2016). Doorlichting van het Vlaams gamingbeleid. Gent-Brussel: imec-MICT &
imec-SMIT.
Van den Bulck, H. & Donders, K. (2014). Pitfalls and obstacles of media policymaking in
an age of digital convergence: The Flemish signal integrity cases. Journal of Information
Policy, 4, 444–462.
154 Tim Raats
Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds. (2018). Beheersovereenkomst 2018–2021. Brussels: VAF.

Wauters, D. & Raats, T. (2018). Public service media and ecosystem sustainability:
Towards effective partnerships in small media markets. In G. F. Lowe, H. Van den
Bulck & K. Donders (Eds.), Public service media in a networked society (pp. 175–191).
Gothenborg: Nordicom.
Young, E. & Quinn, L. (2002). Writing effective public policy papers: A guide for policy advisers
in Central and Eastern Europe. Budapest: Open Society Institute and Local Government
Public Service Reform Initiative.
10
RESEARCHING NEWS MEDIA
Creating Societal Impact from Research for the
Media Industry and Policymakers
Mikko Grönlund
UNIVERSITY OF TURKU
Katja Lehtisaari and Carl-Gustav Lindén

UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI
Mikko Villi
UNIVERSITY OF JYVÄSKYLÄ
Introduction
Even though the consumption of media content in general has increased, the media
industry is facing many difficulties. International competition, changes in consumer
habits and rapid technological development have all put pressure on the media
industry in many countries, Finland among them. The structure of the industry is
changing, and companies from other industries are entering the field. The changes
and the search for sustainable business models necessitate renewal in the industry. In
addition, healthy news media and journalism are vital for the functioning of
democracy. Yet, efforts by legacy media companies in Finland to adapt have been
somewhat ineffective, and there have not been attempts at radical transformation
(Lehtisaari et al., 2012; Lehtisaari & Grönlund, 2015).
According to data provided by Statistics Finland, the total value of the Finnish mass
media market was about €3.8 billion in 2017. Despite recent growth, this was still
about 5% lower than in 2010. In the same period, mass media’s share of total GDP in
Finland fell from 2.1% to 1.7%. Importantly, there are considerable differences in the
development of the various media sectors. The value of the electronic communica
tions sector (television, radio, Internet operations) has grown significantly, while both
publishing and recording communications have declined. After a decade-long
decline, publishing accounted for approximately half of the total value of the media
market in Finland (€2.0 billion; 53%), and newspapers alone about a quarter (€0.9
billion; 24%). By contrast, the electronic communications sector has grown
156 Mikko Grönlund et al.
significantly since 2000. In 2017, it constituted over 41% of the total value of the mass
media market, of which television accounted for about 30% and online 10%.
Advertising has long been one of the main contributors to both print and elec
tronic communications. The economic downturn that began in late 2008 halted its
growth, and in 2017 the total value of media advertising in Finland, at approxi
mately €1.2 billion, was still nearly one-fifth less than before the recession.
According to data from Kantar TNS, since 2000 the media advertising structure has
also gone through a major transition. The proportion of online media, expressed as
a percentage of the total value of media advertising, has risen from close to zero in
2000 to almost one-third (32%) in 2017, and has overtaken newspaper advertising.
As in many countries, a large proportion of online media advertising and its growth
in Finland goes to two international players, Google and Facebook.
These developments in the media economy, and especially the decline of
printed press, set the background for the two research projects outlined in this
chapter. The first project shows how media policy can address these develop
ments and spur innovation, while the second explores new business models for
newspaper publishers to seek new growth. The purpose is to illustrate the societal
impact of research (Bornmann, 2013), specifically how media management
research can inform policymaking and strategic decision-making, and how colla
borative research can create value for everyday practitioners.
Project 1: The State of Media and Communications Policy and

How to Measure It
From discussions at round table meetings organised by the Finnish Ministry of Trans
port and Communications in early 2017, it had become evident that there was no
consistent understanding of the issues presented above. Nor was there any reliable
information on the direction of development among the different stakeholders; that is,
public service and private commercial media companies (Lund, 2016; for more on sta
keholders, see Mitchell et al., 1997). In April 2017, the Finnish government decided to
begin the preparation of a new media policy programme. This programme was to be
part of a major governmental project focusing on growth in the digital business envir
onment. The goal of the programme was to create a favourable business environment
for digital services and new business models, and to find ways to safeguard the diversity
of Finnish media. It was introduced in 2018 and will run until 2023.
The starting point for the media policy programme was citizens’ rights to
information, and the conditions and availability of journalistic content. The pro-
gramme seeks ways to ensure the diversity of Finnish media. It looks at media
policy comprehensively across the administration. With regard to this, the media
policy project aimed to create a wider knowledge base and an overall picture of the
challenges faced by Finnish media, as well as a proposal on indicators that can be
used for longer-term monitoring of the media environment.
Researching News Media 157
Because of the conflicting interests of the stakeholder groups and media com
panies, it was necessary to commission a broader external and impartial research
project to outline the policy programme. In September 2017, the Ministry of
Transport and Communications commissioned an extensive university consortium
formed by the University of Helsinki and the University of Tampere, with the
participation of researchers from the universities of Turku and Jyväskylä.
The project focusing on media and communications policy (referred to here
after as the ‘media policy project’) aimed to produce a multidisciplinary academic
study of the current state of media policy in Finland by bringing together
expertise from journalism studies, communication studies, business economics,
and law. Instead of a traditional sectoral approach, the study sought an innovative,
holistic way of evaluating the development of the media and communications
field. Thus, the project was not directly about media management research, but
through its results, it provides essential information on media structures, eco
nomics and business for media managers.
In the project report, the current state of affairs in Finland is described from the
viewpoint of the seven essential principles of media and communications policy
(Picard & Pickard, 2017), based on the fundamental values of democracy:
i citizens’ fundamental communication rights;

ii access to media and communication services;
iii diversity and plurality of ownership structures and content;
iv protection of users and society;
v providing transparency and accountability;
vi the pursuit of developmental and economic benefits; and
vii the pursuit of fair and effective communication policy solutions.
A Nordic comparison was appended to the study. It was carried out using a
range of research materials, such as media industry and market statistics, statistics
related to media support and grants, the availability of broadband services statis
tics, and media usage data.
According to Picard and Pickard (2017), the treatment of broadcasting, tele
communications and media as separate operating and political sectors is not well
embedded in the current environment, in which virtually all content and net
works are intertwined in different ways. The ability of media and communication
policies to respond to rapid technological, economic, political and societal chan
ges is also weak, because the policies are often created to tackle specific challenges
at a given time, and thus their connection to media and the normative basic
principles of communication policy may have become superficial. In accordance
with this, the main objective of the project was for policymakers instead to look
at the current situation at a more extensive and fundamental level, and seek new
ways to achieve the goals.
The media policy project was organised into eight working groups, roughly
corresponding to the seven principles and adding a dimension of international
comparison. Each working group consisted of 1–4 researchers who worked
independently and partly at a different pace. The three key research questions of
all the working groups were (i) whether statistics or other resources on the theme
had already been produced in Finland, and if so, what and how; (ii) what vari
ables best described the development of each theme and policy area, and which
indicators and materials were suitable for reliable monitoring of their change; and
(iii) whether there were already any useful, ready-made models for measuring the
development of the theme or policy area, and if not, how their development
would be meaningful in Finland.
Results
The final report of the research project, The State of Media and Communications Policy
and How to Measure it, was published in March 2018. Based on input from all the
working groups, the final report presented the following key recommendations:
1. The citizen’s perspective must be closely linked to media and communica

tions policy decision-making and drafting of laws.
2. In the development of access to media and communications services, the
implementation of reforms should also be monitored from the point of view
of citizens and consumers.
3. Media and communications policy should regularly monitor the develop
ment of the industry, content, and the use of media. In the pursuit of
competition in different sectors, it should be borne in mind that the increase
in supply does not automatically lead to an increase in diversity. Actions to
support diversity should be designed and targeted across all media, not one
medium at a time.
4. Risks associated with the misuse of personal data, and the content produced
and disseminated by users, pose challenges for media and communications
policy, as well as creating demands on the media industry. Information
should also be collected on new forms of harassment and entirely new risks
associated with Internet use.
5. Media outlets clearly indicating to which media group they belong, and
what ethical guidelines they follow can improve the transparency of the
media business. Media organisations could be required to disclose their
ownership structures in a comparable manner.
6. Indicators are needed to define the relevant market, evaluate the competi
tive situation, assess the development of the business and financial situation,
and enable indicators of longer-term development to be reviewed
retrospectively.
The report presented a measurement model (scorecard) intended for monitor

ing changes related to seven dimensions of Finnish media and communications
policy. The 26 variables and 52 indicators included in the model are not based
solely on the results and suggestions of individual working groups in the project,
but are also based on the collaboration between the working groups.
Collaboration with Stakeholders

The media policy project was conducted in close cooperation with Finnish media
and communications policy stakeholders. Researchers presented the project to
public stakeholders at different stages. Both public and private stakeholders were
asked to provide material for the study, which further developed the relationship
between the researchers and stakeholders and raised awareness of the results. In
October 2017, researchers presented the project plan to the project steering group
that consisted of officials from several ministries and the Finnish Communications
Regulatory Authority. Round table discussions were then held with approximately
30 representatives of the research consortium, media companies, ministries, col
lective societies, and industry and labour organisations. Other stakeholder groups,
such as Statistics Finland, were also asked to help collect research material.
Early in 2018, participatory workshops and hearings were arranged with stake
holders to identify options for action. The hearings were based primarily on the
themes and issues that emerged from the final report of the project. The aim of the
participatory approach was to obtain a future-oriented view from media organisa
tions and other stakeholder groups, and provide them with a well-founded over
view of future trends, particularly the necessary practical measures and policies.
The Ministry of Transport and Communications arranged the first public stake-
holder-hearing event in April 2018, moderated by a consulting company. Project
results were presented to approximately 20 representatives of the communications
regulators from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. In other stake
holder hearings, the propositions of the project were approached through strategic
options aimed at addressing the key development themes underlying the disruption
of the media sector in Finland, and the advancement of options to tackle them. The
strategic options intended to respond to the changes in the media sector and to look
at the challenges and opportunities of each policy option. Strategic alternatives were
not necessarily mutually exclusive but could also be promoted at the same time, as
part of a development agenda. The hearings gathered approximately 50 participants
representing a wide range of stakeholder groups.
In addition to the hearings, an open online consultation was organised to gather
views on media transformation, matching the necessary practical measures and poli
cies. Twenty-two people who widely represented various stakeholders, including
media companies, media associations, NGOs and governmental institutions, com
pleted a questionnaire.
The draft of the new media policy programme was widely distributed to sta
keholder groups, including such bodies as the Finnish Communications Reg
ulatory Authority, the Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority, the
Council for Mass Media, Statistics Finland, Business Finland, as well as media
organisations. Many commentators were pleased to be given the opportunity to
participate in the preparation of the media policy programme and demonstrated
their willingness to continue their cooperation in the future.
Following the project, the Ministry of Transport and Communications has launched
a new Media Policy Network. Its mission is to monitor the implementation of the
media policy programme approved by the government in July 2018. The Media Policy
Network will improve the opportunities for stakeholders to obtain information on the
preparation of media-related issues and the possibility of participating in the preparation.
The network was planned to meet three or four times a year, and is open to and
intended for media organisations, content producers and authors, researchers, NGOs
and public authorities.
At the first meeting of the network in September 2018, with approximately 50 par
ticipants, the current situation of the media policy measures was reviewed. The second
meeting, with about 70 participants, was arranged in March 2019. The Ministry of
Transport and Communications executed a follow-up project, using the scorecard and
developing systematic monitoring of the development of media policy in Finland, in
the second half of 2019.
It is planned that the decisions and the realisation of the objectives will be monitored
with the stakeholders in the Media Policy Network, and the actions will be imple
mented mainly within the framework of the state budget. Measures requiring additional
appropriations will be decided within the framework of central government finances
and annual budgets. The links to other key projects will be ensured during the imple
mentation phase. In addition, the state of media policy in Finland is monitored cross-
administratively by means of continuous or repeated research.
Project 2: New Business Models in News Media

In addition to the Finnish Ministry of Transport and Communications, the Finnish
Newspapers Association (FNA) has been eager to tackle the challenges affecting
Finnish media companies and to fund research that can provide insights for an
industry confronted with a complicated situation. Instead of focusing on the devel
opment of media policy, the latter has been more interested in the changes in media
business models. In order to help Finnish news media companies, the FNA along
with the Media Industry Research Foundation of Finland commissioned a group of
researchers from several Finnish universities (Turku, Helsinki and Jyväskylä) to carry
out three projects on news media business models in the Scandinavian countries, the
United States and Germany. The projects were realised in 2016–2018.
The purpose of these interview-based studies (also using relevant market and
financial data) was to analyse how the changes in the digital environment affect
the news media ecosystem. They also explored how the business operations of
news organisations, especially newspapers, are changing. The outcomes offer a
comparative perspective and a benchmark on new business models and revenue
sources that can be used by news media companies in developing their business
models and editorial practices. All members of the research consortium – the
authors of this chapter – had previous experience with projects commissioned and
financed by the FNA. The FNA was a stakeholder in all projects, but the funding
models varied.
News media in Scandinavia

The initial idea of the first project focusing on news media in Sweden, Norway
and Denmark was discussed in late 2015 in a meeting with the research consortium
and FNA representatives. Based on the discussion, a two-part proposal was intro
duced. First, an analysis of financial statements of newspaper publishing companies
in Scandinavia and related statistical data would be made. Second, a qualitative
study based on 29 in-depth interviews of representatives of major newspaper
publishing companies, industry experts and significant scholars would be con
ducted. The project duration was to be relatively short; approximately six months.
The study was carried out in 2016 and was financed by the FNA. The project
also involved a small follow-up project that focused specifically on local and
regional news media business in the three countries.
Results
The research demonstrated that the media markets in Sweden and Norway are the
most similar, as both have many paid-for local and regional newspapers (Lehtisaari et
al., 2016; 2017a). Denmark has significantly fewer paid-for newspapers, and the
number of free papers is high. In general, the absence of a sustainable business model
suited to the new digital environment is a challenge for the entire newspaper busi
ness. One particular challenge is recruiting readers among the younger generations,
and convincing them to include digital news in the monthly ‘media package’ on
which they spend time and money. The interviews revealed that the Scandinavian
newspaper companies have not generally been tremendously innovative in creating
new approaches to reach a younger audience (Lehtisaari et al., 2018b).
However, several good examples of innovative and successful practices were
found. They can be divided into two main types: (i) digitally-driven business
models and (ii) brand and community building. Digitally-driven business models
include such features as systematic testing of price levels, advanced user analytics,
engagement orientation with value-based offerings, digital newspaper subscriptions
bundled with mobile phone subscriptions, regionally based personalisation of the
digital subscription, and a feedback loop through which new practices and opera
tional models are first tested in some titles and then expanded to other titles. Brand
and community building includes practices such as exclusive events for loyal cus
tomers, a monetising service formed around the brand (e.g. Politiken Plus in
Denmark), and targeted news in order to reach a desired audience (e.g. Justin
Bieber’s visit to Norway being covered in detail in order to lure young readers).

The preliminary results were presented in May 2016 at the annual FNA Spring
meeting and seminar. The seminar gathered more than 100 participants from Fin
nish newspapers and other interest groups around the country. The presentation
was well received and gathered positive feedback and constructive comments.
Because of this and because of requests from newspapers unable to participate in the
event, the FNA arranged another seminar in Helsinki in September 2016, with two
presentations. The first put a Nordic perspective on the results of the Digital News
Report released in June 2016 by the Oxford University Reuters Institute. The second
touched on the new business models for news media in Scandinavia, with an emphasis
on explaining the experiments made by news media organisations to transform or
grow their business. Pekka Mervola, the editor-in-chief of the Keskisuomalainen
newspaper, then commented on the two presentations. The event was streamed live,
to gain as large an audience as possible among FNA representatives. It attracted
approximately 50 participants and more than 80 spectators followed the live stream.
By the end of 2016, the recording of the event had been viewed more than 260 times.
The final report of the project was published in the publication series of the
University of Helsinki (Lehtisaari et al., 2016). However, it was first made avail
able exclusively for FNA members via the federation’s intranet platform. After a
short period of ‘quarantine’, the report was made available freely.
The study focusing on Scandinavia surveyed the business development of
newspaper publishers and their ongoing experiments. However, since the FNA
has 123 members, mostly small local newspapers, it financed a spin-off project
that focused on examining the situation and prospects of local newspapers, city
newspapers and free papers. The final report of the spin-off project was also
published as part of the University of Helsinki series (Lehtisaari et al., 2017a).
News media in the US

The Scandinavian project was followed in 2017 by an analysis of US news media
(Lehtisaari et al., 2017b). The same research design was used, combining quanti
tative and qualitative data. The interview questions were based on the experi
ences from the first project and were highly similar, for comparative reasons. As
in the first project, the funding institution did not have any direct influence on
the research questions (such as requiring its approval), but as can be expected,
discussions with FNA representatives did orient the research design.
In the project, it was decided to focus more specifically on the following topics:
� the proportion and growth of digital revenues, particularly digital subscriptions;

� new businesses outside the traditional two-sided business model of advertis
ing and subscription income;
� unique solutions in organisations;
� creative partnerships;
� organisational and cultural change;
� creation of one’s own technology;
� adaptation of new technology.
Funding for this project was different. The Media Industry Research Founda
tion of Finland financed it through an open call for research proposals on the
topic. In this sense, the project was not commissioned but had to compete for
funding. The research consortium’s experience from the Scandinavian project
possibly influenced the funding decision favourably.
For the project, the research group saw a need for additional expertise and
decided to collaborate with three colleagues from the United States: Robert G.
Picard (Yale University and University of Oxford), Bozena Mierzejewska and Axel
Roepnack (both Fordham University). The contract for the research project was
signed in March 2017 and the project would run for approximately six months.
The communication between researchers on two continents was carried out via
email and regular Skype meetings. Mikko Villi made a two-month research visit in
2017 to Fordham University in New York City (hosted by Mierzejewska and
Roepnack) to support collaboration and data collection. The researchers also met
at several events, for example during the 2017 ICA conference in San Diego, as
well as during the shorter data collection visits to the US made by Katja Lehtisaari,
Mikko Grönlund and Carl-Gustaf Lindén.
Results
The study used quantitative data to develop a picture of the overall business
environment of US newspapers. In addition, qualitative interview data were col
lected in 2017 from media managers, researchers, industry representatives and
media analysts (N = 35). The results revealed the wide differences between the
approaches of US newspaper publishers. The study concluded that foreign
newspaper publishers wishing to learn from the US media industry must deter
mine individually which approaches are most appropriate for them, as there is no
‘one-size-fits-all’ solution for publishers operating in the US. According to one
interviewee, ‘There is no silver bullet, only silver shrapnel’. It is understandable
that there is a huge difference between newspapers such as the New York Times
and the Washington Post and the metropolitan newspapers and local newspapers in
smaller cities (Villi et al., 2019).
The results show that business model innovation is focused on building and
nurturing value-creating relationships with readers, advertisers, partners and
intermediaries. Contemporary news business models and activities require

knowledge and competencies that are often absent from traditional news industry
workforces. Most publishers are still struggling to adapt to the digital age, and
little ‘reinvention’ was found. For legacy media rooted deeply in a formerly stable
ecosystem of actors, routines, habits and norms, the upheaval is often felt as a
threat. The leap from print to digital publication, as well as the integration of
content, audience and producers, is a challenge for newspaper organisations. The
New York Times and the Washington Post, which have led developments in the
digital environment, perceive those investments as central to their strategies and
future growth.
According to the findings, many smaller news organisations seem to think that
they must follow the national news organisations without developing their own
business models and strategy, or without regard to whether they will be equally
useful. Thus, innovation (or often, isomorphism and imitation) seems to be the
goal itself rather than the means to a goal (for further analysis, see Villi et al., 2019).
The review of the US news media business revealed that it is struggling to reinvent
business models and find its own path in the digital environment. The US experi
ence shows the unwillingness or inability of many established newspaper firms to
consider value creation and business relationships in the broader way that digital
competitors and emerging news providers are embracing. There is no universal
solution, but the examples provided in the project report may serve as inspiration
in finding new ways of value creation in newspaper publishing.

The key results were presented to private and public media stakeholders at a
seminar held in Helsinki in September 2017, which attracted over 50 participants.
In addition, approximately 100 spectators followed the live stream of the event.
The event was organised by the Media Industry Research Foundation of Finland
and the Finnish Media Federation (Finnmedia). The latter is an advocacy orga
nisation for the Finnish media industry and printing companies. Including its
member associations (the Finnish Periodical Publishers’ Association, the Federa
tion of the Printing Industry in Finland, the Finnish Newspapers Association and
the Finnish Book Publishers Association), it has in total nearly 700 member
companies, which employ about 20,000 people. After the event, the final report
of the project was made available freely via the University of Helsinki website
(Lehtisaari et al., 2017b).
The results were also presented in 2017 in an article in the Suomen Lehdistö
(‘The Finnish Press’) periodical. The article focused on the key findings and ideas
of the research project, and findings from the simultaneously executed project,
‘New Business Models in the News Industry in the United States’, a study con
ducted by the consulting and research company Kairos Future. Suomen Lehdistö
targets decision-makers at Finnish newspapers and is published eight times a year.

The average number of readers per printed issue is approximately 2,600.
Another tangible effect of the US study occurred when the Media Industry
Research Foundation of Finland launched a special theme call for project proposals
on Paid Content and Global Development in the Media in 2018. The purpose of the
call was to accumulate research projects that would present international cases that
are scalable in the Finnish media market. The text of the call for proposals included
a link to the US report and a comment that it would be worthwhile for applicants
to read the report, to draw useful ideas for their own proposals.
News media in Germany

The third project in the series, focusing on Germany, was conducted in 2018 and
financed by the FNA. Its purpose was to analyse how the digital environment
affects the ecosystem of news media. The final report offered a perspective on
new business models and forms of revenue in Germany, and revealed a wide
variation in the approaches by newspaper publishers to the changes in the media
field. The report came to similar conclusions to earlier reports on Scandinavia and
the US, in that those who want to learn from the German media industry must
determine individually which approaches are the most appropriate to them.
Results
For the study, the research group applied a similar approach to those of the two
other studies. They used financial performance data and market data to form a
picture of the overall business environment experienced by German newspapers.
This was combined with qualitative data collected by interviewing media man
agers, researchers, industry representatives and media analysts (N = 20). Castulus
Kolo (Macromedia University) and Barbara Brandstetter (Neu-Ulm University of
Applied Sciences) helped in providing contacts and arranging interviews.
The results demonstrated that German news media operate in a highly conservative
industry characterised by family ownership. From the outside it seems to be exposed to
the same forces of consolidation that are prevalent in other European countries, while
on the inside, few expressed any sense of urgency. In addition, the study concluded that
German news media companies are slower to adopt new pay models than are compa
nies elsewhere in Europe. Despite the media industry at large in Germany being mostly
reluctant to risk it is still profitable print-based business models, a few examples of
creativity and innovation were found. During the study, the researchers were informed
of several projects that aim to implement payment solutions, i.e. paywalls. Especially in
northern Germany, managers showed interest in how Nordic media companies have
developed their subscription business. One person noted that his company had started a
new R&D project called Oslo, named ‘after our idol, Schibsted’ – Norwegian Schibsted
Media Group is an international media group with 8,000 employees in 22 countries.

In a similar fashion, the findings were first shared with the FNA. Preliminary results
were presented to Finnish private and public media stakeholders in Helsinki in
May 2018 in a keynote presentation at the FNA Spring seminar. The final report,
published in December 2018, was first made available to FNA members only
before being published for the broader audience as part of the University of Hel
sinki series (Lehtisaari et al., 2018a).
In addition to such venues, the final reports of the projects did not gain much
public visibility. There were a few stories in the media, most of the coverage being
concentrated in media outlets aimed at media industry professionals. It seems that
the findings of the projects are used more for internal discussion in the industry and
the government than as seeds for creating public debate.
However, the researchers themselves have been actively disseminating the
findings in journal articles (Lehtisaari et al., 2018b; Villi et al., 2019; other papers
in process) and through more than ten academic presentations at international
conferences, including the European Communication Research and Education
Association (ECREA), European Media Management Association (emma),
International Communication Association (ICA), International Symposium on
Media Innovations (ISMI), NordMedia, and the World Media Economics and
Management Conference (WMEMC). The findings have also been advantageous
in education and have been firmly included on the agendas of courses at the
universities of Jyväskylä and Helsinki.
There has been no systematic analysis of the studies on Scandinavia, the US and
Germany concerning their impact in Finland, and thus it is difficult to evaluate
exactly how much difference they have made. This is certainly something that
should be addressed in future projects, as a systematic framework would serve in
collecting data about the impact. However, it is possible (and desirable) that Finnish
news media companies have used insights from the studies and adopted certain sug
gestions as part of their development processes. The FNA has signalled the impor
tance of benchmarking studies of this type for the Finnish news media. In addition,
the FNA used the reports as reading material for a study trip for its members to
Norwegian news media in September 2018 and a similar trip to Sweden in
December 2019. One of the researchers in the project, Carl-Gustav Lindén, was
asked to identify industry experts and interesting media trends in the national context
as well as to provide background information about the media companies visited in
Norway and Sweden. He also provided participants with a set of salient questions
and participated as an expert in the discussions with media companies.
Discussion
In the remaining section of the chapter, we critically reflect on the research col
laboration and actual impact on policymaking and strategic decision-making.
Practical vs. Theoretical Contributions

The starting points of both projects were practical rather than theoretical. The aim of
the projects was not to develop media management research in Finland as much as to
bring into the discussion practical issues, best practices, and ideas that can be used
when media companies develop their strategies. In sum, the projects were oriented
by the purposes of the funding parties. However, media management research
played a background role in the planning phase and when carrying out the projects.
Although the projects were not theory-driven but motivated by industry
demands, it is important that the researchers were not content with only the
commissioned project reports, but strived to produce more academically oriented
publications. In this way, the outreach of the projects could be extended to the
academic community and could assist in developing the field of media manage
ment research both theoretically and practically.
The two projects presented in this chapter differ in several ways. The target group
of the media policy project consisted primarily of political decision-makers, despite
the fact that the project aimed at continuous interaction with other stakeholders as
well, including media companies. In contrast, the interests of media companies tar
geted precisely the projects focusing on new business models for news media, and
therefore their objectives were more business-oriented and practical.
Influence of Funding Modality on Research

Due to differences in both the funding and backgrounds of the projects, there
were also significant variations in their documentation. The media policy project
was financed with state support. In Finland, the use of appropriations financed
through tax revenues must be open and, therefore, the whole process from
beginning to end was transparent and well documented. In contrast, the studies
focusing on new business models for news media were funded by an industry
organisation or an industry-connected foundation. Therefore, negotiations, con
tract issues and other interactions were in principle not public but were confined
to personal interactions.
Including Stakeholder Interests

The media policy project had a formal steering group. The regular steering group
meetings provided the research team with feedback throughout the project.
Cooperation with the project funder and other round table stakeholders worked
quite well via representatives of the Ministry of Transport and Communications.
Collaboration with other ministries and state authorities in the steering group
varied and, in some cases, the research group found that there was room for
improvement. To some extent, this was because some of the people appointed to
the steering group had insufficient expertise-related resources to support the
research project. There was also a great deal of variation in stakeholder activity.
Some stakeholders provided data and commented on the data collected by the
researchers, but some did not. In general, the research team had slightly higher
expectations of the collaboration than what transpired.
Public consultation was arranged after the report was published. Furthermore, the
Ministry of Transport and Communications has organised meetings of the Media
Policy Network in order to facilitate continuous dialogue with stakeholder groups.
However, the future of the network depends on the parliamentary elections in Finland
in 2019 and the inauguration of the new Minister of Transport and Communications.
In contrast, the projects focusing on news media business models did not have
formal steering groups or regular meetings between the research team and the
representatives of the Finnish Newspapers Association and the Media Industry
Research Foundation of Finland. However, the funding parties were kept informed
of the progress of the studies in informal discussions and email correspondence. The
main feedback was given after the funding representatives had read the first drafts of
the final reports. They also approved the final versions of the reports.
In the media policy project, the extent of the project, the tight schedule, coor
dination requirements, and somewhat restricted resources made the execution of
the project demanding. During its early stages, before any actual work or results of
the work packages could be reported, there was quite a lot of reporting on the
project plans to the steering group. The project consisted of multiple work
packages and therefore the budget per work package was rather small and the
number of work hours that could be allocated to each work package was limited.
The research consortium collaborated well; perhaps even better than the project
coordinator had expected. While the consortium was large and scattered across sev
eral institutions in Finland, many of the members of the groups involved in the work
packages already knew each other. In addition, the liaison person between the
Ministry and the consortium parties played an important role. During the first stage
of the project lifecycle, it took some time to clarify the task of individual work
packages in order to avoid overlap. Nevertheless, when these issues were resolved, all
members of the consortium committed to meeting common schedules and goals.
The consortium had monthly meetings at which presentations were made about
the progress of each sub-project, and any necessary fine-tuning was agreed upon. It is
important to understand that in such large projects, experts do not require micro
managing. Rather, they should be given the space and time to do their work, in
addition to having sufficient resources to cover support functions and auxiliary tasks.
Several members received no additional resources for the project (e.g. in the use of
their work time), which became noticeable in their reduced capacity for collabora
tion and active contribution to the project, and an overall understanding of its goals.
Even though the research agenda and goals of the media policy project were
agreed in the original contract, due to the open process, some efforts were made
by stakeholders to expand the project during its lifecycle. The main reason for
this was the substantial number of stakeholder groups with differing agendas or
interests. The stakeholders included media companies, industry associations, and

NGOs, and thus their views might contradict each other. Statements at round
table meetings could often be understood to be lobbying by stakeholders. For
example, participants who had not attended the previous meetings could make
statements promoting their own interests, showing they were unaware of the
project’s objectives and task constraints. Some of the suggestions or information
needs presented by stakeholders during the project were so extensive, or outside
the agreed boundary conditions, that it was not possible to implement them.
Time Constraints of Applied Projects

The business model projects had fewer stakeholders and the researchers could carry out
the study without being disturbed by lobbying. They were in this sense much simpler
and more straightforward as projects. The projects focusing on Scandinavia, the US and
Germany opened the possibility for the researchers to learn much about conditions
outside Finland and generate new connections with foreign media industry people and
academics. On the other hand, it can be mentioned that the schedule required the data
collection, analysis and reporting to be carried out in six months, which might be the
normal pace in the media industry, but is less common in the academic context.
The report on media and communications policy is available online (Ala-Fossi et
al., 2018), and the results have been used in scholarly publications (Ala-Fossi et al.,
2019). So far, the model and framework created by Picard and Pickard (2017) have
not been tested in practice. However, the Finnish research consortium has started
negotiations with representatives of the Ministry of Transport and Communications
to test, research and evaluate selected indicators in practice. Thus, it is probable that
the insights from the project can be integrated with media policy in Finland.
The findings on Scandinavia, the US and Germany were presented to Finnish
media managers in reports containing many practical implications, potentially
offering input for their decision-making. All project reports are available free
online; the presentations and reports were widely distributed and created con
siderable interest among news media representatives in Finland. Beyond that, the
researchers have no knowledge about what the stakeholders have learned from the
results, how they have taken advantage of the information provided, or if they have
implemented any changes or new practices based on the insights from the three
studies. The follow-up, through study trips for FNA members to Norway and
Sweden, did indicate that the reports created curiosity to know more. It should also
be noted that media managers frequently attend events at which best practices are
shared, including those arranged by industry associations such as the World Asso
ciation of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), International News
Media Association (INMA) and Global Editors Network (GEN). Despite the
international activities in which many media leaders participate, the FNA still sees a
need to provide research-based information in Finnish to its stakeholders.
Academic Career vs. Practical Impact

The more theoretical and academic considerations of the studies have been used in
scholarly articles (Lehtisaari et al., 2018b, Villi et al., 2019), conference presentations,
and in teaching. In addition to providing tangible deliverables to media companies
and policymakers, the researchers have thus been able to advance their own research
agendas and careers. Moreover, open and honest discussions with media managers
have helped the researchers to get a better and more nuanced picture of the com
plexity of innovation dilemmas facing the media industry and learn how media
organisations tackle challenges such as a scarcity of financial resources and skills
shortages. One important insight is that media and journalism scholars have much to
gain from engagement with practitioners, even though this is little appreciated in
academia, at least not in Finnish universities. The reward and career system in Finnish
universities is focused more on publications and less on mingling with practitioners.
The use of materials collected for more practical applied research, such as news media
industry reports, need not be problematic if used in scholarly publications. Data has to
be collected and analysed as stringently as in academic research projects. However,
there is something of a dichotomy between academic publishing and industry reports,
as the latter have to be pragmatic and business-oriented. Their purpose is to provide
applicable information and ideas directly to business representatives, often in the form
of bullet point lists. An applied research project rarely offers a basis from which to build
major theoretical contributions without trade-offs. Thus, such media industry reports
are often a compromise between academic knowledge and applied science.
The practical impact of these studies is not easy to measure. Often, no funding is
available for such post-project endeavours, and after the project has ended, the
researchers tend to concentrate their efforts on producing academic publications.
However, in our experience, the type of collaboration analysed in this chapter has
clear advantages for academic research. One obvious advantage is the access to well-
placed sources. Media managers often appreciate a frank discussion with researchers
about their challenges, innovation ideas, trade-offs and plans (Nenonen et al., 2017).
To get the best results from an open discussion, researchers need not avoid the media
industry but should be prepared to share their insights and to accept the limitations of
their knowledge. Research should undergo a ‘reality check’ and provide insights that
industry and policy experts recognise as being well grounded. The discussion would
then have a better chance of creating a societal impact; that is, creating real value for
the media industry and policymakers. The second major advantage is that these
conversations and analyses also provide researchers with a view of the future of the
industry and ideas for further research.
In this chapter, we have not delved much into the field of teaching, but an
obvious advantage of applied research is that it provides a more informed picture
of what is going on outside the high walls of academia. These insights are valu
able to students who must finish their studies while at the same time trying to
determine what skills and capabilities are valued in the job market ‘out there’.
Even though not presently rewarded in scholarly rankings, updating the knowl
edge of those who teach at universities should be a core demand from university
management. This is especially true in a field that is rapidly being transformed
under the pressure of new communication technologies.
Finally, media management research deals with the complexity of decision-
making in uncertain circumstances and a rapidly changing business environment.
Since there are many moving parts (from changing business models to the
demand for new skills and the transformation of the technological landscape), a
multidisciplinary approach is much needed. Our advice is that research teams
should incorporate multidisciplinary expertise and skills to be able to analyse these
complicated contexts competently.
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to Marko Ala-Fossi, project coordinator of the media
policy project, for sharing his views on the execution of the project.
References
Ala-Fossi, M., Alén-Savikko, A., Grönlund, M., Haara, P., Hellman, H., Herkman, J., Hildén,
J., Hiltunen, I., Jääsaari, J., Karppinen, K., Koskenniemi, A., Kuutti, H., Lehtisaari, K.,
Manninen, V., Matikainen, J. & Mykkänen, M. (2018). Media- ja viestintäpolitiikan nykytila
ja mittaaminen. Loppuraportti [The state of media- and communications policy and how to
measure it. Final report.] Helsinki: Liikenne- ja viestintäministeriö, Vol. 4/2018.
Ala-Fossi, M., Alén-Savikko, A., Hildén, J., Horowitz, M., Jääsaari, J., Karppinen, K.,
Lehtisaari, K. & Nieminen, H. (2019). Operationalising communication rights: The case
of a ‘digital welfare state’. Internet Policy Review, 8(1).
Bornmann, L. (2013). What is societal impact of research and how can it be assessed? A literature
survey. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 64(2), 217–233.
Kantar TNS. Media advertising in Finland (different years).
Lehtisaari, K. & Grönlund, M. (2015). Online activities of Finnish newspapers in the
changing media business environment. Austral Comunicacion, 4(1), 131–156.
Lehtisaari, K., Grönlund, M., Lindén, C.-G., & Villi, M. (2016). Uutismedian uudet liike
toimintamallit Pohjoismaissa [Scandinavian news media in search for new business models].
Viestinnän tutkimusraportteja 1/2016. Helsinki: University of Helsinki.
Lehtisaari, K., Grönlund, M., Lindén, C.-G. & Villi, M. (2017a). Paikallis- ja kaupunki
lehtien uudet liiketoimintamallit Pohjoismaissa [Scandinavian local and free newspapers in
search for new business models]. Viestinnän tutkimusraportteja 2/2017 (huhtikuu 2017).
Helsinki: Helsingin yliopisto, Sosiaalitieteiden laitos, Viestinnän tutkimuskeskus CRC.
Lehtisaari, K., Grönlund, M., Lindén, C.-G., Villi, M., Picard, R. G., Mierzejewska, B. &
Röpnack, A. (2017b). Uutismedian uudet liiketoimintamallit Yhdysvalloissa [New business
models for U.S. news media]. Helsinki: Helsingin yliopisto, Aleksanteri–instituutti.
Lehtisaari, K., Karppinen, K., Harjuniemi, T., Grönlund, M., Lindén, C.-G., Nieminen,
H. & Viljakainen, A. (2012). Media convergence and business models: Responses of
Finnish daily newspapers. Communication Research Centre CRC, Department of
Social Research, University of Helsinki. Media and Communication Studies Research

Reports. Retrieved from: www.helsinki.fi/crc/Julkaisut/Media_Convergence.pdf.
Lehtisaari, K., Lindén, C.-G., Grönlund, M. & Villi, M. (2018a). Uutismedian uudet liike
toimintamallit Saksassa [New business models for German news media]. Helsinki: Hel
singin yliopisto, Svenska social- och kommunalhögskolan. Notat 3/2018.
Lehtisaari, K., Villi, M., Grönlund, M., Lindén, C.-G., Mierzejewska, B. I., Picard, R. G.,
& Röpnack, A. (2018b). Comparing innovation and social media strategies in Scandi
navian and US newspapers. Digital Journalism, 6(8), 1029–1040.
Lund, A. B. (2016). A stakeholder approach to media governance. In G. F. Lowe & C.
Brown (Eds.), Managing media firms and industries: What’s so special about media manage
ment? (pp. 103–120). Berlin: Springer.
Mitchell, R. K., Agle, B. R. & Wood, D. J. (1997). Toward a theory of stakeholder
identification and salience: Defining the principle of who and what really counts.
Academy of Management Review, 22(4), 853–886.
Nenonen, S., Brodie, R. J., Storbacka, K., & Peters, L. D. (2017). Theorizing with man
agers: How to achieve both academic rigor and practical relevance? European Journal of
Marketing, 51(7/8), 1130–1152.
Newman, N., Fletcher, R., Levy, D. A. L. & Nielsen, R. K. (2016). Reuters institute digital
news report 2016. Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Retrieved from:
https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/research/files/Digital%
2520News%2520Report%25202016.pdf.
Picard, R. & Pickard, V. (2017). Essential principles for contemporary media and communications
policymaking. Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Retrieved from:
http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/our-research/essential-principles-contempora
ry-media-and-communications-policymaking.
Villi, M., Grönlund, M., Lindén, C.-G., Lehtisaari, K., Mierzejewska, B., Picard, R. G. &
Roepnack, A. (2019). ‘They’re a little bit squeezed in the middle’: Strategic challenges
for innovation in US metropolitan newspaper organisations. Journal of Media Business
Studies. doi:10.1080/16522354.2019.1630099.
11
RESEARCH FOR INNOVATION
Improving the Management of Co-Located and
Clustered Industries
Erik Hitters
ERASMUS UNIVERSITY ROTTERDAM
Introduction
From the early 1990s, the co-location of industries, workers and entrepreneurs has risen
to the attention of both academics and urban policy makers. The tendency to cluster
was particularly visible in the field of cultural production and in creative and media
entrepreneurship (Karlsson & Picard, 2013; Porter, 2000; Pratt, 2008). The emergence
of media, cultural and creative clusters demonstrates the significance of co-location. In
globally and digitally connected industries, place is still important because local net
works are grounded in particular places where culture is produced and consumed
(Cairncross, 1977; Currid, 2007; Davis et al., 2009; Markusen, 1996; Wijngaarden et
al., 2019). In media management literature research into media clusters has become
established recently (see Komorowski, 2017; Virta & Lowe, 2017).
The Cultures of Innovation in the Creative Industries (CICI) research project
focused on such co-located industries. It examined how creative business centres
for small and medium-sized companies foster innovation, develop entrepreneur
ship and which management interventions are conducive to these goals. Even
while the creative industries as a term is notoriously difficult to define as well as
heavily contested, we have used it in our research in order to be able to encompass
the broad range of firms in the locations we researched. Many of these could also
be labelled as media industries, or information industries as most of them produced
creative content relying on mass and digital media for their business ventures. Our
locations represent the width of the creative industries, including many media firms
active in broadcasting, publishing, film, music, games, advertising, public relations,
digital design and digital media.
The multidisciplinary and cooperative focus of the companies in the buildings, as
well as the curation and community management within them, made these places
174 Erik Hitters
an interesting research environment. In this research, we focused on the develop

ment of and interrelationships between companies, markets, networks and the
places where they are located, and on the practices of innovation and management,
creative work, business conditions, knowledge and information spill-overs, med
iation and technological needs. How effective has these centres’ management been
as intermediaries for creativity and innovation? What are the specific economic
(value, performance, employment) and socio-cultural (symbolic value, atmosphere,
branding, working conditions) effects of co-location? Our focus was on the prac
tices within these creative business centres and their role as intermediaries in fos
tering collaboration, entrepreneurship and innovation. In other words, how does
the process of innovation actually work? In our view, such innovation emerges in
places by agents in a structural context, embedded in interactive processes of
embodied learning and feedback (Wijngaarden et al., 2016).
In addition to offering insights about the collaboration between creative busi
nesses, in this chapter we will also analyse the collaboration between the
researchers in the project and the businesses involved. Partner in this research was
the Dutch Creative Residency Network (DCRN), a network of 30 creative
business centres across the Netherlands, where around 2,000 companies are loca
ted. We will include a critical reflection on the interactions of the researchers and
public and private stakeholders – an evaluation of the collaboration in itself. Of
particular interest are also the workshops and seminars that were offered to loca
tion managers. The research provided answers to questions on the impact and
effectiveness of management on co-located businesses. The utilisation of this
knowledge was a central aspect to the research design. In addition, this work has
offered insights, examples and best-practices about collaboration, growth and
innovation of creative businesses. We will critically elaborate on our method of
knowledge utilisation and discuss how we were able to provide added value and
cross the bridge between research and industry.
An important part of the sector’s agenda focused on strengthening the base of
expertise for the creative industries by making existing knowledge accessible,
developing new knowledge and realising the link between science and practice.
Our project raised a number of questions that are of vital importance to this
sector. Not only did we contribute to the academic understanding of the inno
vation process, we also provided insight into the role of research in the innova
tion ecosystem and how may we raise practitioner’s awareness of the conditions
under which innovation take place. Thus, sharing our results and knowledge with
the sector was central to our project. The centrality of knowledge in the inno
vation process is convincingly explained by Bathelt and Cohendet (2014).
According to them,
processes which lead to innovation require dynamic knowledge flows about

the relevant knowledge structures and practices and their dynamics. The pro
cesses by which new developments of ideas and artefacts crystallize are
generally referred to as knowledge creation … [These] processes are shaped by

specific circumstances, which is exactly why constant flows of knowledge and
efforts to access and process this knowledge are so decisive. (pp. 869–870)
Understanding how innovation works, is an important prerequisite in developing

instruments in order to make the creative industries more innovative and compe
titive. Our research project aimed to reach precisely that, as well as looking at
actual intervention policies, the role of intermediaries and the ways in which they
could impact the everyday working environment and business practices. It gener
ated knowledge about the specific conditions under which the creative industries
can realise their innovative potential. Furthermore, it helped in understanding the
contextual and organisational factors underpinning the development of creative
entrepreneurship. In close knowledge exchange with the businesses involved, the
results could translate into opportunities for the creative industries nationally as well
as internationally.
Although creativity and innovation have become very fashionable terms in policy,
business as well as academia, there is a lack of scientific and strategic knowledge
about the contextual and embedded nature of relationships and networks that enable
and sustain creativity and innovation in the creative and media industries (Cunning
ham, 2013). As Pratt and Jeffcutt (2009) label these terms as ‘snake oil for the 21st
century’, academic knowledge about the precise and place-specific conditions under
which creativity may lead to innovative outputs is still scarce. Valuable work has
been done on the meso and macro-level of firm interactions (Davis et al., 2009, Potts
et al., 2008). Within firms, creativity is often approached as a managerial or socio-
psychological phenomenon, which may be maximised in order to generate innova
tive outcomes (Amabile, 1997; De Vaan et al., 2015). Much less is known about the
micro-interactions between small and medium-sized firms in small-scale clusters.
Furthermore, managerial and policy interventions in clusters are often prescribed but
hardly subjected to research on their effectiveness. Our research made an attempt at
filling part of that gap, by taking a mixed method comparative approach in order to
better understand how particular types of knowledge relationships in particular
contexts may lead to innovative outcomes.
Understanding the innovation process is crucial not only to the media indus
tries but also to other creative industries, or even the knowledge economy as a
whole. We emphasised understanding such spill-overs not just in terms of direct
spill-overs and knowledge transfers (Ibrus, 2019) but also in the form of reputa
tional economies. Knowledge and value in the creative industries are crucially
related to place reputation and the dynamics of taste. Reputation economies
affect products’ value and are very often related to and supported by the reputa
tion of the place they are brokered and sold within. Subsequently, our results
added to the legitimacy of the creative industries as a sector that is of vital
importance to a sustainable knowledge economy.
176 Erik Hitters
The Research Project

The CICI research project ran between 2013 and 2018 and focused on innovation
practices in the Dutch creative industries. It examined such practices in creative
business centres (CBCs), buildings offering co-location facilities to small and
medium-sized businesses. Partner in our research was the DCR Network, a net
work of 33 creative hubs across the Netherlands, where around 4,000 companies
are located. They represent the width of the creative and media industries, ranging
from marketing agencies to app developers. They included the following sub-
sectors: advertising, architecture, arts and antiques, crafts, design, designer fashion,
digital and entertainment media, film, video, photography, music, performing and
visual arts, software and electronic publishing, TV and radio and publishing
industries. Our overall research question addressed the impact and effectiveness of
CBCs as intermediaries for creativity and innovation. What are the specific eco
nomic (value, performance, employment) and socio-cultural (symbolic value,
atmosphere, branding, working conditions) effects of co-location for the creative
industries? The research explored the development of and interrelationships
between companies, markets, networks and the places where they are located (the
CBCs) and the effects of their co-location on both the companies themselves, their
competitiveness, their cooperation and their practices of innovation. Specific
questions focus on management practices, creative work and working conditions,
knowledge innovation and information spill-overs, mediation, creative entrepre
neurship and reputation. In other words, what happens in co-located creative
industries places, under which economic and social conditions and with what kind
of innovative outcomes.
In close cooperation with DCRN, our industry partner, we selected ten creative
business centres, where we conducted research under the administrators and the
tenants. The location managers were active in project management. Our ten part
ner CBCs were spread throughout the Netherlands and were of different sizes. The
smallest CBC in our sample accommodates 50 entrepreneurs, and the largest CBC
houses 400 entrepreneurs. The research team consisted of a PhD student, a post
doctoral researcher and the project leader, assisted by several student assistants. Our
research consisted of three stages. In the first stage of the research we developed a
substantive secondary review of creative markets and information sources; and of
questions about the situated mediation of knowledge. This stage identified gaps in
the existing data sources, and developed ways to ensure more accurate data and
information on the creative industries. In addition, a first round of interviews
(N=32) among location managers and companies was carried out articulating the
challenges and needs of both creative entrepreneurs and the managers of the loca
tions. Methods used here were secondary analysis of existing research, data sources
and literature as well as expert interviews.
In the second and third stages of the research our methodology consisted of a
mixed methods approach. First, 43 in-depth interviews were conducted with
creative entrepreneurs between September 2014 and October 2015. Through

convenience and snowball sampling our sample of 43 respondents represented a
broad range of industries and diversity in age and gender. The in-depth inter
views deepened our knowledge and insights that were gathered in the previous
stages of this research, specifically looking at day-to-day business practices of
creative entrepreneurs. They focused on issues related to creative labour,
knowledge, competition, cooperation and innovation. All interviews were
coded in Atlas.ti in an inductive approach resembling the grounded theory
method developed by Strauss and Corbin (1990). We used a thematic analysis,
aimed at uncovering the conditions of innovation in order to compare and
contrast with the existing literature (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Second, the inter
views were also used to develop items that served as the basis for quantitative
analyses in the next stage.
In the third stage, the Cultures of Innovation in the Creative Industries (CICI)
Survey 1 and 2 provided the empirical quantitative data for our research. These
surveys mainly focused on working conditions in creative business centres, creative
labour and entrepreneurship, passion for work, entrepreneurial identity, place
reputation and innovation. Out of the sample of 998 firms located in our 10 cen
tres a total of 319 (1) and 207 (2) surveys were completed. The quantitative data
collected in this stage charted how the selected creative companies assess their
business practice, creative labour, working conditions, knowledge mediation,
innovation, and informational and technological needs. With respect to the loca
tional cultures of innovation, the data provided key economic indicators of the
selected creative hubs and how they assessed their role and effectiveness as inter
mediaries and facilitators. In that way, we could find answers to the question of the
specific economic (value, performance, employment) as well as socio-cultural
(symbolic value, atmosphere, branding, working conditions) effects of co-location
that could be identified for the creative firms concerned.
Assessing Societal Impact

In order to assess whether and to which degree scientific research has contributed
to society or industry, a wide body of research is available. A synthesising effort in
this field has resulted in the Societal Impact Value Cycle (SIVC) model (Van de
Burgwal et al., 2018). This model (Figure 11.1) has been developed in order to
be able to assess the effectiveness of so-called valorisation practices by academic
researchers. The model posits that academic knowledge is central to any society’s
innovation ecosystem.
In order to derive socio-economic benefits from academic knowledge, a

process that transfers the knowledge to society and translates this knowledge
into valuable products and services is necessary … Here we use the term
knowledge valorisation, since it encapsulates the concept of transferring
178 Erik Hitters
FIGURE 11.1 Societal Impact Value Chain (adapted from Van den Burgwal et al., 2018)
knowledge or technology to actors with an industrial or societal perspective

and the concept of commercialising knowledge by adapting and developing the
knowledge in order to yield socioeconomic benefits. (p. 9)
Van der Burgwal et al. (2018) specifically draw attention to the fact that
valorisation turns academic knowledge into value for society by making it suitable
and available for societal or economic purposes (Van den Nieuwboer et al., 2016;
Van Geenhuizen, 2010). The second half of the model thus specifically incorpo
rates commercial development and market deployment.
However, with respect to commercialising knowledge, or in other words
bringing it to the market, we may ask ourselves whether this should in fact be an
objective of publicly funded research in subsectors where innovation often remains
hidden (Cunningham, 2013). Especially when looking to enhance the awareness of
a certain sector with respect to the process of innovation, it may be a bridge too far
to be also held responsible for providing the tools to commodify or commercialise
the knowledge generated by academic research. This implies that the second half of
the model may need significant adaptation.
Instead of discussing valorisation in terms of commercial development and
market deployment, it may be better to use the terminology of knowledge utilisation.
In their work on the uses of social sciences, Landry et al. (2001) draw attention to
the context in which knowledge is produced and processed and the different ways
this is influenced by the contexts in which scientists and users operate. In order to
do that, we need to turn the attention to the actions that individual researchers
undertake to promote the utilisation of their research results. Here we follow
Landry et al. (2001) and suggest to follow an interaction perspective, which states
that knowledge utilisation depends on various disorderly interactions occurring
between researchers and users rather than on linear sequences beginning with the
needs of the researchers or the needs of the users. Sometimes, a difference between
the culture of science and the culture of users leads to a lack of communication
between them and, consequently, to low levels of knowledge utilisation. How
ever, the more sustained and intense the interaction between researchers and users,
the more likely there will be utilisation. It suggests giving a greater attention to the
relationships between researchers and users at different stages of knowledge pro
duction, dissemination and utilisation (Landry et al., 2001). We thus refrain from
discussing the latter two stages of the SIVC and replace these by a discussion of
interactive knowledge utilisation.
Needs Assessment and Demand Articulation

The first stages of the Societal Impact Value Cycle include a careful assessment of
needs and a subsequent articulation of the demands for research. Policy makers and
representatives for the societal domain cooperate to identify unmet needs and
subsequently evaluate these in order to prioritise those needs that are most urgent
or most feasible to tackle. Prioritisation as such does not mean that the needs with
the highest priority will be articulated as a demand to the academic domain since
demand articulation depends on dynamics in the policy or industrial domain.
Identified demands are translated into directions for solutions and objectives for
research and innovation projects. These solutions and objectives are based, among
other things, upon the feasibility of knowledge-based solutions and the necessity of
new knowledge development versus the availability of already developed knowl
edge. Alignment of the society and policy domain with the science domain occurs
via research agenda-setting, and the management of stakeholder expectations. This
kind of assessment of needs and the articulation of demands took place within the
research agenda-setting of the government-funded Topsector Creative Industry.
The project was part of a larger programme, initiated by the Dutch Research
Council (NWO), the main Dutch research funding organisation. The pro-
gramme focused on making knowledge accessible for the creative industry,
developing new knowledge and realising the link between science and practice.
To achieve this, NWO specifically included measures to ensure that the desired
collaboration between researchers and entrepreneurs and the valorisation of the
knowledge acquired could be realised in a mutually acceptable manner. In all
cases projects needed to be realised with consortia of at least one knowledge
180 Erik Hitters
institution and at least one private party, possibly supplemented with other
private and or public or semi-public parties. With this programme, NWO
deliberately connected to the innovation agendas of the Topsector Creative
Industry, which received strong government support. The CICI project speci
fically related to the innovation agenda of the CI Next Business Innovation
network. In an appendix to the call, the need for academic research and
knowledge development was clearly articulated: ‘Capitalising on innovation
opportunities at a sector level, regional level or even national level calls for
knowledge development, strategy and actions that are beyond the scale of
individual businesses. Research can be used to help identify such opportunities
and develop models for exploiting them’ (NWO, 2012, pp. 4–5) The call fur
ther specified that for the creative industries, a network-based approach would
be preferable for the development of knowledge, identifying ‘opportunities for
the sector, and also on developing the best possible conditions to enable the
creative industries sector to realise its economic and social value. This last aspect
also includes detecting bottlenecks and barriers to development, as well as ways
of overcoming them or reducing their negative impact’ (NWO, 2012, pp. 4–5).
On a more practical level, in the science domain, the SIVC model suggests that
ideas for research projects can be based upon articulated demands or interactions
with societal actors. These ideas are evaluated and project preparation activities are
conducted, such as establishing joint R&D partnerships and developing solid
research proposals (Van de Burgwal et al., 2018). In our case, the research proposal
was carefully prepared in collaboration with our partner DCRN. DCRN is a
major player in the Dutch start-up movement and helps to develop the country’s
enterprise culture. It is a unique network without parallel in Europe. Established in
2010 it connects 33 creative hubs in 18 cities in 11 provinces, housing 4,000
companies with collectively nearly 10,000 employees (https://dcrnetwork.nl/).
Many of these hubs or complexes are housed in emblematic older industrial
buildings that have been refashioned for the new economy. DCRN aims to pro
vide its members the opportunity to improve the environment for their tenants. It
is a platform for knowledge and exchange on the entrepreneurs’ level, between
members and between government and industry. DCRN strives to make the
creative industry clear and accessible, encourages knowledge exchange and
strengthens its economic vibrancy. Our research was an important pillar in the
knowledge and research agenda of DCRN.
In our collaboration with societal stakeholders, we were very aware of the needs
for tangible or even intangible research output (such as support for legitimation, as
we will elaborate further). According to Van der Burgwal et al. (2018) not all
academic researchers are aware of the possibilities for further development of their
research output and therefore the promotion of disclosure opportunities and the
identification of findings are vital steps in the progress of the value cycle. Via
DCRN we conducted research under the administrators and the tenants of 10 co-
location complexes. But they were not merely the subject of research. DCRN and
the companies they represent provided in-kind contributions to this project. These
consisted of over 1,000 professional working hours by the companies involved in
the research. Tasks consisted of collecting data from the company on the financial
performance, labour, transactions etc., as well as providing information through
detailed surveys and interviews. Also, the location managers were active in the
project management.
In the first stage of the research we did a first round of interviews among the
business centres’ managers and the companies, which was carried out in close
collaboration with our business partners and the intermediary organisations. These
interviews charted more precisely the specificities of each location involved and
identified a number of practice-based business cases.
Questions asked in this first stage focused on key findings in previous empirical
research (both quantitative and qualitative) into creative industries networks and
hubs or clusters, with respect to economic value, performance, innovation and
spill-overs. We looked at the role of both institutionalised as well as informal
location-based networks and how they have been identified as being central to
the value adding capacities of creative industries. Also we charted the availability
of national as well as international data sources on the creative industries in order
to measure economic value, performance, innovation and spill-overs. Finally, our
interviews focused on characterising context (culture), management and organi
sation in all of the participating locations. The findings of this first stage were
crucial in setting the agenda for the subsequent stages.
Research Collaboration and Findings

In the two-step mixed method approach of the subsequent stages we conducted
interviews and two surveys. All respondents were housed in our ten creative
business centres, and these locations’ managers or directors served as gatekeepers
for reaching the potential respondents. For the interviews, we proceeded by
means of convenience and snowball sampling: finding respondents ‘on the go’
and by being forwarded by interviewees. Our primary selection criterion was self-
identifying as working in the creative and media industries.
The respondents were asked, among some other topics, about their professional
work, their perceived creativeness and entrepreneurship, their definitions of
innovation in general and for the creative industries, their own innovativeness,
what contributes to innovation, what settings make them (more) innovative, how
they develop new ideas and implement them, and whether and how they think
innovativeness can be measured. We examined how these companies do assess
the importance of co-location and the level of institutional involvement (thick
ness) within their location, and to what extent context and organisation do play a
role in their own experience of innovation practices within their working envir
onment, both internal as well as external to their own business.
182 Erik Hitters
In the third stage, the Cultures of Innovation in the Creative Industries (CICI)
Surveys focused on working in creative business centres, creative labour and
entrepreneurship, place reputation and innovation. Again, we collaborated closely
with the location managers. All entrepreneurs were sent an invitation to a survey
with a cover letter explaining the topic and importance of the research project. In
the locations, the entrepreneurs were notified about our study by the clusters’
managers by email. The cooperation with DCRN and the managers/adminis
trators of our research locations was essential to data collection and the progress of
the research. They provided access to the creative companies that we researched
and provided logistical support. Thanks to the smooth cooperation, we were able
to collect voluminous and rich data from creative companies. Another result of the
collaboration is that the locations concerned better understood their tenants, how
they appreciate the locations but also any problems they experience. The managers
were also provided with a private report of our findings particular to their location.
The CICI research yielded a number of tangible findings (see also Wijngaarden
et al., 2016; Bhansing et al., 2018, Wijngaarden et al., 2019). Creative Business
Centres (CBCs) are used by creative entrepreneurs to show that they are risk-
taking, innovative and artistic; it reinforces their identity as a creative entrepreneur.
CBCs are also used by creative entrepreneurs for its creative and professional
reputation. When co-located, creative entrepreneurs appreciate the sense of colle
giality with other entrepreneurs. Creative entrepreneurs find that they innovate
because they are involved in a continuous recombination of new and existing ele
ments of already existing products and services. Sources of innovations of creative
entrepreneurs are the atmosphere of the location, the passion for their work, and
contacts with peers and partners.
CBC managers experience a lack of continuity and a high degree of volatility in
finances, management and ownership. Creative entrepreneurs appreciate co-loca
tion in one building or complex, but would like more advice and support from the
management of the property. The findings of the CICI research project can be
summarised in three main conclusions on the value of creative business co-location
for entrepreneurs. Firstly, the hub provides a context that stimulates the creative
entrepreneur in the development of products and services. Secondly, it gives the
creative entrepreneur the chance to show them who he/she is. And thirdly, crea
tive business hubs are essential for a functioning ecosystem of the cultural and
creative industry. It is necessary that there are affordable workplaces for starting and
growing creative entrepreneurs. However, there is a risk that developing a sus
tainable creative industry through creative co-location can fall prey to the growing
opportunities of economic exploitation of the properties involved. Managers run
ning creative business hubs would gain from a continuity strategy in which one
takes account of any possible displacement to other locations.
A bottleneck in the cooperation with our partners was the uncertain policy and
market environment in which they operate, as well as the rapid individual muta
tions that took place at these organisations. In seven cases there were financial
difficulties to the owner/administrator, in two cases the locations were sold to

other owners and the management organisation the changed at four other loca
tions. In six cases there were significantly less intensive programmes for tenants and
in eight cases there were individual changes in the management. As researchers we
sometimes encountered problems with the continuity of our research, which also
has led to some delay in the data collection.
Knowledge Dissemination and Utilisation

The CICI project set out to answer questions about the impact and effectiveness of
the co-location and agglomeration of creative industries. What happens in creative
business hubs and complexes; how are they managed; how is a culture of innova
tion fostered; and what kind of innovative outcomes are experienced? From the
outset, the research was targeted at not only generating academic knowledge and
contributing to debates on the effectiveness of clustering and co-location, it was
also set up in close collaboration with industry partners and aimed to generate
applicable knowledge for the sector. Especially the management of the locations
were able to apply this knowledge to improve the quality of their facilities.
The findings were shared with the users and the broader field in a number of
dissemination activities. There were three types of activities. First, in close coopera
tion with our partners, we organised several conferences and expert meetings. The
CICI research team has disseminated its findings from the onset onwards at different
times, during meetings such as DCRN Board meetings and meetings of its Interna
tional Advisory Board. A broader audience was reached during DCRN’s Knowledge
Days, which were specifically aimed at disseminating knowledge and knowledge
sharing among members of the network. We participated in those meeting on sev
eral occasions. The linkages that we established with DCRN proved to be very
conducive to the utilisation of knowledge. Our scientific research provided impor
tant insights for improvement of the positive effects of co-location of creative
industries. At the conference ‘Science meets Creativity’, hosted at Strijp-S in Eind
hoven in 2014, the most current research and successful practical cases were pre
sented and discussed. Here, researchers, managers and entrepreneurs shared their
insights and experiences, and discussed on the topic of what science and creative co-
location buildings had to offer each other. The input of the location managers during
the first seminar had a formative influence on the CICI research.
At the larger CICI project conference ‘The place to be’, we targeted managers,
entrepreneurs, policy makers and academics. It took place in year 3 of the project
at The Creative Factory, Rotterdam. We presented a mid-term report of the
project results to a broader group of users. In addition to the presentation of
results, the conference offered dedicated workshops for policy makers and man
agers, where we looked at possible applications of relevant themes. Also the
(interviewed) entrepreneurs from different locations could share insights with
each other through workshops around the theme of entrepreneurship in creative
184 Erik Hitters
co-location centres. A closing expert meeting ‘Here to stay! Business Continuity

Strategies for Creative Hubs’ was organised in year 5 of the CICI project. We
targeted an audience of CBC managers, interested creative entrepreneurs and
policy makers. It was hosted by one of the DCRN members, De Kroon, Rotter
dam. Following the conclusions of the CICI research we discussed business con
tinuity strategies for creative hubs. Now the real estate market has picked up steam
again, formerly obsolete urban areas, which housed many creative industries hubs,
became subject to urban development and gentrification. One of the conclusions
of the CICI research was that in this dynamic creative hubs – whether or not they
were (temporarily) established in times of crisis – often lose out. The participants
jointly formulated starting points to increase the continuity strategy of hubs. In that
way, they directly translated the conclusions of the CICI research into concrete
plans of action.
Second, a website was developed for knowledge dissemination. During year 1 we
prepared and went live with our project website: www.ciciproject.nl. On this website
we presented (short) information about CICI research: the main questions and
approaches, and we shared the findings of sub-projects, we introduced the researchers
involved as well as our partners. In addition, the website was regularly updated with
news about the progress and events. The website was increasingly used to disseminate
knowledge. Working papers, presentations, reports and the final conclusions were
presented through the website to the partners, users and the general public.
A third set of dissemination activities were our publications and reports. Of inter
est here are our professional and general publications in which we translated our
research findings to the users, managers, policy makers and the general audience. A
mid-term report was prepared in year 3 and already included many of our most
important findings. The final report of the CICI project examined the relationship
between creative business centres and innovation, answering our research question.
It sets out the conditions and catalysts of innovation which were found in the
research, and what factors can limit or obstruct innovation. It focused on a number
of themes, including: the specificity of creative entrepreneurship, the sources of
innovation, the reputation of the building, social interactions, the needs of entre
preneurs, the role of managers and intermediaries, relationships with education and
governments. The project also reported specific feedback to locations, targeted at
managers of the participating locations. These reports for each location offered a
concise reporting of results of interviews and surveys of the entrepreneurs, specifying
the characteristics of and programmes within the CBC that were appreciated, which
thresholds were experienced by entrepreneurs and which improvements could be
made. Where possible, we also included statements and evidence on the contribu
tion of the CBC to innovation. Of course, the anonymity of respondents was guar
anteed and results could not be traced back to individual renters.
Overall, throughout the five-year project, we have actively collected and shared
our acquired knowledge about creative entrepreneurs and the innovative effects of
their co-location with professionals in the creative industry. The research has had
an important role in demonstrating the added value of creative co-location, and in

that way contributed to the legitimation of fostering – and publicly supporting –
breeding places for emerging creative entrepreneurs and small businesses.
Conclusions and Discussion

As we have argued elsewhere (Wijngaarden et al., 2016), innovation is best
understood by taking a holistic view, including its conditions and outcomes. It is a
process or a by-product of one that is more than creativity or successful imple
mentations of novel ideas or products. Innovation as a process is about openness to
the environment and utilising or creating new methods that increase or deliver
high-quality outputs. Our perspective places less emphasis on the market and
societal acceptance. In our view, innovation should be considered a field-specific
process that has value in specific contexts and locations and takes different shapes in
different locations. This allows an introspective view on the creative industries, and
thereby a better way of understanding innovation in this particular context.
Moreover, it shows that many innovations are produced out of the motivations to
make beautiful, meaningful and useful products and services, but also that these
innovations are shaped and created by their localities (Wijngaarden et al., 2016,
p. 10). This way the project fits within the media clusters research available in
media management literature.
In terms of the SIVC models of Van der Burgwal et al. (2018), in the early and
preparatory stages of our research, we carefully assessed the needs of the sector and
subsequently in close relationship to our partners, articulated the demands for
research. The identified demands were translated into the objectives for our
research, based, among other things, upon the necessity of new knowledge devel
opment versus the availability of already developed knowledge. The assessment of
needs and the articulation of demands took place within the research agenda-set
ting of the government-funded Topsector Creative Industry and the CI Next
Business Innovation Network. For the analysis of subsequent stages of our research,
the SIVC model is less useful as it takes a different route of knowledge transfer
towards commercial development and market deployment. For us, knowledge
dissemination and utilisation were central to our concerns.
While our results address the effectiveness of and challenges to co-located busi
ness centres, the question remains to what extent and in what way entrepreneurs,
managers and policymakers can make use of the results. Landry et al. (2001) con
vincingly argue that knowledge dissemination efforts and adaptation of research
products have positive effects on knowledge utilisation. They depend on the
interaction between researchers and users as well as the linkage mechanisms that
they have invested resources in. However, factors regarding the users’ context are
contingent to the particular situations of the users and, as a consequence, are diffi
cult to include in a generalised theory of knowledge utilisation. Our experiences
corroborate these statements. Our interactions with our partner locations and
186 Erik Hitters
DCRN have been very important in the way that the results of our research have
been taken up in the daily practice of the location managers. The dissemination
activities that we have organised and our participation in meetings have had vary
ing degrees of effects on the uptake of the research results. Not all users were
similarly interested in these results, as some had to prioritise more pressing issues
concerning the management and financial situation of their location. Interestingly,
we also clearly observed the non-linearity of this process. Utilisation of knowledge
did not have to wait until the research was finished, even more so, it started almost
immediately as we initiated our research on these locations. The mere fact that we
were doing our research, talking to the managers and entrepreneurs and focusing
their attention on their role as intermediaries, raised their awareness of the practice
of innovation, the social and relational nature of it and the dependency on the
proximity of codified and tacit knowledge.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) under file
number 314-99-110, and is made possible with the cooperation of the Dutch
Creative Residency Network. Many thanks to Pawan Bhansing, Sven-Ove Horst
and Yosha Wijngaarden for their contributions to this chapter.
References
Amabile, T. M. (1997). Entrepreneurial creativity through motivational synergy. The Jour
nal of Creative Behavior, 31(1), 18–26.
Bathelt, H. & Cohendet, P. (2014). The creation of knowledge: Local building, global
accessing and economic development – towards an agenda. Journal of Economic Geo
graphy, 14 (5), 869–882.
Bhansing, P. V., Hitters, E. & Wijngaarden, Y. (2018). Passion inspires: Motivations of
creative entrepreneurs in creative business centres in the Netherlands. The Journal of
Entrepreneurship, 27(1), 1–24.
Braun, V. & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research
in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101.
Cairncross, F. (1997). The death of distance. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Cunningham, S. (2013). Hidden innovation: Policy, industry and the creative sector. St. Lucia:
University of Queensland Press.
Currid, E. (2007). How art and culture happen in New York: Implications for urban
economic development. Journal of the American Planning Association, 73(4), 454–467.
Davis, C. H., Creutzberg, T. & Arthurs, D. (2009). Applying an innovation cluster fra
mework to a creative industry: The case of screen-based media in Ontario. Innovation,
11(2), 201–214.
De Vaan, M., Stark, D. & Vedres, B. (2015). Game changer: The topology of creativity.
American Journal of Sociology, 120(4), 1144–1194.
Department of Culture, Media and Sport. (2011). Creative industries economic estimates: Full
statistical release. London: Department of Culture, Media and Sport.
Ibrus, I. (Ed.). (2019). Emergence of cross-innovation systems: Audiovisual industries co-innovating

with education, health care and tourism. Bingley: Emerald Publishing.
Karlsson, C. & Picard, R. G. (Eds.). (2013). Media clusters: Spatial agglomeration and content
capabilities. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Komorowski, M. (2017). A novel typology of media clusters. European Planning Studies, 25(8),
1334–1356.
Landry, R., Amara, N. & Lamari, M. (2001). Utilization of social science research
knowledge in Canada. Research Policy, 30(2), 333–349.
Markusen, A. (1996). Sticky places in slippery space: A typology of industrial districts.
Economic Geography, 72(3), 293–313.
NWO. (2012). Creative industries top sector creative industries NeXt: Creative business
innovation. Appendix to call for projects. Retrieved from: www.nwo.nl/binaries/con
tent/documents/nwo-en/common/documentation/application/nwo/top-grants-socia
l-sciences – -creative-industies-bussiness-innovations.
Porter, M. E. (2000). Location, competition, and economic development: Local clusters in
a global economy. Economic Development Quarterly, 14(1), 15–34.
Potts, J., Cunningham, S., Hartley, J. & Ormerod, P. (2008). Social network markets: A
new definition of the creative industries. Journal of Cultural Economics, 32(3), 167–185.
Pratt, A. C. (2008). Cultural commodity chains, cultural clusters, or cultural production
chains? Growth and Change, 39(1), 95–103.
Pratt, A. C. & Jeffcutt, P. (2009). Creativity, innovation and the cultural economy: Snake
oil for the twenty-first century. In A. C. Pratt & P. Jeffcutt (Eds.), Creativity, innovation,
and the cultural economy (pp. 3–19). London: Routledge.
Strauss, A. L. & Corbin, J. N. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures
and techniques. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.
Van de Burgwal, L., van der Waal, M. & Claassen, E. (2018). Leveraging academic knowledge
in the innovation ecosystem. Rotterdam: SMO.
Van den Nieuwboer, M., Van De Burgwal, L. H. M. & Claassen, E. (2016). A quantitative
key-opinion-leader analysis of innovation barriers in probiotic research and develop
ment: Valorisation and improving the tech transfer cycle. PharmaNutrition, 4(1), 9–18.
Van Geenhuizen, M. (2010). Valorisation of knowledge: preliminary results on valorization
paths and obstacles in bringing university knowledge to market. Presented at the
Eighteenth annual high technology small firms conference, University of Twente,
Enschede, the Netherlands, 27–28 May 2010.
Virta, S. & Lowe, G. F. (2017). Integrating media clusters and value networks: Insights for
management theory and research from a case study of Mediapolis in Finland. Journal of
Management & Organization, 23(1), 2–21.
Wijngaarden, Y., Hitters, E. & Bhansing, P. V. (2016). ‘Innovation is a dirty word’:
Contesting innovation in the creative industries. International Journal of Cultural Policy,
23(2), 1–14.
Wijngaarden Y., E. Hitters & Bhansing P. V.. (2019). Close to the local cool: Creative
place reputation in Dutch ‘ordinary cities’. Creative Industries Journal, 12(1), 86–104.
12
EYES ON TECH! MEDIA
ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND THE
RELEVANCE OF TECHNOLOGY IN
BUSINESS MODELS
Andreas Will, Britta Gossel and Julian Windscheid
TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITÄT ILMENAU
Introduction
Digital change is confronting the media industry with major challenges. Traditional
media companies are struggling to survive (just think of traditional newspaper pub
lishers) while facing new media environments and markets. A central role is being
played by the development of emerging (media) technologies, such as intelligent
automation, virtual reality (VR) and data analytics. So far, the specific influence of
emerging technologies on media business models has not been sufficiently taken into
account in media management research. For example, the chapter on media entre
preneurship in the latest issue of the Handbook of Media Management and Economics
mentions technology as one of the sources of entrepreneurial opportunities (Hang,
2018, p. 260) and it attributes the emergence of media start-ups to the development
of digital technologies (p. 266). However, the literature overview does not list any
works that deal with the influence of specific technologies. Consequently, Hang
(2018) places the investigation of the application of advanced technologies, such as
VR, on the agenda of future media management research.
In this chapter we present a research project in which we investigated the extent to
which media start-ups integrate new technologies into their individual business
models. The results of this study show that new technologies play an important but
differentiated role in the business models of media start-ups. Based on our findings,
this chapter is particularly aimed at stakeholder groups in media practice and educa
tion. In this context, the chapter discusses some of our experiences in interacting with
stakeholders. We postulate that awareness of the relevance of business topics and new
technologies among the respective stakeholder groups (business thinkers in media
organisations, media educators and media students) should be greatly sharpened, the
better to prepare future media professionals for constantly changing media markets.
Media Entrepreneurship 189
Literature Overview
Media Business Models

A business model describes the value a company creates for its customers, the way
customer value is turned into revenues and profits for the company, and the resources
and processes used in operating the company and creating value and profits (Johnson et
al., 2008). While the numerous business model concepts that encapsulate these basic
ideas differ in detail (Zott et al., 2011), they share a dual role as a management method
(1) in understanding and analysing a company’s current business logic, and (2) in sup
porting strategic decisions by designing and simulating new business concepts (Burkhart
et al., 2011). To describe and explain the business models of media companies – also
referred to as ‘media business models’ (McPhillips & Merlo, 2008) – the concept pro
posed by Wirtz (2011) has gained in popularity and has been widely adopted. Wirtz
(2011, 2014) distinguishes six sub-models: from the market model, through the supply
chain of the procurement, production of products and services, service offer and distribution
models to the capital model of financing and revenue generation. Overall, these sub-
models describe the architecture and activities of a business on an abstract level. They
thus provide orientation that depicts the important and critical elements of a business
and the interplay of these elements, such that the respective specifics of competitive
advantage and value creation become visible.
In descriptions and explanations of media business models, the focus is often on
investigating the particular media-specific role of the market and of the revenue
model, including the network effects between the user and the advertising market
and the two corresponding revenue sources: copy and advertising (e.g. von Rim
scha, 2016). This goes hand in hand with the traditional conception of media
business models as focusing on the ‘ability to balance the needs of consumers and
advertisers’ (McPhillips & Merlo, 2008, p. 238).
In contrast, the term ‘technology’ does not appear explicitly in Wirtz’s (2011)
business model concept. By reviewing analyses of business models based on Wirtz’s
(2011) framework concept – e.g. the comparison of social media with legacy media
(von Rimscha, 2016) – the outstanding importance of technology for media business
models becomes implicitly clear. For instance, in the course of describing the six sub-
models, von Rimscha (2016) mentions the activities of providing an ‘IT infra
structure’, ‘generating’ recommendations, ‘programming’ software, ‘automating’,
improving ‘usability’, having an ‘algorithm’ or ‘monitoring’ behaviour. While this
makes it very clear how (information) technology pervades the business models of
media, the concept of technology remains vague and indeterminate. It remains open
whether the mastery and application of concrete technologies could be a core com
petence within a certain business model and for innovating existing business models.
This indicates that even though the deep effects of digitisation and interconnected
ness on media business models are generally well understood (Lawson-Borders, 2010;
Evens, 2018), for specific technologies such as data analysis or augmented reality (AR),
190 Andreas Will et al.
for example, the specific use within and the influence on media business models is still
little researched. (For emerging technologies motivating new waves of cross-innova
tion, see Ibrus & Rajahonka, 2019, p. 106). We will therefore try to clarify the role of
technology in media business models using Wirtz’s (2011) sub-models.
Emerging Technology
‘Emerging technologies’ are frequently discussed in various areas of academic
research. Varying approaches and definitions can be found; for example, in the
philosophy of science, in the engineering sciences, in the humanities and in the
social sciences (Schatzberg & Mitcham, 2009, p. 41). Due to the differing tech
nological approaches, there are many definitions of emerging technologies. Fol
lowing Rotolo et al. (2015), we define an emerging technology as
a radically novel and relatively fast-growing technology, characterized by a

degree of coherence that persists over time and has the potential to exert a
significant influence on the socio-economic domain(s) observed in terms of
the composition of actors, institutions and patterns of interaction between
them and the knowledge production processes associated with them. Its most
prominent effect, however, lies in the future, and so is still somewhat uncer
tain and ambiguous in the development phase. (Rotolo et al., 2015, p. 4)
Media economics and media management are closely linked to the development
of new technologies (e.g. history of field descriptions; Wirtz, 2011). Küng (2016)
points out that media industries are facing extreme change. This is reflected in the
high number (over 20%) of published media management theories that refer to
technology, innovation, and creativity theories (Mierzejewska & Hollifield,
2006). Accordingly, technology is a crucial part of media management research.
Picard & Lowe (2016, p. 66) highlight that media management research is
shaped by the influence of technologies. Other researchers point out that emerging
technologies shape conceptual work and empirical research within the field,
regarding as core issues the topics of media companies (Hess, 2014), specific media
industries and products (e.g., broadcasting (Murray, 2013); publishing (Blankfield
& Stevenson, 2012); and news (Ottosen & Krumsvik, 2012)), business models
(Lawson-Borders, 2010), the value chain (Kehoe & Mateer, 2015) or media
branding (Chan-Olmsted, 2011), as well as core methods of research (Murthy,
2008; Gunzerath, 2012). Mierzejewska and Shaver (2014) even talk about ‘tech
nology-driven key changes’ that affect media management research (p. 47).
(Media) Entrepreneurship
Several decades ago, the entrepreneurship research field emerged within the man
agement research community. By now, it can be described as an established
academic field which has moved from its roots to become an interdisciplinary field
of research (Aldrich, 2012). As a specific niche, media entrepreneurship is about
entrepreneurial activity within traditional media (Achtenhagen, 2008) or within
new media (Hang & van Weezel, 2007). The discussion has moved from media
entrepreneurship as a phenomenon (Achtenhagen, 2008) to its being viewed as an
academic field (Achtenhagen, 2017).
Even though first definitions of media entrepreneurship exist (Khajeheian, 2017),
‘in what way media entrepreneurship differs from other entrepreneurial activity’
(Achtenhagen, 2017, p. 2) remains to be discussed, as is the case with the role played
by advanced digital technologies (Hang, 2018, p. 268). There are also further chal
lenges in this field; for example, a need for theorising, a need for reflecting context,
and a suggestion to move beyond the specific industry context (Achtenhagen, 2017,
p. 6; Hang, 2018, p. 268). Media entrepreneurship has to be delimited from other ‘X’
entrepreneurship descriptions such as cultural entrepreneurship, creative entrepre
neurship, digital entrepreneurship, technology entrepreneurship or digital technology
entrepreneurship. Respecting these other approaches, we assume the specialities of
media entrepreneurship to include: (a) a given relation to creative content produc
tion, distribution, and curation; (b) a given relation to the digitalised world and a close
connection to technology development; and (c) embedding in the unique relation
ship of media and society. Simultaneously, we assume entrepreneurship as being both
a narrow and a wide definition (Lackéus, 2015).
The field of entrepreneurship research meets the issue of business models in several
dimensions. Business models are observed within this research context in innovation
form or as an opportunity facilitator (George & Bock, 2011, p. 87). The business model
can be observed here as ‘a core building block of the entrepreneurial enactment
process’ (George & Bock, 2011, p. 102). Literature reviews within this context
conclude that researching business models through the lens of entrepreneurship is still
a fragmented field that has not yet developed appropriate definitions or frameworks
(George & Bock, 2011; Trimi & Berbegal-Mirabent, 2012). This is not surprising,
since there is a lack of agreement on terminology (Massa et al., 2017) and a lack of
construct clarity (Foss & Saebi, 2017), as recently discussed in the context of business
model research. In addition, the issues of technology development within the con
text of business model research are researched from a common perspective. Pateli
and Giaglis (2005) explore business model changes induced by technology innova
tion. In addition, technology development can be seen as an enabler of business
model innovation (Schneider & Spieth, 2013, p. 21). Narrowing the view to the
field of media entrepreneurship research with a focus on business model research and
the role of emerging technologies, we still end up in a research desert where mar
ginal attention is paid. One corridor for future consideration might be the emerging
interest in digital entrepreneurship, as it is closely connected to media entrepreneur
ship (Achtenhagen, 2017). By writing this chapter, the authors aim to contribute to
the filling of this research gap, but even more to assisting the identified stakeholders
in praxis. Our idea is to support stakeholders’ agendas of action, by promoting
alertness to the relevance of emerging technologies for media entrepreneurs and for
their business models.
Project
One basic idea of the project covered in this chapter is that entrepreneurial
opportunities are created rather than discovered (Gossel & Will, 2012) and that
emerging technologies play a crucial part within those entrepreneurial creation
processes. The project began in 2016 with the idea of taking a closer look at the
role of emerging technologies in the current media industry. Some preliminary
studies were carried out. A comprehensive literature analysis revealed nine tech
nology trends (data analytics, intelligent automation, virtual reality, augmented reality,
real-time graphics photorealism, digital payment, blockchain, chatbots, and wearable tech
nology), which formed the basis for further research. In a second step, we analysed
literature in the field of media management research to structure the core areas
along the media enterprise service system (Wirtz, 2011). We applied the method
of bricolage (Baker & Nelson, 2005) to ‘combine readily available elements into
new representations’ (Boxenbaum & Rouleau, 2011, p. 281). Within this con
text, we combined the results of the previous steps with the aim of formulating
new research questions for media management research. Then, in a continuation
of this work, we used qualitative expert interviews to answer some of these
questions. Having carried out various studies with professional groups within and
outside the media industry (e.g. marketing experts, technology experts) (Gossel et
al., 2018a, 2018b; Windscheid et al., 2018, 2019), we now take a closer look at
how media entrepreneurs use emerging technologies to create new value for their
business models.
Nature and Origin

The present project aims to reflect on the relevance of emerging technologies in
the field of media entrepreneurship in order to understand which existing busi
ness models are broken up to develop innovative new business models. There
fore, we conducted 39 qualitative interviews (from October to December 2018)
with founders of media start-ups from several parts of the world (see Table 12.1).
As per Ries (2011), media start-ups were assumed to be start-ups in the context
of media entrepreneurship as defined above. In the end, nine cases were elimi
nated from the analysis as they did not correspond to our definition of media
entrepreneurship (see Appendix). The sample was based on a collection of media
entrepreneurs who were identified within the context of an international master’s
research seminar. Students were asked to identify media start-ups by cold acqui
sition according to a given profile, one in their home country and one in a
country not represented in the course by a student. The idea for a sample that is
heterogeneous in every respect is based on the inspiration of abductive analysis
TABLE 12.1 Sample by Continent/Countries of Origin
Continent Country of origin Number

North America USA, Canada 6
South America Colombia, Peru 3
Europe United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, 12
Norway, Spain
Asia Pakistan, India, Bangladesh 3
Africa Nigeria, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Kenya 6
Total 30
that searches for ‘anomalous and surprising empirical findings’ (Timmermans &
Tavory, 2012, p. 169). The entrepreneurs were initially contacted by e-mail, and
the interviews, with an average duration of 17:54 min, were performed mainly
via Skype. The only firmly defined selection criteria were: defined to be a media
start-up, and their relation to technologies.
Table 12.2 shows that most of the start-ups surveyed are five years old or less
(N=20), most often with two founders (N=13), have up to 20 employees and an
international (N=15) or national and international (N=5) market orientation. In
order to get a better overview of the various business areas of the media start-ups,
we have divided them into five categories, according to their corporate purposes
(see Table 12.3).
The analysis of the interviews was based on the business model concept of Wirtz
(2011). The aim was to find out which technologies were used by the start-ups and
which areas of their business model were affected by those technologies. For this
purpose, each interview was transcribed and examined in terms of the six sub-
models.
Results
In this section, we summarise some of the core results of our empirical investi
gation. The suggested categories are the outcome of a qualitative analysis.
Emerging Technologies Are a Crucial Part of Media Entrepreneurs’

Business Models
A key result of the analysis is that emerging technologies feature greatly in media
entrepreneurship. In only two of the examined cases (4, 18) were none of the
defined emerging technologies mentioned, not even as a supporting component
of the business model. This suggests that emerging technologies play an important
role for media entrepreneurs and their business models. Very often, emerging
technologies for the production of media products and services were described. At the
TABLE 12.2 Description of Sample
Founding year Number

Before 2003 1
2004–2008 (up to 15 years old) 3
2009–2013 (up to 10 years old 6
2014–2018 (up to 5 years old) 20
Number of founders
1 8
2 13
3 6
>4 3
Number of employees
0 3
1–5 5
6–10 4
11–20 10
21–50 5
> 50 1
Market orientation
National 10
International 15
National and international 5
Note: in two cases we have no information about the number of
employees
TABLE 12.3 Case Description
Company purpose Case number

Content production (text, AV, AR, VR, mixed media 1, 5, 8, 9, 12, 15, 27, 29, 39
environments, video games)
Technology-based services for media industries (app for 13, 18
radio stations, support for YouTuber or influencer)
Media-based services for other industries (media track- 3, 11, 19, 23, 24, 31, 37, 40,
ing, mood tracking, audience reach, SEO agency) 41
Media platforms / apps for specific target groups (e.g. 4, 10, 16, 26, 30, 38
livestock media platform, book platform, media sharing)
Broker / advertising / social media marketing 2, 9, 17, 32, 33
same time, the diversity of the various technologies used became apparent. This is
particularly evident in the wide range of applications for artificial intelligence,
intelligent automation, and data analytics in the production of media products and
services (see Table 12.4). Even though no truly innovative technological solutions
were described, many entrepreneurs have integrated digital payment methods (e.
g. PayPal) into their capital models. Data analytics appeared to be another crucial
part of the distribution model: it supports distribution services, e.g. to analyse target
groups, for search engine optimisation (SEO) as a service, to support the own pro
duct and production process, or to produce an own revenue source (selling data). In
this sample, little evidence was found of the embedding of technologies in terms of
improvement or innovation in the market model or in the procurement model.
A Continuum from Weakly to Strongly Technology-Tied Business

Models
It was noticeable that the companies differed widely with regard to their inter
weaving of emerging technologies with their business models. In some cases – we
call them strongly technology-tied business models – a multitude of elements of
Wirtz’s (2011) business model concept were shaped by using or by applying at least
one of the nine defined emerging technologies. In other cases – we call them weakly
technology-tied business models – only single elements were shaped. We illustrate
this observation by two representative cases. Case 2 can be observed as weakly tech-
nology-tied, since a single simple technology (PayPal) is embedded in one part of its
business model (capital model), while everything else is based on established tech
nologies. Case 13 is what we call strongly technology-tied. By developing its own
intelligent software for a new market, case 13 shows a technology-driven exploration
of new market opportunities. In addition, within this start-up, a strong integration of
new technologies for production and services was observed, since its model for pro
duction of goods and services is grounded in data analytics. Finally, the service offer
model in this case embeds intelligent automation as a crucial part of its platform, and
in addition, its capital model employs automated invoice processing. Even though
this short introduction to the two endpoints of the continuum is illustrative in
character, we observe this as having the potential for further development towards
generating a typology of technology interwovenness in media business models.
New Markets for Media Entrepreneurs

We have found that technological improvements, through the deployment of new
technologies, offer many opportunities to positively influence business challenges
or issues. This includes technology-based improvements to business model prac
tices in existing markets (relative to existing standards), and also includes the
opening up of completely new markets through the strategic deployment of new
technologies. Essentially, we found two different groups of entrepreneurs. One
TABLE 12.4 Emerging Technologies as a Crucial Part of Business Models
Technology Applications Case number

Market
Artificial intelligence - technology-driven new market 15
exploration
Data analytics - technology-driven new market 13, 15, 38
exploration
Production of media products and services
Artificial intelligence - core product development 11, 16, 19, 30, 31, 41
- media tracking 3
- connecting content providers and
consumers 10
- data management 30
- storytelling 39
- content production
- chatbots 32
19, 31, 41
Intelligent automation - animation development 5
- smart interaction (for clients) 8
- mood detection 11
- optimisation of content creation 12
- service creation 23, 40
- product development 26, 27, 31, 37
Data analytics - target group analysis 13, 24
- SEO (as a service) 40
- support own product 16, 41
- support production process 37
- data selling 38
Augmented reality - create scenarios and contexts for clients 8
- content creation 1,27, 32, 37
Virtual reality - content creation 1,12, 27, 37
Real-time photorealism - production process 39
Service offer
Artificial intelligence - service offer of advertising business 17

Intelligent automation - connecting content providers and 10
consumers 13
- connecting brands, advertisers and
influencers
Distribution
Data analytics - target group analysis 9, 10, 26

- media tracking 29
Intelligent automation - media tracking 12
- optimise distribution to audiences 12
- customer service 32
(Continued)
TABLE 12.4 (Cont)
Technology Applications Case number

Blockchain - contract generation 30
- media tracking 30
Chatbots - customer service 32
Capital
Digital payment - transfer fees 2

Intelligent automation - dealing with invoices 13
Note: procurement model did not occur
example (case 13) illustrates the development of new emerging technology-based services
for media industries. These entrepreneurs began with the idea of explaining new
technology and media developments to traditional media organisations and finally
developed a new emerging technology-based service for media producers and for
the advertising market. Other examples illustrate how they developed new media-
based services to provide services to other industries. Examples are the use of artificial
intelligence for media tracking (case 3) or mood tracking (case 11) as new services
for customers outside the media industries. Other examples are new technology-
based developed products to connect companies more efficiently with their audi
ences (cases 19 and 31). Again, these examples are illustrative. However, they have
the potential to stimulate discussion about the boundaries and crosslines of the
media industries, as suggested in Will et al. (2013), for example.
Critical Evaluation
At its beginning, this research project was guided by pure interest in knowledge; it
did not arise from an immediate or specific practical problem, or even from a
commission or a contract. Nevertheless, our academic work as social researchers is
not related only to phenomena of the real world, but ideally is inseparably con
nected with them. We are also convinced that social research should have an impact
on the real world. Our experience with media practice includes our work as media
educators and with media students, as well as our individual discourses with prac
titioners from the media industry. In this section we illustrate our experiences with
the respective stakeholder groups and compare those experiences with the research
results in order to demonstrate their benefits for the stakeholder groups.
First, while the work of media managers has already been intensively investi
gated in our research community, the work of entrepreneurial thinkers in existing
media organisations is still little researched. It is our assumption that entrepre
neurial thinkers are related to a wide definition of entrepreneurship in terms of
‘being entrepreneurial’ (Lackéus, 2015). We assume them to be equipped with an
entrepreneurial mind-set that does not include necessarily a technology roadmap.
Entrepreneurial thinkers can be in any position within or adjacent to media

companies; we see them as media producers (e.g., entrepreneurial journalists),
media managers or members of an entrepreneurial environment (e.g., start-ups in
corporate accelerators). Since existing media companies are still struggling with
the rapid changes associated with digitisation, the results of our study can show
entrepreneurial thinkers in existing companies that this change can be shaped and
can clarify what role the emerging technologies are able to play in transforming
media companies’ business models for future success. Entrepreneurial thinking is
about creating new ends with given means, and emerging technologies constantly
change the given means. The results show that media entrepreneurs today embed
emerging technologies into their business models to various extents. Entrepre
neurial thinkers thus have the opportunity to challenge existing business models
and lift them into new dimensions in entrepreneurial terms, for example by
seeing emerging technologies as constantly changing the given means. Entrepre
neurial thinkers could use the continuum from weakly to strongly technology-
tied business models to think about how the media organisation wants to position
itself in the future. Finally, with the results and based on their entrepreneurial
mind-set, media entrepreneurs can shape or even create the future markets of the
respective media organisation. In dialogue with young journalists (Gossel &
Konyen, 2019), we learned that they have a strong interest in entrepreneurial and
technology competences. They see that they need both for their future work.
Our dialogue with entrepreneurial thinkers from a large media company (media
organisation’s accelerator) has shown that the organisation is currently working on
business model innovations yet sees its innovations as being too far away from
technology development.
Second, very often the work of media educators in higher education is not con
nected with the experiences of entrepreneurial education in research and in practice.
This means that too many curricula used to train future media professionals are still
unrelated to aspects of entrepreneurship education (see Baumann & Rohn, 2018), and
when these areas are linked, the formats are often unrelated to the specific working
conditions of media professionals and industries. The results of our study take this aspect
into a new dimension: one aspect of narrowed approaches on media entrepreneurship
education is to focus on emerging technologies as an issue (what kinds of emerging
technologies exist and are relevant for media industries?) and as a means (how can
emerging technologies affect opportunity creation?). The cases show the potential for
new technologies to play an important role in creating business models for media.
Educators can illustrate and anchor the relevance of technologies for a variety of entre
preneurial course units (e.g. technology-based business ideas, market research in emer
ging markets). To enable the work with emerging technologies, it is urgently necessary
for educators of media entrepreneurs to be open to technology development and to
find potential new solutions which include this issue in the curricula of entrepreneur
ship education. It is not enough to master the canon of business planning (which would
in any case not be sufficient for a sustainable media entrepreneurship education).
Third, on the other side of media education are the students; the future media
professionals. The benefits to them of our research can be observed in two
dimensions. First, if they gain not only a deep knowledge of media industries,
media management, and the special conditions (economic, social, ethical) of the
media but also an overview and application knowledge about technology devel
opment, this will be a relevant dimension for future media professionals. The
second dimension is to develop entrepreneurial thinking and an acting person
able to create opportunities for the implementation of value creation processes
(economic, social, cultural) based on this knowledge. In combining the two
dimensions, media students will have better chances of being employable in the
media industry of the future. Secondly, as observed in this study, media entre
preneurs can be role models and can provide examples of media careers. If stu
dents realise that their career choices are not only those of journalist or media
manager but also entrepreneurial media professional, this could offer them a
positive option for their future professional identity. In the end, media educators
are responsible for providing a holistic, ethical and entrepreneurial media educa
tion, within the curriculum and beyond it.
Finally, it is a challenge to create awareness of the relevance of entrepreneurial
issues and emerging technologies among the respective stakeholders (entrepre
neurial thinkers in media organisations, media educators and media students),
especially in educational settings. In our project ‘Entrepreneurship Education
Monitor for STEM degree programs’ (Gossel et al., 2018), we did not assume the
project to be finished by summarising the results in a final report, but included
lively strategic communication. Reports were sent to the principals’ offices of all
German universities and to other stakeholders (e.g. professional associations), and
reports were presented at network events and promoted via social media and media
relations. Overall, the report was mentioned in more than 20 newspapers all over
the country and was followed up by invitations to stakeholders’ praxis events. Since
this strategy is a successful way to interact with stakeholders, it appears to provide a
sustainable method of reaching the respective stakeholder groups for this project.
Discussion
Our project has shown that emerging technologies play an important but differ
entiated role in the investigated media start-ups. We find the most prominent
emerging technologies to be artificial intelligence, intelligent automation, data
analytics, and augmented and virtual reality in the area of media production, and
data analytics in the area of distribution. We were able to distinguish between
weakly and strongly technology-tied business models. Finally, in addition to
technology-based improvements in existing markets, our study also found busi
ness models which had opened up new technology-driven markets, namely ori
ginal media markets and media services for other industries.
The example of journalism training clearly shows that current curricula do

not adequately prepare students for such business practice, and that young
graduates in journalism lacked both technological and entrepreneurial content
in their curricula (Gossel & Konyen, 2019). Furthermore, the international
context calls for the integration of entrepreneurial aspects into media and jour
nalism course curricula (Gossel, 2018; Harnischmacher, 2019). Media educators,
who often have little connection with entrepreneurial thinking and acting, are
mostly aware of the importance of technology for the media industry, but do not
provide a sound education to their students in this field. In this respect, we hope
that the connections between the media industry, entrepreneurship, and emerging
technologies that have been highlighted in this project can be helpful in providing
stakeholders with useful recommendations and supporting arguments for their stra
tegic decisions. Furthermore, this chapter should serve as a strong incentive to
address the needs and problems of stakeholders in the future and to try to close
gaps between science and practice.
Of course, this study is not free of limitations. The randomly-built sample is neither
representative nor theoretically constructed, but it is genuinely international and covers
various niches and sectors of the media industry. The interviews were very short, lim
iting the substance of the results. The international composition of the sample and the
varying social, economic and political conditions associated with it may have affected
the results. Regardless of its constraints, we are convinced that this work is a step in the
right direction, which is to move even closer to the interests of stakeholders and their
future needs through academic research in the field of media management.
However, academic research should not be seen as the ‘henchman’ of practice.
Scientific-theoretical and methodological development is essential for successful
work on both sides. Especially in new areas, academic research must develop clear
definitions that enable future-oriented, goal-oriented and successful work on all
sides. A constant and intensive exchange between science and practice is therefore
of great importance and promotes progress on both sides equally.
Appendix
After data collection, nine of the 39 cases were removed from the analyses
because they did not fit the chosen definition of media entrepreneurship. Even
though on first impression those ventures had the appearance of media ventures,
detailed analysis of their business models brought to light their unsuitability to the
study requirements. They comprised three ventures providing IT services (cases 6,
14, and 20), one non-media related consulting agency (case 07), two non-media
related hardware manufacturers (cases 25 and 36), one real estate start-up (case
28), one platform for non-media related services (case 34), and one NGO (case
35). Even though the NGO was active in the field of media, this case was
removed because of the legal form of the business.
References
Achtenhagen, L. (2008). Understanding entrepreneurship in traditional media. Journal of
Media Business Studies, 5(1), 123–142.
Achtenhagen, L. (2017). Media entrepreneurship: Taking stock and moving forward.
Aldrich, H. E. (2012). The emergence of entrepreneurship as an academic field: A personal
essay on institutional entrepreneurship. Research Policy, 41(7), 1240–1248.
Baker, T. & Nelson, R. (2005). Creating something from nothing: Resource construction
through entrepreneurial bricolage. Administrative Science Quarterly, 50(3), 329–366.
Baumann, S. & Rohn, U. (2018). Media management study programmes. Retrieved from:
www.media-management.eu/wp-content/uploads/Emma-booklet-A4_web-Final.pdf.
Blankfield, S. & Stevenson, I. (2012). Towards a digital spine: The technological methods
that UK and US publishers are using to tackle the growing challenge of e-book piracy.
Public Research Quarterly, 28(2), 79–92.
Boxenbaum, E. & Rouleau, L. (2011). New knowledge products as bricolage: Metaphors
and scripts in organizational theory. Academy of Management Review, 36(2), 272–296.
Burkhart, T., Werth, D., Krumeich, J. & Loos, P. (2011). Analysing the business model
concept – a comprehensive classification of literature. Paper presented at the Thirty-
second international conference on information systems, Shanghai, 2011. Retrieved
from: https://aisel.aisnet.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1263&context=icis2011.
Chan-Olmsted, S. (2011). Media branding in a changing world: Challenges and opportu
nities 2.0. International Journal on Media Management, 13(1), 3–19.
Clemons, E. K. (2009). Business models for monetizing Internet applications and web sites:
Experience, theory and predictions. Journal of Management Information Systems, 26(2), 15–41.
Evens, T. (2018). Media economics and transformation in a digital Europe. In L. d’Hae
nens, H. Sousa & J. Trappel (Eds.), Comparative media policy, regulation and governance in
Europe: Unpacking the policy cycle (pp. 41–54). Bristol: Intellect.
Foss, N. J. & Saebi, T. (2017). Fifteen years of research on business model innovation:
How far have we come, and where should we go? Journal of Management, 43(1), 200–227.
George, G. & Bock, A. J. (2011). The business model in practice and its implications for
entrepreneurship research. Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice, 35(1), 83–111.
Gossel, B. M. (2018). Entrepreneurial journalism. Chance für die journalistische Freiheit?
Reflexion des Freiheitsbegriffs und Konsequenzen für die Journalistenausbildung. In A.
Czepek, M. Hellwig, B. Illg, & E. Nowak (Eds.), Freiheit und Journalismus (pp. 79–96).
Baden-Baden: Nomos.
Gossel, B. M., & Konyen, K. (2019) (Eds). Quo Vadis Journalistenausbildung? Befunde und
Konzepte für eine zeitgemäße Ausbildung. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
Gossel, B. M. & Will, A. (2012). Neue Medien–neue Wertschöpfung–neue Unterneh
men? Eine theoretische Betrachtung medialer Potenziale für den Entrepreneurship-
Prozess. In C. Kolo, T. Döbler, & L. Rademacher (Eds.), Wertschöpfung durch Medien im
Wandel (pp. 321–336). Baden-Baden: Nomos.
Gossel, B. M., Will, A., Schleicher, K., Solf, A., Krauß, M. & Weber, C. (2018). Entre
preneurship Education Monitor 2018 für MINT-Studiengänge in Ostdeutschland.
Retrieved from: www.db-thueringen.de/receive/dbt_mods_00034957.
Gossel, B. M., Will, A. & Windscheid, J. (2018a). The influence of technology trends on
business models and value chains of media companies. Paper presented at the Annual
emma conference, Warsaw, 2018.
Gossel, B. M., Will, A. & Windscheid, J. (2018b). Capturing the future! An empirical
investigation on trends in technology and a deduction of consequences for media man
agement research. Paper presented at World media economics and management con
ference, Cape Town, 2018.
Gunzerath, D. (2012). Current trends in U.S. media measurement methods. International
Journal on Media Management, 14(2), 99–106.
Hang, M. (2018). Media entrepreneurship. In A. Albarran, B. Mierzejewska & J. Jung (Eds.),
Handbook of media management and economics (2nd ed.) (pp. 259–272). New York: Routledge.
Hang, M. & van Weezel, A. (2007). Media and entrepreneurship: What do we know and
where should we go? Journal of Media Business Studies, 4(1), 51–70.
Harnischmacher, M. (2019). Internationale Perspektive. In B. M. Gossel & K. Konyen
(Eds.), Quo Vadis Journalistenausbildung? Befunde und Konzepte für eine zeitgemäße Ausbil
dung (pp. 81–89). Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
Hollifield, C., LeBlanc Wicks, J. & Sylvie, G. (2015). Media management: A casebook
approach (5th ed.). New York: Routledge.
Ibrus, I. & Rajahonka, M. (2019). Conclusions: cross-innovations between audiovisual and
education sectors.In I. Indrus (Ed.), Emergence of cross-innovation systems: Audiovisual indus
tries co-innovating with education, health care and tourism (pp. 105–114). Bingley: Emerald.
Johnson, M. W., Christensen, C. M., & Kagermann, H. (2008). Reinventing your business
model. Harvard Business Review, December 2008, 57–67.
Kehoe, K. & Mateer, J. (2015). The impact of digital technology on the distribution value
chain model of independent feature films in the UK. International Journal on Media
Management, 17(2), 93–108.
Khajeheian, D. (2017). Media entrepreneurship: a consensual definition. AD-Minister, 30,
91–113.
Küng, L. (2008). Strategic management in the media: Theory to practice. London: SAGE.
Küng, L. (2016). Why is media management research so difficult – and what can scholars do to
overcome the field’s intrinsic challenges? Journal of Media Business Studies, 13(4), 276–282.
Lackéus, M. (2015). Entrepreneurship in education: What, why, when, how. Background
Paper. Paris: OECD. Retrieved from: www.oecd.org/cfe/leed/BGP_Entrepreneurship
-in-Education.pdf.
Lawson-Borders, G. (2010). More than a mouse trap: Effective business models in a digital
world. International Journal on Media Management, 12(1), 41–45.
Massa, L., Tucci, C. L. & Afuah, A. (2017). A critical assessment of business model
research. Academy of Management Annals, 11(1), 73–104.
McPhillips, S. & Merlo, O. (2008). Media convergence and the evolving media business
model: an overview and strategic opportunities. Marketing Review, 8(3), 237–253.
Mierzejewska, B., & Hollifield C. A. (2006). Theoretical approaches in media management
research. In A. Albarran, S. Chan-Olmsted, & M. O. Wirth (Eds.), Handbook of media
management and economics (pp. 37–65). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Mierzejewska, B. & Shaver, D. (2014). Key changes impacting media management research.
Murray, A. M. (2013). Rationalizing creativity – rationalizing public service: Is scheduling
management fit for the digital era? International Journal on Media Management, 15(2), 119–136.
Murthy, D. (2008). Digital ethnography: An examination of the use of new technologies
for social research. Sociology, 42(5), 837–855.
Ottosen, R. & Krumsvik, A. H. (2012). Digital challenges on the Norwegian media scene.
Nordicom Review, 33(2), 43–55.
Pateli, A. G. & Giaglis, G. M. (2005). Technology innovation-induced business model change:
A contingency approach. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 18(2), 167–183.
Picard, R. G. (2011). The economics and financing of media companies. New York: Fordham
University Press.
61–72.
Ries, E. (2011). The lean startup: How today’s entrepreneurs use continuous innovation to create
radically successful businesses. New York: Crown Business.
Rotolo, D., Hicks, D. & Martin, B. (2015). What is an emerging technology? Research
Policy, 44(10), 1827–1843.
Schatzberg, E. & Mitcham, C. (2009). Defining technology and the engineering sciences.
In A. Meijers (Ed.), Philosophy of technology and engineering sciences (pp. 27–64). Amster
dam: Elsevier.
Schneider, S. & Spieth, P. (2013). Business model innovation: Towards an integrated
future research agenda. International Journal of Innovation Management, 17(1).
Shepherd, D. A. (2016). The aspiring entrepreneurship scholar: Strategies and advice for a successful
academic career. London: Palgrave MacMillan.
Timmermans, S. & Tavory, I. (2012). Theory construction in qualitative research: From
grounded theory to abductive analysis. Sociological theory, 30(3), 167–186.
Trimi, S. & Berbegal-Mirabent, J. (2012). Business model innovation in entrepreneurship.
International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 8(4), 449–465.
von Rimscha, M. B. & Siegert, G. (2015). Medienökonomie: Eine problemorientierte Einfüh
rung. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
von Rimscha, M. B. (2016). Business models of media industries: Describing and pro
moting commodification. In G. F. Lowe & C. Brown (Eds.), Managing media firms and
industries: What’s so special about media management? (pp. 207–222). Cham: Springer.
Will, A., Gossel, B. M. & Brüntje, D. (2013). Breaking off common assumptions on media
markets: Theoretical consequences from digital transformation. Paper presented at
Annual emma conference, Bournemouth, 2013.
Windscheid, J., Gossel, B. M. & Will, A. (2018). Let’s talk about tech! Konsequenzen von
Technologietrends für die Medienmanagementforschung. Paper presented at DGPuK
FG Medienökonomie annual conference, Paderborn, 2018.
Windscheid, J., Gossel, B. M. & Will, A. (2019). Media entrepreneurship: The role of
emerging technologies for media business models. Paper presented at Annual emma
conference, Limassol, 2019.
Wirtz, B. W. (2011). Business model management: Design – instruments – success factors. Wies
baden: Gabler.
Wirtz, B. W. (2014). Business models, value chains and competencies in media markets: A
service system perspective. Palabra Clave, 17(4), 1041–1065.
Zott, C., Amit, R. & Massa, L. (2011). The business model: recent developments and
future research. Journal of Management, 37(4), 1019–1042.
13
MANAGING DIGITAL
TRANSFORMATION
The Case of the Finnish Broadcasting Company
Päivi Maijanen
LUT UNIVERSITY
Introduction
In recent years, digital transformation has disrupted the media industry in an
unpredictable way. Media companies have been undergoing profound strategic
changes that embrace all dimensions of organisational life from strategic thinking to
daily actions. This research project deals with digital transformation at the Finnish
Broadcasting Company (Yle), a public broadcaster with a strong market dom
inance in the Finnish media. The purpose of this chapter is to present the main idea
of the research project and evaluate its practical execution and value for the
industry. At the end, the chapter will highlight some of the core lessons and pro
vide guidelines for making the research matter.
The longitudinal research project at Yle is based on a research agreement
between LUT School of Business and Yle. On the part of the university, I was the
main initiator and responsible researcher for the study. It was also my doctoral
dissertation study (Maijanen-Kyläheiko, 2014). The personal interest and original
idea came from my years of work experience at Yle as a journalist and manager.
Especially during my years as a manager, I came to know the many challenges of
managing change. This management requires the continuous pursuit, struggle, and
balance of the past, present and future. This stimulated my curiosity about the
nature of this challenge: why is it so hard to manage change? In addition to my
own experience, Yle was an excellent case to study change management and
organisational renewal because, at the time of the research, Yle was undertaking a
large-scale digital transformation process.
This study can be framed as a study of strategic media management. It applies con
cepts of strategic management to analyse the core question of strategy research:
how can a media company sustain its competitive advantage in a volatile media
Managing Digital Transformation 205
environment? The main theoretical concepts applied are dynamic capabilities

(Helfat et al., 2007; Teece, 2014; Teece, Pisano, & Shuen, 1997) and managerial
and organisational cognition (Kaplan, 2011; Tripsas & Gavetti, 2000). Dynamic
capabilities are capabilities that organisations build and use to implement strategic
change. Studies of managerial and organisational cognition explore how strategic
thinking – that is, how managers and organisations frame and define their busi
nesses – affects organisational renewal processes. From managerial and organisa
tional cognition research, this study applies the concept of dominant logic, which
refers to how managers define their approach to the business (Bettis & Prahalad,
1995; Prahalad & Bettis, 1986). In times of disruptive change, strategic renewal
requires transformation from the old to the new dominant logic. In the case of Yle,
it was a question of a shift from the traditional broadcasting towards the digital
dominant logic.
Theoretically, this study contributes to media management by providing a fresh
approach that combines the two key concepts. Although there are some studies
on dynamic capabilities in the media context (Hasenpusch & Baumann, 2017;
Maijanen & Virta, 2017; Naldi, Wikström, & von Rimscha, 2014; Oliver, 2018),
it is still an emerging field within the domain of media management. Respec
tively, the use of the concept of managerial cognition is very much in its early
stage in media management (see articles on cognition based on the research pro
ject with Yle, Maijanen, 2015a, 2015b). It seems that this combined approach
provides a promising frame to explore the media industry in which rapid changes
require the constant renewal of both strategic thinking and capabilities (see article
based on the research project with Yle, Maijanen & Jantunen, 2014).
In addition to the theoretical contributions, one of the core targets of the
research project was to provide practical insights and solutions for media managers
to better cope with change. This is often undermined but is, in fact and inevitably,
a highly relevant target when conducting a research project in collaboration with
the industry. I think this is especially relevant for the media managers because the
ability to manage change is the fundamental question in today’s media industry,
which is changing faster than most other industries. Therefore, the researcher is
required to provide short-term solutions and practical tools for media managers in
addition to the theoretical long-term contributions to the media management
research. As explained later in this chapter, this twofold target setting is a challen
ging – but not impossible – task to fulfil.
Theoretical Background
The theoretical frame is based on the dynamic capability view and managerial and
organisational cognition. As for the latter, the special focus is on the concept of
dominant logic. In the following, I will launch the key concepts and the general
model of the study. In addition, I will reflect on some of the challenges of change
management in public media in comparison to private media.
206 Päivi Maijanen
Dynamic Capabilities
According to the dynamic capability view, organisations build and use dynamic
capabilities to implement strategic change and sustain a competitive advantage in
times of change (Teece, 2014; Teece et al., 1997). Firms need dynamic capabilities
to alter and transform their resource base – competences, assets and processes – to
address the new demands in the changing business environment. As stated by
Helfat et al. (2007, p. 4), ‘A dynamic capability is the capacity of an organisation to
purposefully create, extend, or modify its resource base.’ In the capability hier
archy, they are so-called higher order capabilities in contrast to the operational
capabilities that firms use on an everyday basis to sustain the current business model
(Helfat & Winter, 2011; Teece, 2014).
This study applies the widely used process view of dynamic capabilities (Schilke,
Hu, & Helfat, 2018), which divides the capabilities into three categories of sensing,
seizing and reconfiguring. According to the model introduced by Teece (2007),
sensing refers to the sensing and interpreting of threats and new business opportu
nities; seizing means the ability to seize the opportunities by, for example, making
investment or resource allocation decisions; and reconfiguring denotes the ability
to continuously renew and orchestrate the resource base (competences, processes,
routines etc.) in a way that the opportunities are addressed. The role of dynamic
capabilities is to learn and integrate new ideas into organisational practices and
processes. The process view of sensing, seizing and reconfiguring brings the analysis
onto the micro-foundational level, thus providing a more practical lens through
which to look at change on the capability level.
The dynamic capability view emphasises the role of managers and their entre
preneurial pursuits and strategic visions (Helfat et al., 2007; Teece, 2007) as well as
their cognitive capabilities (Helfat & Peteraf, 2015). Dynamic capabilities cannot be
acquired from the markets but have to be built up within the firm in order to
change towards the specific strategic targets. Therefore, it is important that man
agers know their strategies. This is the necessary requirement for creating the right
kind of dynamic capabilities (Teece, 2014).
Dominant Logic
The concept of dominant logic refers to the way managers define their business –
that is, it is a shared mental model of managers regarding the core values and
mission. The concept was launched by Prahalad and Bettis (1986), who define it
as ‘the way in which managers conceptualize the business and make critical
resource allocation decisions – be it in technologies, product development, dis
tribution, advertising, or in human resource management’ (p. 490). For managers,
it serves as ‘an information filter’ (Bettis & Prahalad, 1995) to detect the relevant
information and facilitate decision-making (Bettis et al., 2011; Oblój, Weinstein,
& Zhang, 2013).
The concept of dominant logic is grounded in the research tradition of man

agerial and organisational cognition (Kaplan, 2011). In this tradition, cognition is
defined as a ‘mental template that individuals impose on an information environ
ment to give it form and meaning’ (Walsh, 1995, p. 281). In the strategy research,
managerial cognition has received more and more attention in recent decades
(Kaplan, 2011). There is a growing body of research that shows how managerial
cognition affects a company’s ability to address the changing business environment.
In the worst case, the managers’ strategic framing or dominant logic may serve as a
blinder (Bettis et al., 2011; Prahalad, 2004), keeping the managers – and the whole
firm or industry – stuck in the old way of thinking (e.g. Jones, 2005; Porac et al.,
1989; Tripsas & Gavetti, 2000). On the other hand, there are examples that show
how managers with proactive and clear strategic visions and shared mental models
manage to promote a firm’s competitive advantage (e.g. Nadkarni & Barr, 2008;
Raffaelli, Glynn, & Tushman, 2019).
The core idea of dominant logic is that the shared managerial-level under
standing of the business becomes gradually embedded in the behaviour of the
whole organisation – in its mind-sets, routines, capabilities, processes, etc. (Bettis et
al., 2011; Oblój et al., 2013). Following the evolutionary view of organisations
(Nelson & Winter, 1982), dominant design evolves path-dependently through
experiences of success and failure and gradually becomes a constituent element of
the organisational memory. Therefore, it is difficult to change the existing domi
nant design, which in turn becomes a severe challenge in times of disruptive
changes (Bettis et al., 2011). The prevailing dominant logic may prevent managers
from sensing the weak signals and changes in the environment. Even if the man
agers understand the need for change, it takes time before the new dominant logic
is implemented in the organisational routines and competences through organisa
tional learning. Transformation from the old to the new dominant logic creates a
challenging situation where the old and new logic coexist for some time. As stu
died in the ambidexterity literature (e.g. O’Reilly & Tushman, 2013), this requires
constant balancing between the old and new logic, which may give rise to tensions,
as in times of disruptive changes the logics may be based on very different – or even
contradictory – demands (Andriopoulos & Lewis, 2009).
The Role of Being a Public Institution

The study with Yle also addresses the important question of the management of
public service media (Lowe & Maijanen, 2019; Nissen, 2013, 2014). Based on the
studies of public management, the role of a public institution tends to challenge
change management in a special way in comparison to the private companies
(Andrews et al., 2011; Bozeman 1987; Piening, 2013). Public service media are
typical public organisations characterised by public (political) control, public
ownership, and public funding (Maijanen, 2017). For accountability reasons,
managers need to take into account the many expectations and interests of outside
208 Päivi Maijanen
stakeholders, such as politicians and regulatory agencies (Picard, 2012). The need
to constantly cope with these – sometimes contradictory and often short-term –
expectations and target settings tends to reduce the managers’ own independence
and opportunity to take radical actions (Andrews et al., 2011; Maijanen, 2017).
Consequently, the pressures imposed externally may slow down or hamper the
change and even enforce the already existing organisational rigidities, which are
typically strong in incumbent organisations such as public service media.
The General Model

Figure 13.1 presents the general model applied in the study. It illustrates the core
ideas according to which cognition and capabilities – the way managers and
organisations think and behave – are closely interlinked with each other and that
they both affect the organisational change and change management. Because
dynamic capabilities are built and exploited to enhance change towards the
desired strategic goals (Teece, 2014), it is important that managers define their
companies’ new visions and targets. Only after knowing their new targets, based
on the redefined dominant logic, can firms start changing themselves and creating
the right kind of dynamic capabilities that support change and learning. Accord
ing to the evolutionary view of organisational change (Nelson & Winter, 1982),
the organisational context is relevant because every firm and organisation creates
its own visions and dynamic capabilities.
Research Project on Change Management with LUT and Yle
Nature and Origin of the Research Project

The research project was initiated by the LUT School of Business. Originally, the
idea for the study came from my own interest and background based on my long
work experience as a journalist and manager at Yle. Especially during my years as a
manager, I became interested in change management. From the beginning of the
FIGURE 13.1 General Model of the Research Project (Maijanen-Kyläheiko, 2014)

research project, it was also meant to be my doctoral dissertation project. In prac

tice, I took care of the concrete negotiations for the research agreement between
the LUT School of Business and Yle. Based on the agreement, Yle did not pay for
the research, but it guaranteed full access to all data that would be required for the
study. In return, Yle expected to have the results of the data analysis for its use.
Yle’s interest was to receive new knowledge and understanding about it as an
organisation and, specifically, such knowledge that it would not collect otherwise.
For the School of Business and me personally, the study provided comprehensive
data to analyse managerial and organisational behaviour during strategic change.
Ultimately, our aim was to have interesting, impactful and high-quality scientific
publications. In addition, the study provided important experience and lessons
about conducting a case study.
Yle was an excellent case for designing a case study (Yin, 2014) to explore
change management and the strategic organisational renewal process because, at
the time of the research project, Yle was implementing an extensive transformation
reform from broadcasting to digital logic. This required profound changes in its
strategies, processes, competences and structures. More concretely, Yle aimed, for
example, for a better reach among young people, more innovative digital content
production, and organisational flexibility and efficiency. As for the structures, Yle
launched changes whose target was to remove earlier boundaries between TV,
radio and Internet. As a result of the structural reform, Yle established six new
units. Some of them, such as the News and Current Affairs unit, remained more or
less the same as before, but it also pursued change to its processes with the focus on
the content instead of the distribution channels. The other five units were the
Media unit (strategic planning), the Creative Content unit (documents, series,
entertainment), Swedish Yle (content in the Swedish language), the Operations
unit (technological infrastructure), and the Joint Operations unit (a matrix unit for
the coordination of internal resources).
The collaboration with Yle was based on openness and mutual trust. Table 13.1
shows the diverse data sources. I was responsible for the data collection, and I had
no problem getting any data I wanted. During the research project, I conducted
two surveys for the whole company, one at the beginning (2011) and the other at
the end of the project (2014). The surveys covered issues related to feelings and
attitudes about the change and the dynamic capabilities of sensing, seizing and
reconfiguring. The surveys also covered questions about dominant logic, such as
the mission of Yle, customer relationships, etc. As for the respondents, we used
demographic variables such as age, gender, organisational level, work experience
and unit. The items of the first survey were repeated in the second survey but, in
addition, the second survey included items about the changes and achievements of
the past years. Both surveys also included open questions. In addition to the
quantitative surveys, I interviewed 21 top- and strategy-level managers from dif
ferent units. I asked managers about their perceptions of the changes, such as
challenges, successes and emerging tensions. These semi-structured interviews were
210 Päivi Maijanen
TABLE 13.1 Data Collection
Data source —
Survey 2011 (response rate 39.4, Questions about motivation, attitudes, strategic
N = 1,379) framing, dynamic capabilities, and performance
Survey 2014 (response rate 32.1, Repetition of Survey 2011; in addition, questions
N = 1,134) about changes that had been carried out after 2011
Yle’s annual reports 1976–2012 Content analysis on the changes in Yle’s dominant
logic 1976–2012
Interviews with managers 2013 Questions about challenges, managerial practices
and accomplishments, and strategic targets
Informal discussions Discussion about feelings and opinions about the
changes, etc.
Strategic documents 2010–2014 Strategic documents such as company and unit-
level strategies to analyse the changes in strategies
Intranet and other company material Company’s internal written material to track the
(audience and user figures, analyses events that took place during the change process, e.g.,
of the media environment, etc.) decisions on content, incentive systems, and channel
profiles
conducted in an open and relaxed atmosphere; they were recorded, and they lasted
from one to one-and-a-half hours. I also collected archival and strategic material
and spent a great deal of time talking with people informally. In addition, I reg
ularly met with the head of strategy, who provided me with more detailed infor
mation on current and upcoming strategic issues.
The surveys were analysed by means of multivariate analysis methods, such as
comparison tests, cluster analysis, a chi-square test of independence, and linear
regression models. Transcribed interviews were analysed by a thematic coding
method (Patton, 2002).
Project Results
As for the results, the study shows that an organisation does not change as one coherent
unit, but becomes dispersed into smaller groups with different mind-sets of change
(Maijanen, 2015a). Some parts of the organisation were more for the old dominant
logic (broadcasting) than others. There were clear differences between the units;
for example, the News and Current Affairs unit was more change- and competi
tion-oriented than the other units were. In addition, employees with over 20 years
of work experience were less change-oriented than employees with less than five
years of work experience. Logically, managers were more change-oriented and less
satisfied with the current situation than non-managers were.
Furthermore, the mind-set seemed to correlate with the capabilities (Maijanen
& Jantunen, 2014). The units with higher levels of change orientation received
better scores in their dynamic capabilities. The differences between units can be
explained at least partly by the different histories and functions of the units. For
example, in the case of the News and Current Affairs unit, it had learned to
operate in the competitive and rapidly changing news world.
Interestingly, the study shows that, during the transformation, managers as
decision-makers had problems in coping with two logics simultaneously. Some of
the managers found it difficult to change their decision-making rules and prac
tices. On the other hand, some of the upper middle managers in particular
seemed frustrated by the slow changes in decision-making among top managers.
In general, managers felt challenged by the overall organisational rigidities, and
some of the interviewees described it as a characteristic feature of Yle’s culture.
The study additionally highlights how structural changes gave rise to power-
related tensions. Some managers perceived that they had lost power in compar
ison to other managers or in comparison to the situation before the changes.
There were also tensions between different units as the unit-level interests and
sub-strategies collided.
The study also confirmed the managerial challenges related to managing
change in a publicly controlled and funded institution. The interviewed Yle
managers emphasised the challenges faced by the expectations of external stake
holders, especially politicians and tax-paying customers. Many of the managers
felt constrained by the multiple and sometimes contradictory expectations. This
became more evident as the new funding model based on the Yle tax was laun
ched to replace the TV licence fee in 2013. In the new funding model, the Yle
tax was collected from individuals and companies in connection with other taxes.
Managers perceived that the Yle tax especially made the older customers more
demanding, and their demands were more in line with the old broadcasting logic.
Despite all the challenges related to inside rigidities or external demands, the
study provides evidence that incumbent media organisations can also change. I
was impressed that even if it sometimes – especially at the beginning of the
change process – seemed chaotic, with feelings of frustration and uncertainty, the
company managed to progress, gradually learn new competences, and implement,
for example, new structures, managerial practices and incentive systems.
Communication of the Results

I aimed to communicate about the research project and results regularly during
the project. I delivered the results of both surveys through the company’s intra-
net. The summaries of the results covered all the issues of the surveys, including
open answers. The results were presented in PowerPoint slides with figures and
tables. The most interesting results were underlined and described in detail. I was
also interviewed twice for Yle’s intranet: in the beginning of the project to acti
vate and encourage people to answer the survey, and at the end of the project to
summarise the results. I was also invited to present the results in two seminars for
212 Päivi Maijanen
managers. The first presentation was for the steering group of the News and
Current Affairs unit, and the second presentation was given in a yearly strategy
day seminar for Yle’s managers (60 people). In addition, Yle published one of my
conference papers to hand out to its stakeholders or other public media compa
nies – for example, in the events of the EBU (European Broadcasting Union).
The company also ordered my dissertation to give to its stakeholders, such as
Yle’s board members. Beyond the official presentations and publications, I
engaged in a large number of informal discussions with employees from different
units and organisational levels, and during these discussions we talked about the
research project and its results.
I have been able to use the research material not only for the company and its
stakeholders but also in my teaching for business-school students at my home
university and in lectures for my Erasmus teaching exchange visits. At my home
university, I have used it as an illustrative example in my courses on strategy
research. As for Erasmus visits, during which I mainly teach students of media or
communication studies, my study on Yle has provided excellent material to inspire,
for example, group discussions on digital transformation and change management.
Evaluation of the Project

Concerning my original expectations, I believe the research project with Yle pro
vided valuable and rich data that is still useful for my current research in several ways.
I am still going through the data and writing new articles. The data has not lost its
value, since media companies are continuously experiencing enormous changes
because of market turbulence and technological advancements. The insights gained
from the Yle project can be applied to other comparable change processes.
My research addresses the many questions that I had when working at Yle, but
the project also proved to be an important learning process on a personal level. I
have used the many lessons in my later research in which I have used a similar
theoretical frame as in the Yle case. I still have good contacts with Yle, and it is
one of the company collaborators in my current research plans. Where this aspect
is concerned, I am very pleased with the open and easy-going collaboration with
Yle. My academic freedom was never questioned and controlled, and I received
all the support I needed. My personal background at Yle was definitely an asset,
which made the collaboration with Yle so easy. The fact that I had worked at Yle
seemed to open doors. When visiting Yle during the project, I was able to
spontaneously initiate discussions with people, and they were eager and willing to
share their thoughts and feelings. I could always find people when I needed help,
for example, in pretesting my surveys, acquiring research material, or getting the
contact information of the personnel.
There are some aspects that I would now do differently if I could conduct the
project again. First, I would collect more qualitative data. I would, for example,
conduct more semi-structured interviews right at the beginning of the process.
This would deepen the process view of the changes. I also feel I should have tried
to share my results more actively than I did. Sharing the results more often and
more actively would have made the study more impactful and meaningful for the
organisation and would have provided important feedback in terms of the prac
tical relevance of the study. The feedback could also have given me ideas for the
further development of the study.
As for the expectations of Yle, I believe they were at least partly fulfilled.
Naturally, it is hard to measure the concrete gains, but based on the feedback
during the seminar presentations, discussions and interviews, I feel assured that the
project contributed at least on the mind-set level. I also believe that I managed to
provide Yle with some new understanding of itself through the research results
and especially through the many discussions I was able to have with employees
during the research project. Yle’s management seemed to find the study impor
tant from the stakeholder point of view. This type of research collaboration with
universities could be seen as one way to practice public service. Yle’s willingness
to deliver my publication and dissertation to its stakeholders indicates that the
company’s management valued the study.
This study made me think of the challenge of providing both short-term practical
impact and long-term theoretical knowledge. This is especially the case in studies
conducted in collaboration with the industry – like my case study with Yle. A ‘pure’
researcher is expected to analyse the phenomenon objectively and to generate
abstract knowledge that contributes to the academic discussion. It takes a long time
between the data collection and the final research publication. The practical impact
must be achieved almost right away, and in doing so, the researcher is often expected
to take a more subjective stance, sometimes even the company perspective. Because
of the short-term expectations, there is a risk that the results the researcher delivers
will remain quite swallow and descriptive. This is a dilemma. I think it is easier to
cope with this dilemma when the researcher knows and understands the context
well, which makes it easier to provide such data and results that the company finds
useful and interesting. I had this situation – and yet, even in my case, I believe that
sharing the results at an earlier point would have helped in making the project matter
in practice. There is no single solution to this problem. I think it is, to some extent,
also caused by the academic demands and practices. It seems that in academia, the
practical impact is valued in principle, but in reality, it is dependent on the
researcher’s own approach and activity.
Discussion
In general, the research project with Yle was a rewarding process. I learned a lot
about organisational change and change management, and my research addressed
many of the questions that I had before starting the project. Importantly, I gained
many insights about designing and conducting a longitudinal case study. In addi
tion, the data collected during the project is still valuable for many new research
214 Päivi Maijanen
papers to come and, importantly, the case of Yle can be used as an illustrative
example of strategic change.
As for the practical impact, I realised that the theoretical concepts, such as
dynamic capabilities, are in fact quite comprehensible for practitioners. In parti
cular, the categories of sensing, seizing and reconfiguring seem to attract interest
when I talk about the study and its results. It seems to be easy for managers to
start analysing, for example, what kind of sensing or seizing capabilities they have
and whether they are good, for example, in seizing the sensed opportunities.
Even though I was able to share and interpret my results, at least to a certain
extent, I am aware of the limitations in this regard. I could have developed the
results further in terms of practical usefulness, and I could have been more active
and interactive in sharing the results within the company.
Based on my experience, I would like to share some of my learning and pro
vide some simple and practical guidelines that I find important when conducting
a research project in close collaboration with a company. These guidelines are to
ensure that the project delivers a win-win situation: the researcher is not doing
the research only for him- or herself but also so the company can profit from it.
My guidelines are as follows:
1. Plan the project in close collaboration with the company and make sure you
know your own expectations as well as the expectations of the company.
Design the project so that the expectations will be addressed.
2. Have good personal contacts with key people in the company. This helps
you to create trust and conduct your research in practice.
3. Meet people face-to-face. I am convinced that meeting and talking with
people on a face-to-face basis builds trust and openness, and it provides
more insights than can be obtained via the phone or online video chat
applications, such as Skype.
4. Be active and share the results during the research project, not only at the
end of it. Sharing the results during the project will provide useful feedback
that helps the researcher(s) to evaluate the practical impact and contribu
tions, as well as to make corrections to the research if necessary.
5. Look for other ways to share the results beyond just presentations and
PowerPoint slides, such as facilitated workshops and group discussions. The
more interactive situations you create, the more you and the company learn
from the results.
In academic research projects, there often tends be a deep gap between theo
retical and practical aspirations. I realised during this project that the gap is not
that deep after all, at least in studies of (strategic) media management. This is
perhaps because the media management research asks questions and uses concepts
that are also relevant in the media business. The studies – as well as the study
presented in this chapter – ask such questions as how to keep a company
successful in times of change, how to beat the challenges, or how to sustain

innovation and creativity. These are relevant managerial and organisation-related
questions for both academics and practitioners. I think the main challenge is in
being able to interpret the concepts and results from the manager’s perspective. I
am convinced that the interpretations are easier to make if the researcher colla
borates actively and pursues a thorough understanding of the case and context
under study.
References
Andrews, R., Boyne, G. A. & Walker, R. M. (2011). Dimensions of publicness and
organizational performance: A review of the evidence. Journal of Public Administration
Research, 21(Suppl. 3), 301–319.
Andriopoulos, C. & Lewis, M. W. (2009). Exploitation–exploration tensions and organi
zational ambidexterity: Managing paradoxes of innovation. Organization Science, 20(4),
696–717.
Bettis, R. A., & Prahalad, C. K. (1995). The dominant logic: Retrospective and extension.
Strategic Management Journal, 16(1), 5–14.
Bettis, R., Wong, S. & Blettner, D. (2011). Dominant logic, knowledge creation, and
managerial choice. In M. Easterby-Smith & M. A. Lyles (Eds.), The Blackwell handbook of
organizational learning and knowledge (pp. 369–381). Chichester, UK: Wiley.
Bozeman, B. (1987). All organizations are public. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Hasenpusch, T. C. & Baumann, S. (2017). Strategic media venturing: Corporate venture
capital approaches of TIME incumbents. International Journal on Media Management, 19(1),
77–100.
Helfat, C. E., Finkelstein, S., Mitchell, W., Peteraf, M. A., Singh H., Teece, D. J. &
Winter, S. G. (2007). Dynamic capabilities: Understanding strategic change in organizations.
Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Helfat, C. E. & Peteraf, M. A. (2015). Managerial cognitive capabilities and the micro-
foundations of dynamic capabilities. Strategic Management Journal, 36(6), 831–850.
Helfat, C. E., & Winter, S. G. (2011). Untangling dynamic and operational capabilities:
Strategy for the (n)ever-changing world. Strategic Management Journal, 32(11), 1243–1250.
Jones, C. (2005). From technology to content: The shift in dominant logic in the early
American film industry. In T. Lant, J. Lampel & J. Shamsie (Eds.), The business in culture:
Strategic perspectives on entertainment and media (pp. 195–204). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates.
Kaplan, S. (2011). Research in cognition and strategy: Reflections on two decades of
progress and a look to the future. Journal of Management Studies, 48(3), 665–695.
Lowe, F. G., & Maijanen, P. (2019). Making sense of the public service mission: Youth
audiences, competition, and strategic management. Journal of Media Business Studies, 16(1),
1–18.
Maijanen, P. (2015a). Cognition as a driver and barrier of strategic renewal: The case of
the Finnish Broadcasting Company. International Journal of Business Innovation and
Research, 9(3), 351–374.
Maijanen, P. (2015b). The evolution of dominant logic: Forty years of strategic framing in
the Finnish Broadcasting Company. Journal of Media Business Studies, 12(3), 168–184.
216 Päivi Maijanen
Maijanen, P. (2017). The blessing and curse of being public: Managing change in public ser
vice media in Finland. In M. Glowacki & A. Jaskiernia (Eds.), Public service media renewal:
Adaptation to digital network challenges (pp. 193–212). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
Maijanen, P. & Jantunen, A. (2014). Centripetal and centrifugal forces of strategic renewal:
The case of the Finnish Broadcasting Company. International Journal on Media Manage
ment, 16(3–4), 139–159.
Maijanen, P. & Virta, S. (2017). Managing exploration and exploitation in a media orga
nisation: A capability-based approach to ambidexterity. Journal of Media Business Studies,
12(4), 146–165.
Maijanen-Kyläheiko, P. (2014). Pursuit of change versus organizational inertia: A study on
strategic renewal in the Finnish Broadcasting Company (Doctoral dissertation). Lap
peenranta University of Technology. Retrieved from: https://lutpub.lut.fi/handle/
10024/102199.
Nadkarni, S. & Barr, P. S. (2008). Environmental context, managerial cognition, and stra
tegic action: An integrated view. Strategic Management Journal, 29(13), 1395–1427.
Naldi, L., Wikström, P. & von Rimscha, M. B. (2014). Dynamic capabilities and perfor
mance: An empirical study on audio-visual producers in Europe . International Studies on
Management & Organization, 44(4), 64–82.
Nelson, R. R. & Winter, S. G. (1982). An evolutionary theory of economic change. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Nissen, C. S. (2013). What is so special about public media management? International
Nissen, C. S. (2014). Organisational culture and structures in public media management –
in search of a model for the digital era? In M. Glowacki & L. Jackson (Eds.), Public media
management for the twenty-first century: Creativity, innovation, and interaction (pp. 81–102).
New York and London: Routledge.
Oblój, K., Weinstein, M. & Zhang, S. (2013). Self-limiting dominant logic: An exploratory
study of Chinese entrepreneurial firms. Journal of East-West Business, 29(4), 291–316.
Oliver, J. (2018). Strategic transformations in the media. Journal of Media Business Studies, 15(2),
1–22.
O’Reilly, C. A., & Tushman, M. L. (2013). Organizational ambidexterity: Past, present,
and future. The Academy of Management Perspectives, 27(4), 324–338.
Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative research and evaluation methods (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks:
Sage Publications.
Picard, R. G. (2012). The changing nature of political casemaking for public service
broadcasters. In G. F. Lowe & J. Steemers (Eds.), Regaining the initiative for public service
media, RIPE@2011 (pp. 27–44). Gothenburg: Nordicom.
Piening, E. P. (2013). Dynamic capabilities in public organizations: A literature review and
research agenda. Public Management Review, 15(2), 209–245.
Porac, J., Thomas, H. & Baden-Fuller, C. (1989). Competitive groups as cognitive com
munities: The case of Scottish knitwear manufacturers. Journal of Management Studies, 26
(4), 397–416.
Prahalad, C. K. (2004). The blinders of dominant logic. Long Range Planning, 37(2), 171–179.
Prahalad, C. K. & Bettis, R. A. (1986). The dominant logic: A new linkage between
diversity and performance. Strategic Management Journal, 7(6), 485–501.
Raffaelli, R., Glynn, M. A. & Tushman, M. (2019). Frame flexibility: The role of cogni
tive and emotional framing in innovation by incumbent firms. Strategic Management
Journal, Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3011.
Schilke, O., Hu, S. & Helfat, C. E. (2018). Quo vadis dynamic capabilities? A content-
analytic review of the current state of knowledge and recommendations for future
research. Academy of Management Annals, 12(1), 390–439.
Teece, D. J. (2007). Explicating dynamic capabilities: The nature and microfoundations of
(sustainable) enterprise performance. Strategic Management Journal, 28(13), 1319–1350.
Teece, D. J. (2014). The foundations of enterprise performance: Dynamic and ordinary
capabilities in an (economic) theory of firms. Academy of Management Perspectives, 28(4),
328–352.
Teece, D. J., Pisano, G. & Shuen, A. (1997). Dynamic capabilities and strategic manage
ment. Strategic Management Journal, 18(7), 509–533.
Tripsas, M. & Gavetti, G. (2000). Capabilities, cognition, and inertia: Evidence from digital
imaging. Strategic Management Journal, 21(10–11),1147–1161.
Walsh, J. P. (1995). Managerial and organizational cognition: Notes from a trip down
Memory Lane. Organization Science, 6(3), 280–321.
Yin, R. K. (2014). Case study research: Design and methods (5th ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage
Publications.
14
SHEDDING LIGHT ON AUDIOVISUAL
CONSUMPTION PREFERENCES
A Case Study from Spain
Mercedes Medina
UNIVERSITY OF NAVARRA
Introduction
In recent years, the degree of competition in the Spanish audiovisual market has
increased because of the emergence of new television services and the proliferation of
video-on-demand (VOD) platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Sky and HBO.
According to the 2017 Digital Film and Series Platforms in Spain report (Findanygame,
2017), Spain’s VOD market is one of the largest in Europe. Embraced by a growing
proportion of the Spanish audience, video streaming services are becoming a real
alternative to the traditional pay-TV options operated by Telefónica and other local
companies. Although the number of households subscribing to video streaming is
increasing (CNMC, 2018), the overall consumption market remains traditional in
the sense that most viewers tune into free-to-air broadcast programmes only. How
ever, as consumer preferences continue to change (albeit slowly), the Spanish
audiovisual market is in flux. Against this backdrop, the Media Companies and
Markets Research Group (GIMEC), affiliated to the School of Communication of
the University of Navarra, initiated a research project that sought to identify the
reasons behind Spanish viewers’ choice of audiovisual content.
Funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, the project
supports the National Science and Technology Strategy (2013–2020), which aims
to advance science, technology and innovation in order to improve Spain’s posi
tion in the global economy (Spanish Government, 2012).
In addition to serving the need for policymakers to stimulate digital innovation
and research in the Spanish economy, the project is a response to a call from the
various players in the audiovisual market – both new entrants and incumbents –
who are developing their programming strategies (producing, commissioning,
scheduling, etc.) in a context of ever-increasing competition. Although media
Audiovisual Consumption Preferences 219
organisations have access to large databases of quantitative behavioural data on

content consumption (in terms of how much time and how many users) provided
by research companies such as Kantarmedia and ComScore, what they lack is
deeper insight into what content media consumers prefer, why exactly they prefer
this content, and how they evaluate what they watch. Indeed, external databases
predominantly focus on demographics as well as time and frequency of consump
tion, whereas media organisations also need to understand what factors cause
viewer satisfaction and how audiences perceive the quality of programming.
The title of the project was ‘Reasons to consume fiction and entertainment
audiovisual content in the Spanish market’, and one of the aims was to provide
proposals for legacy broadcasting companies for adapting their contents to suit
audience tastes in order to compete with the new digital streaming companies.
From 2012 to 2018, average daily television consumption fell by 30 minutes,
from 246 to 216 minutes (CNMC, 2018). According to our survey, almost 65%
of users recognised that they watched less conventional television because of the
time they spent on online viewing (Guerrero et al., 2017). The research attemp
ted to provide data and reflections that could help audiovisual companies under
stand audiences’ consumption on online platforms and their level of satisfaction
with their audiovisual diet, and to help them face the uncertainty arising from the
bursting onto the scene of technological giants in the audiovisual sector such as
Apple, Google, Facebook, Netflix and Amazon.
Literature Review
The media industry is at a digital crossroads, characterised by the emergence of a
new market for the distribution of entertainment content (Internet and new
screens) and a new profile of consumers (digital natives) who select what, when,
where and how they want to view such content (Chan-Olmsted & Xiao, 2018;
Webster, 2014).
Previously, despite its criticisms and shortcomings (Bourdon & Méadel, 2011;
Hulks, 2001), audience television research using people meters was seen as a reli
able measurement system: it provided information on which to make decisions on
a daily basis and allowed the effectiveness of advertising slots in television pro-
grammes to be assessed (Napoli, 2012; Nelson & Webster, 2016; Phalen & Ducey,
2012). However, in the new, multi-platform, era, new systems for measuring
audiences using different devices are needed. Online consumption provides data
that are complementary to those provided by traditional ratings. For example, in
the year 2000 Netflix presented its famous personalised movie recommendation
system. Even with constant improvements to the processes, the system uses the
ratings that subscribers give to the titles they view and their consumption patterns
to predict content options that each user will like (Arnold, 2016; Roettgers, 2017).
The great challenge for the audiovisual industry is to take advantage of the data that
social media and online consumption generate by turning it into useful knowledge
220 Mercedes Medina
and joining it to their expertise to make decisions (Buzzard, 2012; Havens, 2014;
Napoli & Roepnack, 2018; Portilla, 2015; Portilla & Medina, 2016).
At this crossroads of change, the tastes and preferences of viewers remain
somehow uncertain. Content is creative goods, subject to uncertainty, whose
success depends on talent and stories that move, that are close to the public, and
with which audiences identify. Thanks to the personalisation that new technolo
gies allow in the dissemination of content, the tastes and interests of the public
can be tagged and segmented.
Variables that influence viewers’ perceptions and acceptance of audiovisual
content have been analysed from various perspectives. Some analyses have focused
mainly on the emotional effects, that is the attitudes, feelings and emotions that the
content generates in audiences. Thus, the enjoyment and entertainment experi
enced during viewing, or the improvement of mood afterwards, are part of the
cathartic effect of identifying with the characters and wanting to be a better person
(Packer, 1989). This explains why people enjoy dramas even when they suffer
watching them and their mood becomes negative after viewing (Oliver, 2003).
Other authors, like Igartua and Muñiz (2008) and Soto-Sanfiel et al. (2010) con
sidered the effect of identification with the characters on audiences’ enjoyment of
films. The memories or so-called emotional memory (Johnson-Laird & Oatley,
1989) that come to mind through identifying with characters, through such per
sonal resonance (Vorderer et al., 2004), also play a fundamental role in audiences’
enjoyment. Finally, cultural closeness to the story and the characters has also been
found to affect viewers’ satisfaction (Larsen & Laszlo, 1990).
Previous audience studies were also reviewed to understand current consump
tion and to inform questions about the quality of content. The review encom
passed other research traditions, such as the theory of uses and gratifications
(Bartsch et al., 2008), motivations for watching TV and differences between gen
erations (Bondad-Brown, 2012; Tapscott, 2009), and the rationale behind audi
ence engagement (Haven, 2007; IAB, 2014; Lowenstein, 2014). There are other
crucial concepts that can be applied to understanding the entertainment economy
and constructing an appropriate questionnaire to learn more about audience pre
ferences. They include prior knowledge and perceived realism (Green, 2004),
pleasure and meaning (Oliver & Raney, 2011), moral ambiguity (Krakowiak &
Oliver, 2012), emotional and cognitive predictors (Nabi & Krcmar, 2004; Nabi et
al., 2006), the attention economy (Perse, 1992), and audience satisfaction (Fergu
son & Perse, 2004).
While Shamir (2007) argued that viewers are not very good at discerning gra
dations of production value in different programmes and genres, Mir et al. (2008)
developed a quality index that took into account the complexity of the term and
the opinions not only of scholars but also of viewers and the industry itself.
Conversely, Pujadas (2013) examined the reasons behind there being no common
meaning of TV quality. They found that both the subjective dimension to per
ceived quality and the economic risks complicate the willingness of the industry
to produce high-quality programmes. Elsewhere, Manero et al. (2013) explored

the relationship between quality and audience satisfaction and concluded that ‘the
capacity of a program to be interesting, to suit the audience’s taste, to entertain or
to inform viewers and to appeal positively to the audience’s emotions while
watching a program constitutes a valuable tool for adapting a program to viewers’
demands’ (p. 153).
In summary, academic research on why audiences choose certain media con
tent and what they get from consuming it has increased in recent years. However,
there is still a gap between academic research and media production activity: sci
entific insights do not yet meet industry demand. We believe that the academic
literature should help media companies to develop an ‘architecture of listening’
that will allow them to produce content that is emotionally engaging for viewers.
Aims, Objectives and Methodology

Technology has changed the media industry’s relationships with its audiences.
Today, consumers play a fundamental role in the value chain of media businesses
and, as such, their demands can influence the type of content that is produced
and how it is delivered.
Prior to the twenty-first century, media outlets were accustomed to considering
their audiences as massive and passive recipients of content. Today, any media
outlet still applying that same model will disappear from the market. Content must
excite, involve and challenge specific audiences. Hence, we are in an exciting
period for developing creativity and listening skills.
A better understanding of the interests and preferences of media users, their
perceptions of value, the reasons for their media choices and their satisfaction
with their media diet, will be the basis of the best audience research in the years
to come. What is needed is a holistic analysis of audience behaviour based on
diverse data sources; an analysis that transcends the dynamics of reach, volume
and frequency that have dominated previous research.
At the same time, a better synthesis of all this information into a specific and
standardised format that allows comparisons across media, distribution platforms,
types of content and peculiarities of use is also necessary. As Webster (2017, p. 358)
pointed out, in the marketplace of attention ‘the most far-reaching questions will
point back to the user preferences question: Where do our media preferences come
from?’ Media practitioners and researchers must truly understand the answers to
that question and apply them to their media management and economic decisions.
The current research project was designed to gain a better understanding of
media consumption patterns as part of the transformation of the audiovisual
market. As mentioned earlier, our goal was to help legacy audiovisual companies to
understand what factors give rise to viewer satisfaction, how audiences perceive the
quality of content, and how media companies can implement this knowledge in
order to design strategies for the future. In order to examine audience satisfaction
222 Mercedes Medina
and the reasons behind their choice of certain content, we developed questions on
how much audiences like what they consume. The answers to these questions are
one of the keys to understanding how media companies can satisfy audiences’
tastes. In the new, hyper-competitive, market, the offer is too abundant. Therefore,
understanding audiences’ reasons for choosing certain content over others is essential
if media companies are to succeed. Audiences are willing to pay for content if it
satisfies their entertainment needs; if it does not, companies will go bankrupt.
To restrict the scope of study we focused on fiction and entertainment pro-
grammes in Spain, over the last ten years and in particular since new online video
platforms entered the market. We used a variety of methodologies, including a
review of industry reports, interviews with media practitioners and two surveys –
one, a general telephone survey; the other, an online questionnaire for Internet users.
First, we looked at current market trends, including new competitors’ business
models, general consumption patterns and the impact of foreign fiction on the
production of domestic content. Industry reports compiled by specialist compa
nies such as Kantar Media, the National Observatory of Telecommunications and
the Information Society (Ontsi), the National Market and Competition Com
mission (CNMC), the National Institute of Statistics, and The Cocktail Analysis
served to give an overview of the market.
For comparison purposes, we also contacted media company executives for their
insights on how the market had changed. From Telefónica, interviews were con
ducted with the Head of TV Products in the Global Video Unit, the Innovation &
Big Data of Business Intelligence Manager and the Video Delivery Technology
and Devices Development Manager. Their insights were key to understanding the
competitive advantage of Telefónica over the new OTT entrants. Inputs from the
Digital Marketing and Analytics Manager, Strategic Manager and Digital Manager
of one of the biggest Spanish audiovisual companies, Atresmedia, helped to expand
our knowledge of the digital transformation of the company. Finally, the Interna
tional Executive Producer of BBC Worldwide and the General Manager of the
production company Boomerang TV were interviewed to identify new produc
tion demands.
A survey of the population was also carried out, to identify the trends defining
the evolution of audiovisual consumption. Our sample of 1,000 individuals was
representative of audiovisual consumers in Spain, our target population being all
residents in Spain aged 14 year and above (37,910,000 inhabitants). The data
were collected between April and May over an eight-year period from 2008 to
2016. The questionnaire included questions about respondents’ likes, their
assessment of the quality of TV content, and their satisfaction with it.
Two further, online, surveys were carried out to examine online consumption
and distributed to Internet users. One was administered in May 2012, the other in
December 2016. The sample comprised Spanish Internet users, who are defined by
AIMC (Spanish Media Research Association) as being individuals between the ages
of 14 and 65 years who have accessed the Internet at least once in the last month.
Currently, 78.6% of this age group are Internet users (AIMC, 2017), amounting to
approximately 28 million people in Spain according to the Spanish Statistics Institute
(INE). Both surveys generated high response rates, the sample size for both being
1,200 individuals each. Questions here related to devices used, time spent, payment
and recommendation tools, among other things.
Results and Output

In the following section, an overview of the results of the research and the aca
demic output is presented.
Results
Analysis of the data revealed a number of trends relating to consumption patterns.
On-demand audiovisual services were found to compete directly with linear tel
evision for audiences’ time. We found a generation gap in the consumption of
audiovisual content: specifically, there has been a flight of younger audiences
from linear television to other, more customisable and interactive, audiovisual
platforms. Furthermore, the younger the audience, the fewer minutes consumed.
For example, in 2018 ‘millennials’ watched almost an hour and a half less a day of
linear television than the general population watched (134 minutes). In addition,
almost 75% of this younger group recognised that they watched less television
compared with the time they spent on online viewing. Indeed, among the
youngest audience (14–24 years) almost 98% reported that they usually watched
online content (Guerrero, 2018).
We also found that audiences in 2016 were more willing to pay for content than
they were years ago. The pay-per-view television model has grown – as subscrip
tions have decreased – outstripping free-to-air television in revenues. This explains
why traditional television companies have started to launch apps for accessing pay
per-view content (Medina & Herrero, 2015; Medina et al., 2016; Portilla &
Medina, 2016). Nevertheless, advertising remains the largest revenue stream.
There are also new devices on which to watch audiovisual content. Fiction
emerged as the most watched online content, the computer as the device most
used to watch it, followed by the smartphone. According to the results of our
online questionnaire, around 90% of online viewers used a computer to view
online content, and almost 74% used a smartphone. Almost 60% of online
respondents admitted to using smart TVs as traditional TV sets, i.e. without taking
advantage of the Internet connection (Guerrero et al., 2017).
The factor above all others on which audience gratification depended was the
quality of the content offered. Audiences’ perceptions of quality were very much
to do with the entertainment power of the content. However, the perception
was that the quality of television has not substantially improved in recent years,
despite the growth in supply and technological improvements. The perceived
224 Mercedes Medina
quality of television fell in Spain, from 3.32 out of 5 in 2008 to 3.17 in 2016.
The figures vary depending on the education level and age of the audience. In
2016, the perceived quality was 3.35 out of 5 for those who had received only
primary education, but this dropped to 3.14 for those who had received second
ary education, to 2.92 among those with a diploma, and to 2.82 for those with a
university degree. That same year, those over 65 years or overrated television
quality as being 3.34 out of 5, while those aged between 25 and 44 years – the
least satisfied age group – gave it a score of just 2.86 (Bayo et al., 2018).
With regard to fictional content, the aspects that most influenced the percep
tion of quality were the dialogue, the plots, the characters and the actors. In the
case of entertainment programmes, the presenters and the sets particularly stood
out. In the case of both fiction and entertainment, the actors and stars of the
shows occupied a decisive place in audiences’ perceptions of quality, revealing the
existence of a certain ‘star’ rating system in Spanish television. Artificial intelli
gence and big data are the key to improving the personalisation of media services,
the user experience and accessibility of the content. However, users still do not
perceive automated recommendations to be fully satisfactory and instead put
greater faith in personal recommendations (Herrero et al., 2018).
Audiovisual companies are immersed in a process of strategically redefining
their offer, their business model and their identity. However, in spite of the
revolution that the sector is experiencing, television retains a prominent position
and influence in the media landscape, and continues to be the benchmark in the
multiscreen audiovisual offer of which it is a part (Medina & Herrero, 2015).
Academic Output
Being academic research, the main results of this study were presented at con
ferences and published in journals and books. The book Current and Emerging
Issues in the Audiovisual Industry (2017) recalls some of the research findings, such
as the threat posed by the new OTT to the pay-TV market, the resistance of
legacy TV channels, the public service heritage, the battle for audiences, the
quality of content, the transition from attention to engagement, the challenges of
monetising digital content, and how to implement innovation. Furthermore,
three doctoral theses relating to the project have been defended in recent years:
‘Development and validation of three scales to measure the quality of television
products’ (Kimber, 2019), ‘Engagement with OTT: The Netflix case’ (Urgellés,
2017), and ‘Transcultural remakes of scripted television formats’ (García, 2016).
However, we scholars were conscious that these publications would not reach
media practitioners because journal articles are somewhat long and complex for
the industry. That it is why we decided to produce an executive report contain
ing the main conclusions and to present it to industry practitioners. The report
was broken down into ten sections to make it simpler and easier to read, and
adopted a very practical approach.
Presentation to Stakeholders
The data collected, and the conclusions drawn from them, were considered to be
of interest to scholars, media practitioners, policymakers and society in general.
This section focuses first on how media practitioners were reached; second, the
report’s impact on policy; and finally, how some of the results were disseminated
to the general public.
Presentation and Feedback to the Industry

An executive report, called Ten Keys to Understanding the Consumption of Audio
visual Content in Spain, was distributed to media representatives in the audiovisual
market. It was sent via email to more than 80 practitioners who had registered
during a presentation event. Its conclusions were then debated in a roundtable
discussion between members of the research group and representatives of the
most active players in the industry: the CEO of Atresmedia; the Executive
Director of the production company, Boomerang TV Entertainment; the
Regional Director of Kantarmedia for South Europe; and the Market Develop
ment Director of Sky. This meeting took place at the University of Navarra
Madrid campus, after the project had finished. It was tweeted with the hashtag
#consumoAV from the Media Management Master (MEGEC) account, which
has more than 1,000 followers.
The speakers supplemented the conclusions with their own views. For exam
ple, the CEO of Atresmedia presented nine arguments refuting the views of the
scholars. His first criticism concerned the lack of updated data. The last data in
the research had been collected in 2016, making them, in his opinion, obsolete.
At that time, Netflix had not have arrived in Spain and the millennials then were
not the millennials of today. Thus, he added, to follow the conclusions of the
research project would lead the industry to make many mistakes.
He then used other data to refute some of the report’s conclusions on online
consumption. Television, he argued, was still the largest coverage medium. Yes,
TV consumption had decreased, but audience ratings remained very high. Fur
thermore, according to him, legacy television remained the authentic specialist in
terms of knowing the tastes of the Spanish population. In February 2019, his
company had 450 million inputs on what viewers do day by day, minute by
minute. According to his data, although Google had 32 million users in just one
month, Atresmedia achieved the same number of viewers in just four days.
Moreover, time and attention given to watching TV, he informed those at the
event, was higher than that for digital content. For example, all the content on
YouTube accumulated 36,000 million minutes of consumption in January 2019,
while consumption of Atresmedia’s content for the same month was 90,000
million minutes.
226 Mercedes Medina
He further argued that legacy television was also the most efficient advertising
medium because of its coverage and the confidence advertisers have in it. Again,
according to his data, in February 2019 5 million millennials spent four hours a day
watching television, while 7 million spent time every day on Atresmedia television
channels. Moreover, this TV audience rating measure was much more reliable than
the online users, at least at the present time. Another example that he gave on the
reliability of TV content was that of Disney and Nestlé, who withdrew their
YouTube commercials because they were shown in videos linked to paedophile
content. According to him, this kind of thing does not happen on TV because the
broadcasting regulations are too strict.
He went on to endorse Atresmedia’s ‘liquid’ content, which can be watched
on any device. For example, the music talent show La Voz became the most
watched TV programme in 2018, at the same time accumulating 55 million
videos and 140 million minutes consumed in one month on YouTube. He also
said that Atresmedia produced influential, local and relevant content and that as a
digital company they were already exploring the pay-TV market. He concluded
his speech by arguing that high-quality programmes can be popular and broadcast
on free-to-air television. According to a Personality Media (2018) survey con
ducted in 2018, the top TV channels of his media group were the most enter
taining and the highest quality, having the most varied programming and the best
news channels.
Although this seems like harsh criticism of the research, it was actually very
enlightening for us, opening up a genuine dialogue between the university and
the industry, as was the purpose of the event. In spite of putting forward an
opposing point of view and defending his own managerial decisions in his TV
company, he drew similar conclusions to ours on the role of TV companies in
the current environment and the need to innovate technologically in order to
understand audiences better.
The other participants’ ideas were pertinent too. For the producer executive,
the current market was full of opportunities for content production, but the
challenge was to target the tastes of viewers. According to the manager of Kan
tarmedia, technology has extended video consumption to other times of the day:
there is no decline in audiovisual consumption; rather, how it takes place is dif
ferent. He also talked about ‘addressable advertising’, that is the ability to show
different advertisements to different households while they are watching the same
programme. Under this system, advertisers can move beyond large-scale tradi
tional TV ad buys, to focus on relevance and impact. According to him, Kan
tarmedia is also ready to measure consumption, including time shift, on different
devices and even other platforms such as YouTube. Finally, the manager of Sky
outlined three keys to success in the market: focusing on the user, listening to the
user and being flexible and adapting products to suit different forms of
consumption.
Presentation to Policymakers
Directly influencing policymaking is not an easy task for the university. However,
collaborating with various lobbyists is another way to bring this about. In this vein,
a number of actions were pursued.
One was the production and publication of the chapter ‘Commercial television.
Advertising support. Risks and challenges’ in a report coordinated by the Spanish
Official College of Telecommunications Engineers (COIT), about adding value to
the social function of the digital terrestrial television (DTT) (Medina, 2017). The
COIT is in charge of lobbying to influence the International Telecommunication
Union (ITU) to ensure the conditions with respect to the availability and efficient
use of radio spectrum in favour of the DTT in 2020 and 2030. In order to have a
larger impact, the report was presented to the Spanish Secretary for Tele
communications and Information Society.
A number of members of the research group collaborated in advising on and
analysing content applying the criteria of the Audiovisual Trust Label (ATL),
designed and developed by iCmedia. iCmedia is the Federation of Consumers and
Media Users Association in Spain and its fundamental purpose is to promote
initiatives that favour the quality of content in audiovisual media. The ATL certi
fies compliance with current regulations, transparency and good practice in content
delivery.
Finally, some members of the research group acted as consultants in preparing
the public consultation draft on the modification of the General Law of Audio
visual Communication 7/2010. The group, coordinated by Francisco Campos,
Professor of Journalism at the University of Santiago de Compostela, was made up
of eight professors from Spanish universities and an external consultant. Some of
the suggestions included creating an independent authority for the audiovisual
market to guarantee high-quality programming, enforcing higher fines for non
compliance of the law, allocating money to producers of local content, supporting
independent public service broadcasting and forcing the OTT companies to meet
European production quotas.
Presentation to the General Public

Media outlets are an excellent channel for disseminating knowledge to the general
public and society at large. Following the event where we presented our conclu
sions, a number of journalists were interested in interviewing members of the
university research group. Thanks to those interviews a report on how the business
battle for digital production and distribution is revolutionising the audiovisual
scene was published in a generalist magazine.
Moreover, members of the team were interviewed about different media. The
journalist Fidalgo interviewed Medina for the article ‘HBO arrives in Spain
during highest rise of subscriptions to pay television’ on November 2016, while
228 Mercedes Medina
the journalist Toca also interviewed her for the report ‘Facing the end of televi
sion’ in Cambio 16 magazine on February 2017.
Critical Evaluation of the Project

From our perspective as researchers, this project has been of tremendous value for
various reasons. First, our level of understanding of the industry has grown, not only
as a consequence of observing and reflecting on the changes but also because it
allowed us personally to meet some of the actors who play critical roles in the
Spanish audiovisual market. Not only did we meet some of them during the research
period, but those whom we contacted but were unable to attend the event, such as
the Netflix Vice-President Business Development in Spain, María Ferreras, indicated
that they would be open to future meetings.
As well as enhancing our academic CVs thanks to attending international
conferences and publishing journal articles and book chapters, we also developed
expertise through organising such events where we shared insights with media
industry participants. In this sense, the joint venture with the Media Management
Master of the University of Navarra was an excellent help in attracting a larger
number of people interested in the conclusions concerning changes in audiovisual
consumption. Although we did not develop a tool to measure the usefulness of
these encounters, the level of discussion and knowledge exchange that took place
was very enlightening for both sides.
Second, the insights gained also served academic purposes. They helped us to
critically evaluate some of our results and to better understand the problems that
media managers face when making decisions. In addition, we were given access to
expensive databases that would otherwise have been unaffordable on a university
research budget and were able to secure agreements for future research – for exam
ple, the use of Thomson Reuters’ Mergers and Acquisitions Database from Atres
media for a study that has been published in 2020 (Medina et al., 2020).
Furthermore, the collaboration with iCmedia allowed the group to participate in the
Erasmus+ project funded by the European Commission, ‘Trust Label: combating
Fake News in the digital era’, with other European partners and practitioners.
Discussion
Universities should serve the societies in which they are located. Therefore, to
consider and heed audiences as an important part of the society should be con
sidered an important mission of this university. For that reason, audience research
should be enhanced under the umbrella of media management. Certainly, at the
present time there is no wealth of audience studies in this field; only a handful of
scholars, such as Napoli, Phalen, Coffey, Webster and Chan-Olmsted, have
focused their research on audience studies from a media economics perspective. In
contrast, audience research at the academic level from a critical studies perspective
is more abundant. Moreover, it tends mainly to stress the negative effects of media
on audiences. Therefore, from a media management and media economics per
spective, critical, in-depth studies are needed to extend our knowledge of the
unsatisfied needs of audiences.
To bring research to the industry, authors need to form conclusions that are
understandable to the general public and relevant for the practitioners making
decisions. To achieve this, it may be necessary to disseminate such findings through
non-academic social media networks, possibly in the form of ‘good practice’ or
‘key questions’. Discussions in workshops between academics and practitioners
might be best practice for aligning research with the real-life problems of media
companies.
In the collaboration with industry reported in this paper, the most important
conclusion to emerge was that the pace of companies is faster than the pace of
academia. It takes a great deal of time from a university securing funding to
conduct a survey until the data are published. Data from a year ago is outdated
and therefore useless to the industry. Online questionnaires are a cheaper option,
but by being limited to online users this audience is not representative of the
overall population.
It is likely that using other kinds of methodologies, such as in-depth interviews
or qualitative studies, would elicit more enlightening responses than those to
questionnaires. Qualitative studies would help us to understand the subjective
motivations and perceptions of viewers, not only revealing how many people are
watching. In order to contribute to building a better society, and to getting to
know how audiences evaluate what they choose, what they learn from the con
tent, and what they expect from media output it is also necessary to return to the
media industry its public mission.
In order to serve the industry, universities need to design surveys in colla
boration with media practitioners. Sometimes what university researchers do is
not useful for industry because it is removed from their interests. When academics
work with consultants and agencies, industry practitioners feel that they are better
understood because, among others, they have access to bigger samples than those
the universities can reach.
Finally, another difficulty that researchers face is the need to be original. The
number of media economics and management researchers in Spain is relatively
large, so many similar papers are being published in journals. Contact with the
industry may help them to design original research, but the strength of academic
research is to bring forward and to question theories. Hence, university scholars
need to learn to study reality in a different way. The Spanish Academic Quality
Assessment Agency (ANECA) started in 2019 to take into account the applic
ability of results to industry and society in terms of promoting the professional
careers of scholars and their research projects.
However, according to a panel of media experts universities should bring
knowledge and certainties, rather than data. Serene reflection and time are the two
230 Mercedes Medina
variables that are abundant in the university arena and scarce in industry. There
fore, universities must serve industry by looking towards the future and instructing
the new generations that fill their classrooms in how the world will be.
References
AIMC. (2017). Marco general de los medios en España 2016. Madrid: AIMC. Retrieved from:
www.aimc.es/a1mc-c0nt3nt/uploads/2017/01/marco17.pdf.
Arnold, S. (2016). Netflix and the myth of choice/participation/autonomy. In K. McDo
nald & D. Smith-Rowsey (Eds.), The Netflix effect: Technology and entertainment in the 21st
century (pp. 49–62). New York: Bloomsbury.
Bartsch, A., Vorderer, P., Mangold, R. & Reinhold, V. (2008). Appraisal of emotions in
media use: Toward a process model of meta-emotion and emotion regulation. Media
Psychology, 11(1), 7–27.
Bayo-Moriones, A., Etayo, C. & Sánchez-Tabernero, A. (2018). Revisiting quality televi
sion: Audience perceptions. International Journal on Media Management, 20(3), 193–215.
Bondad-Brown, B. (2012). Influences on TV viewing and online user-shared video use:
Demographics, generations, contextual age, media use, motivations and audience activ
ity. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 56(4), 471–493.
Bourdon, J. & Méadel, C. (2011). Inside television audience measurement: Deconstructing
the ratings machine. Media, Culture & Society, 33(5), 791–800.
Buzzard, K. (2012). Tracking the audience: The ratings industry from analog to digital. New
York: Routledge.
Chan-Olmsted, S. M. & Xiao, M. (2018). Multiplatform. A consumption perspective. In
A. B. Albarran, B. Mierzejewska & J. Jung (Eds.), Handbook of media management and
economics (2nd ed.) (pp. 317–332). New York: Routledge.
CNMC. (2018). Informe annual. Retrieved from: http://data.cnmc.es/datagraph/jsp/inf_
anual.jsp.
Ferguson, D. & Perse, E. (2004). Audience satisfaction among TiVO and ReplayTV users.
Journal of Interactive Advertising, 4(2), 1–8.
Findanygame. (2017). Digital film and series platforms in Spain. Retrieved from: www.audio
visual451.com/wp-content/uploads/PlataformasdigitalesdecineyseriesenEspana2017.pdf.
García, I. (2016). Transcultural remakes of scripted television formats (PhD Dissertation). Uni
versidad de Navara. Retrieved from: https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/tesis?codigo=176820.
Green, M. C. (2004). Transportation into narrative worlds: The role of prior knowledge
and perceived realism. Discourse Processes, 38(2), 247–266.
Guerrero, E. (2018). Millennials’ abandonment of linear television. Revista Latina de Comunica
ción Social, 73, 1231–1246.
Guerrero, E., Diego, P. & Kimber, D. (2017). Hooked on lit screens. Enganchados a las
pantallas. El profesional de la información, 26(6), 1108–1117.
Haven, B. (2007). Marketing’s new key metric: Engagement marketers must measure
involvement, interaction, intimacy, and influence. Retrieved from: http://snproject.
pbworks.com/f/NewMetric_Engagement.pdf.
Havens, T. (2014). Media programming in an era of big data. Media Industries Journal, 1(2),
4–9. http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/mij.15031809.0001.202.
Herrero, M., Medina, M. & Urgellés, A. (2018). Online recommendation systems in the
Spanish audiovisual market: Comparative analysis between Atresmedia, Movistar+ and
Netflix. UCJC Business & Society Review, 15(4), 54–89.
Hulks, B. (2001). It can’t go on like this much longer. Admap, 26–28 February.
IAB. (2014). Defining and measuring digital ad engagement in a cross-platform world.
International advertising bureau. Retrieved from: www.iab.net/media/file/Ad_ Enga
gement_Spectrum2014_FINAL2–5-2014-EB.PDF.
Igartua, J. J. & Muñiz, C. (2008). Identificación con los personajes y disfrute ante largo
metrajes de ficción. Una investigación empírica. Communication & Society, 21(1), 25–52.
Johnson-Laird, P. N. & Oatley, K. (1989). The language of emotions: An analysis of a
semantic field. Cognition and Emotion, 3(2), 81–123.
Kantarmedia. (2018). Anuario de audiencias de televisión. Retrieved from: https://anuario.
kantarmedia.es/2017/presentacion.html.
Kimber, D. (2019). Desarrollo y validación de tres escalas para medir la calidad de los productos
televisivos (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain.
Krakowiak, K. M. & Oliver, M. B. (2012). When good characters do bad things: Examining
the effect of moral ambiguity on enjoyment. Journal of Communication, 62(1), 117–135.
Larsen, S. F. & Laszlo, J. (1990). Cultural-historical knowledge and personal experience in
appreciation of literature. European Journal of Social Psychology, 20, 425–440.
Lowenstein, F. (2014). Why you should pay attention to upworthy measuring engagement
in ‘attention minutes’. Retrieved from: www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/upworthy_
attention_minutes.php.
Manero, C. B., Uceda, E. G. & Serrano, V. O. (2013). Understanding the consumption of
television programming: Development and validation of a structural model for quality,
satisfaction and audience behaviour. International Journal of Marketing Studies, 5(1), 142–156.
Medina, M. (2017). La televisión privada nacional. In E. Gutiérrez (Ed.), Televisión abierta.
Situación actual y tendencias de futuro de la TDT (pp. 39–59). Madrid: Colegio Oficial de
Ingenieros de Telecomunicaciones.
Medina, M. & Herrero, M. (2015). Television channels and the Internet: Opportunities for
the identity and the future of broadcasters. In P. Faustino, E. Noam, C. Scholz & J.
Lavine (Eds.), Media industry dynamics: Management, concentration, policies, convergence and
competition (pp. 329–346). Lisbon: Media XXI.
Medina, M., Herrero, M. & Etayo, C. (2016). The impact of DTT in the willingness to
pay for TV in Spain. The International Journal of Digital Television, 7(1), 83–98.
Medina, M., Herrero, M. & Urgellés, A. (2017). Current and emerging issues in the audiovisual
industry. London: ISTE-Wiley.
Medina, M., Sánchez-Tabernero, A. & Larrainzar, A. (2020). Growth strategies of media
companies: Efficiency analysis. Palabra Clave, 23(1): e2317. https://doi.org/10.5294/
pacla.2020.23.1.7
Mir, A., Errázuriz, I., Kimber, D. & Santa María, I. (2008). Quality index in Chilean open
television. Journal of Spanish Language Media, 1, 44–67.
Nabi, R. L. & Krcmar, M. (2004). Conceptualizing media enjoyment as attitude: Impli
cations for mass media effects research. Communication Theory, 14, 288–310.
Nabi, R. L., Stitt, C. R., Halford, J. & Finnerty, K. L. (2006). Emotional and cognitive
predictors of the enjoyment of reality-based and fictional television programming: An
elaboration of the uses and gratifications perspective. Media Psychology, 8(4), 421–447.
Napoli, P. M. (2012). Audience evolution and the future of audience research. International
Napoli, P. M. & Roepnack, A. (2018). Big data and media management. In A. Albarran,
B. I. Mierzejewska & J. Jung (Eds.), Handbook of media management and economics (2nd
ed.) (pp. 410–422). London: Routledge.
232 Mercedes Medina
Nelson, J. L. &. Webster, J. G. (2016). Audience currencies in the age of big data. Inter
national Journal on Media Management, 18(1), 9–24.
Oliver, M. B. (2003). Mood management and selective exposure. In J. Bryant, D. Roskos-
Ewolsen & J. Cantor (Eds.), Communication and emotion: Essays in honor of Dolf Zillman
(pp. 85–106). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Oliver, M. B. & Raney, A. A. (2011). Entertainment as pleasurable and meaningful:
Identifying hedonic and eudaimonic motivations for entertainment consumption. Journal
of Communication, 61(5), 984–1004.
Packer, M. (1989). Dissolving the paradox of tragedy. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Cri
ticism, 47(3), 211–219.
Perse, E. M. (1992). Predicting attention to local television news: Need for cognition and
motives for viewing. Communication Reports, 5(1), 40–49.
Personality Media. (2018). Análisis de imagen cadenas de television. Madrid. Retrieved from:
www.personalitymedia.es/sitio/index.php/es/noticias/notas-de-prensa/item/183-informe
de-imagen-2018-principales-cadenas-y-programas-de-tv.
Phalen, P. F. & Ducey, R. V. (2012). Audience behavior in the multi-screen ‘video-verse’.
Portilla, I. (2015). Television audience measurement: Proposals of the industry in the era of
digitalization. Trípodos, 36, 75–92.
Portilla, I. & Medina, M. (2016). Monetization strategies and audience data for online
video. The case of Atresmedia. Quaderns del CAC, 19(42), 27–36.
Pujadas, E. (2013). La calidad televisiva más allá de un concepto políticamente correcto.
Contenidos y perspectivas involucradas. Matrizes, 2(7), 1–18.
Roettgers, J. (2017, 18 March). How Netflix wants to rule the world: A behind-the-scenes
look at a global TV network. Retrieved from: https://variety.com/2017/digital/news/
netflix-lab-day-behind-the-scenes-1202011105/.
Shamir, J. (2007). Quality assessment of television programs in Israel: Can viewers recog
nize production value? Journal of Applied Communication Research, 35(3), 320–341.
Soto-Sanfiel, M., Aymerich-Franch, L. & Ribes Guardia, F. X. (2010). Impacto de la inter
actividad en la identificación con los personajes de ficciones. Psicothema, 22(4), 822–827.
Spanish Government. (2012). Science and technology strategy (2013– 2020). Retrieved from:
www.ciencia.gob.es/stfls/MICINN/Investigacion/FICHEROS/Estrategia_espanola_cien
cia_tecnologia_Innovacion.pdf.
Tapscott, D. (2009). Growing up digital: How the net generation is changing the world. New
York: McGraw-Hill.
Urgellés, A. (2017). Engagement on OTT. The Netflix case (PhD Dissertation). Uni
versidad de Navarra. Retrieved from: www.educacion.es/teseo/mostrarRef.do?ref=
440547.
Vorderer, P., Klimmt, C. & Ritterfeld, U. (2004). Enjoyment: At the heart of media
entertainment. Communication Theory, 14(4), 388–408.
Webster, J. G. (2014). The marketplace of attention: How audiences take shape in a digital age.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Webster, J. G. (2017). Three myths of digital media. Convergence: The International Journal of
Research into New Media Technologies, 23(4), 1–10.
15
DIGITAL PRIVACY AND NEW MEDIA
Reflecting on Lessons for Policy and Practice
Conor O’Kane
BOURNEMOUTH UNIVERSITY
Introduction
In July 2019, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) fined Facebook $5 billion
after deciding the company had violated a pledge not to misuse customer data
(Roberts, 2019). The violation relates to the political consultancy Cambridge
Analytica having ‘improperly obtained’ the personal information of more than 50
million Facebook users. The fine brings into sharp focus the risks to new media
firms who do not comply with the relevant data protection rules in the jurisdic
tions in which their firms operate.
Issues around data protection and privacy have received limited attention among
academic scholars researching in media economics and media management. Managerial
decision-making in media firms is increasingly dependent on analysis of large quantities
of personal data and it is important to acknowledge the privacy implications this raises
(Napoli & Roepnack, 2018). Media management scholar Rohn (2018) suggests that
research should focus on media firms that produce content as well as those who operate
platforms that distribute content, including user-generated content. This means that
new media firms like YouTube, Netflix, Facebook, Google and Apple have become
just as important to media management researchers as traditional mass media firms.
Technological growth is the key driver of a rapid expansion in the global ‘new
media’ industry in recent years and the economic success of media firms now
depends primarily on their ability to successfully adapt and capitalise on technological
advances (Doyle, 2013). As such, personal data is the currency that underpins digital
business models (Picard, 2002; Libert & Pickard, 2015; Evens & Van Damme, 2016).
In 2017 an Economist editorial declared data as the new oil (Economist, 2017).
The emergence of ‘Web 2.0’ technologies in the form of social media, blogs,
micro-blogging and online social networks has seen individuals change from
234 Conor O’Kane
consumers of information to producers of often highly personal data (Acquisti et

al., 2016). The availability of personal data has fuelled the growth of an online
behavioural advertising (OBA) industry. Many advertisers see OBA as the key to
communicating with targeted audiences (Boerman et al., 2017).
However, these developments have attracted criticism from privacy campaigners
who claim that some online new media services promote a culture of disclosure
(Privacy International, 2007). Campaigners argue that advertising incomes are
generated as a result of disclosure of users’ personal information, and this constitutes
an invasion of privacy. Despite the range of media services offered by Alphabet Inc.
(Google’s parent company), it is their AdWords product, essentially a sophisticated
OBA tool, that allows advertisers to target users based on their online activities,
which generates a staggering 90% of its total annual revenue (Alphabet Investor
Relations, 2018).
In the EU, the 2018 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) represents a
comprehensive overhaul of data protection provisions for all firms that operate
within the EU jurisdiction. Although the GDPR is a wide-ranging directive,
article 100 states, ‘In order to enhance transparency and compliance with this
Regulation, the establishment of certification mechanisms and data protection
seals and marks should be encouraged, allowing data subjects to quickly assess the
level of data protection of relevant products and services’ (Regulation, 2016, p.
19). It is envisaged that firms could display privacy seals to reassure consumers of
their compliance with relevant data protection regulations. While privacy seals
have been used in the past, it is the third-party verified nature of what the GDPR
proposes that makes it unique.
Not only privacy campaigners and regulators have privacy concerns in relation
to new media services. Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook, declared privacy to be
one of the most important issues of the twenty-first century. In a 2018 interview,
Cook said, ‘I’m not a pro-regulation kind of person. I believe in the free market
deeply [but] when the free market doesn’t produce a result that’s great for society,
you have to ask yourself: What do we need to do? And I think some level of
government regulation is important’. (Thornhill, 2018). Cook describes how the
trade in digital data has ‘exploded’ into what he calls a ‘data industrial complex’. He
describes how our personal data is being aggregated and ‘weaponized’ against us.
‘We shouldn’t sugarcoat the consequences. This is surveillance’, Cook adds
(Lomas, 2018).
There are concerns that individuals may be negatively impacted by a lack of data
protection. Risks to consumers include tangible costs such as identity theft and
price discrimination, as well as less tangible risks such as psychological discomfort
and/or anxiety (Stone & Stone, 1990; Feri et al., 2016). A research gap exists
within the media economics and media management scholarship in relation to
how privacy concerns impact on new media consumers’ decision-making when
engaging with these services. What steps can media firms take to reassure con
sumers that their personal data is safe with them?
Digital Privacy and New Media 235
The purpose of this research is to examine what impact the display of a third-
party accredited privacy seal has on personal information disclosure. The third-
party accredited element is unique to this research. Existing research in this area
saw privacy seals deployed to demonstrate compliance with firms’ stated privacy
policy and not the relevant laws for a jurisdiction. The findings here suggest that
the display of privacy seals does not reduce personal information disclosure. The
findings have important implications for media firms as it suggests they may
be able to use privacy seals to demonstrate regulatory compliance, and this could
be a source of competitive advantage.
The privacy seal provision in the GDPR prompted us to investigate the impact(s)
of privacy seals on sensitive personal information disclosure in online environments
and question whether privacy seals have a role in providing media consumers with
reassurances that their personal data is being protected from potential misuse. The
findings are considered in terms of what they mean for media firms. Can media
firms use privacy assurances as a source of strategic competitive advantage?
Literature Review
The founding principles of data protection regulations are drawn from a range of
academic disciplines including media law, political science, sociology, economics
and media economics.
A Culture of Disclosure?
While the $5 billion fine imposed on Facebook by the FTC is eye-catching in
terms of its size, Facebook is no stranger to such controversy in relation to privacy.
In 2007, its ad-serving Beacon technology was found to have failed to inform users
on how it shared their details with other services. The controversy resulted in a
class action lawsuit and a $19 million fine. In 2017, Facebook was fined €110
million for ‘misleading the European Commission during its 2014 takeover of
WhatsApp’ (Murgia, 2017). Facebook was also separately fined by French and
Italian regulators over the way it tracked and made users’ web-browsing informa
tion available to advertisers. This was again in breach of EU data protection laws.
The following provides a useful example of how Facebook can perhaps be seen
as facilitating a culture of disclosure. Voncom is just one of a multitude of firms
that provide interactive content including quizzes and ‘top 10’ lists, etc., on the
social network. In 2015, Voncom launched an interactive service that allowed
Facebook users to create an ‘info-graphic’ or ‘word cloud’ based on the words
they had used most often on Facebook. Users were shown a message to say that
the app would need to access their Facebook data in order to create the ‘word
cloud’ image. It was a popular app used by an estimated 17+ million users.
As it transpired, the ‘infograph’ application accessed the name, profile picture,
age, gender, birthday, entire friend list, all timeline posts, all the user’s photos,
236 Conor O’Kane
hometown, education history and everything the user had ever ‘liked’ on Face-
book (Wakefield, 2015). Would 17 million people have used the app had they
had explicitly known how much personal information about themselves they
were disclosing?
Defining Privacy
Although notions of privacy have existed for many centuries, the experiences of
World War II are the driving force behind European data protection laws (Loring,
2002). Elaborate population registers in Holland, compiled primarily for public
policy and state planning purposes, were used by the invading Germans to identify
individuals for deportation, many to concentration camps. While the information
itself was not harmful, it serves as an example of where personal information freely
supplied today for one reason may be looked upon and treated in a very different
way in the future (Lloyd, 2011).
In what is widely regarded as the seminal article in relation to privacy, the 1890
Harvard Law Journal paper entitled ‘The Right to Privacy’ quoted Judge Thomas
Cooley’s claim for an individual’s ‘right to be let alone’ (Warren & Brandeis,
1890, p. 193). Lawyer Charles Fried later provides a similarly concise definition of
privacy as ‘control over knowledge about oneself’ (Fried, 1968, p. 483).
Research conducted by social scientist Irwin Altman in the 1970s examined a
range of cultures (including the cultures of apparently minimal privacy like the
Mehinacu tribe in Brazil and the Pygmies of Zaire) and found privacy to be a
culturally universal phenomenon. Altman argues that privacy is fundamental to
both individual and wider cultural survival (Altman, 1977).
Political scientist Alan Westin’s definition of privacy reflects the new media, or
‘internet era’. ‘The claim of an individual to determine what information about
himself or herself should be known to others … This, also, involves when such
information will be obtained and what uses will be made of it by others’ (Westin,
2003, p. 7). This definition captures the two key objectives of the landmark EU
95/46/EC Data Protection Directive (the precursor to the GDPR): first, respect
for an individual’s right to privacy (i.e. the claim of an individual to determine
what information about himself or herself should be known to others); and
second, how this information is obtained and used by third parties as well as how
media businesses manage this ‘free flow’ of information.
Both ‘control’ and ‘transparency’ are founding principles of EU data protection
provisions (Directive 1995) captured in the landmark 95/46/EC Directive (and
later incorporated in the 2018 GDPR). The 95/46/EC Directive became effective
on 25 October 1998 and established information privacy as a basic human right.
The key objective of the directive was to promote the internal market (Murray,
1997). This was achieved by balancing two principal objectives: (1) the protection
of the fundamental rights of an individual’s right to privacy; and (2) the prevention
of obstacles to the free flow of information among Member States (Maxeiner,
1995). The founding principles reveal the key tension at the heart of EU data
protection regulations; that is, the protection of the individual’s fundamental right
to privacy versus the promotion of trade and growth by allowing the free flow of
information.
Economics of Privacy
There is a body of literature that examines privacy from an economics perspec
tive; that is, privacy economics. Key neoliberal/neoclassical economists like Stig
ler (1980) and Posner (1981) disliked formal regulation and favour self-regulation
of markets. The free market approach views the formal EU style, regulatory-
driven approach to data protection as problematic. Apart from the ‘transactional
costs’ argument (i.e. compliance with regulation adds cost and this impacts on
prices and competitiveness), they also argue that the length of time it takes gov
ernments to formulate and enact legislation (for a particular technology) means
the ‘new’ technology itself is often outdated or superseded in the meantime
(Beck, 2001). There are also concerns that efforts to rein in technology through
regulation will force firms to move to less privacy-restrictive jurisdictions, and this
in turn will hurt jobs and economic growth. Beck (2001) further argues that any
attempt to control technologies will force developers to design more complex
systems that are more difficult to monitor. Broadly speaking, critics of the EU
style regulatory framework often favour a more free market approach/solution.
However, the free market approach also attracts criticism from privacy cam
paigners (McLaughlan, 2017). Those who favour a regulatory approach to specific
industries cite that regulation can be used ‘to promote activities or results bene
ficial to the public good, to limit or halt activities or results harmful to the public
good’ (Picard, 2002, p. 70).
Early approaches to privacy economics from the late 1970s (Posner, 1978;
Stigler, 1980; Posner, 1981) viewed consumers as rational agents who made
decisions on their privacy based on a trade or transactional approach (Acquisti,
2009). Acting with perfect information, users ‘trade’ their personal information in
return for the ‘utility’ gained from the product or service they consume. For
example, when applied to a new media service like Facebook, people who use
the social network are, in fact, trading their personal information in return for
functionality that allows them to connect with friends and share comments,
photos and ‘likes’, etc. Both sides of the trade are rational actors and making their
decisions with full knowledge. The granting of privacy rights through regulation
is considered to distort the free market. Any costs associated with adhering to
regulation lead to inefficiencies (i.e. inflated prices) and, ultimately, lower eco
nomic growth on a macro level (Posner, 1981).
From the 1990s, privacy economics literature incorporated more complex
concepts like bounded rationality, where framing and heuristics are considered to
influence decision-making (Acquisti, 2009). Rapid technological advances created
238 Conor O’Kane
‘information asymmetry’, where individuals could not understand/consider all

potential uses/sharing of their personal data when making personal information
disclosure decisions (i.e. they lacked full knowledge/transparency). This repre
sented a major departure from the existing rational choice theory/approach.
From approximately 2000, the emergence of the Internet and related technol
ogies saw the rapid growth of new media firms. Many of these firms provided the
majority – if not all – of their services for ‘free’, relying on advertising income for
revenue. Data protection regulators recognise the complex trade-offs consumers face
when making information disclosure decisions and believe that data subjects (i.e.
consumers) must be given greater control and transparency of their personal
information in order to reduce information asymmetry (Regulation, 2016).
The Privacy Paradox

A number of research outputs have identified a so-called ‘privacy paradox’ with
respect to online personal information disclosure. The term was first coined by Barnes
(2006) and refers to the apparent disconnect between our stated privacy preferences
and actual behaviour in online environments. When people consume online media
services, they effectively ‘trade’ personal information (including ‘likes’, images, hob
bies, location, interests, etc.) for access to services. Researchers have attempted to gain
a deeper understanding of how data subjects make these privacy trade-off decisions.
Empirical research outputs demonstrate inconsistent and, at times, counter-intuitive
findings (Acquisti, 2004; Acquisti & Grossklags 2005; Tsai et al., 2011). Although
users express a stated desire for privacy, their actual behaviours contradict this (i.e. the
‘privacy paradox’). Furthermore, privacy-enhancing features designed to improve
transparency (i.e. reduce information asymmetry) can result in data subjects revealing
more personal information in situations where they are more at risk of unwanted
disclosure. Further research is needed to improve models of user behaviour and to
ascertain the most appropriate policy mechanisms to protect consumer privacy
expectation. The privacy paradox creates complexities for regulators who are aware
that a failure to meet the privacy challenges that arise from new technologies may, in
fact, damage commerce and economic growth going forward (Cate, 2011).
Regulating Privacy: ‘Control’ and ‘Transparency’

In the EU, the GDPR sets out to address the perceived failings in the existing
regulatory provisions. Consistent with academic definitions of privacy, regulators
identify transparency and control as key to protecting individuals’ privacy. For
mally, information transparency can be defined as ‘the degree of visibility and
accessibility of information’ (Zhu, 2002, p. 93). Features that promote informa
tion transparency give individuals access to the information that a firm has col
lected about them, as well as how that information may or indeed will be used in
the future (Awad & Krishnan, 2006).
This very much echoes the view of Rohn (2018), who identifies trust and
authority as a key issue for twenty-first-century media scholars. As well as pro
viding clear definitions of key terms like ‘personal data’, EU and US regulators
identify the importance of giving media consumers greater ‘control’ and ‘trans
parency’ over their personal data to help engender trust between the two parties.
Research from media scholars Evens and Van Damme (2016), who looked at
online newspaper services, reinforces the importance of transparency to media
consumers. Findings show that while most consumers are generally comfortable
sharing basic demographic data (i.e. gender, date of birth, interests, etc.) with
media firms, they are more reluctant to share personal data relating to contact
details and financial information. Media firms must provide full transparency in
relation to the possible uses of personal data in order to engender trust with
consumers. Trust is an important factor, as consumers are more likely to share
personal data with platforms they consider trustworthy (Chellappa & Sin, 2005).
While transparency is clearly important, the complexity around how this is
communicated to users (i.e. through privacy policies and/or terms and conditions)
is a major area of concern for regulators (Granados et al., 2006). The complexity
of privacy polices generally means that they are not read by users (Jensen et al.,
2005; Reidenberg et al., 2015; Vila et al., 2004).
Will the presence of an accredited privacy seal on a firm’s website help promote
the transparency and control assurances that regulators believe are missing? The
research outlined here empirically tests how use of iconography in the form of
privacy seals impacts on personal information disclosure in online environments.
The relatively limited existing empirical research in relation to the use of
privacy seals shows inconsistent/inconclusive findings. Two studies from the
United States (John et al., 2010; Brandimarte et al., 2013) suggest that data sub
jects can behave in unpredictable and counter-intuitive ways in relation to priv
acy seals/icons/prompts; i.e. the so-called ‘privacy paradox’. Will the use of
privacy seals as envisaged in the GDPR result in a ‘Peltzman effect’, where data
subjects effectively behave more recklessly and disclose more personal informa
tion? There is also evidence that explicit assurances of anonymity can, contrary to
their intended purpose, trigger data subjects’ privacy concerns. This can result in
less information being shared in circumstances where the risk of personal infor
mation disclosure is lower (Acquisti & Grossklags, 2012). This has important
implications for media managers. Why would a firm participate in a third-party
accredited privacy seal scheme if it triggers privacy concerns and leads to reduced
information disclosure?
Project
My research set out to empirically examine the impact third-party accredited
privacy seals as envisaged in the GDPR have on personal information disclosure.
240 Conor O’Kane
The overarching research question examined was: What impact(s) do privacy seals
have on sensitive personal information disclosure in online environments?
The GDPR identifies ‘sensitive data’ categories as ‘personal data revealing racial
or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade
union membership, and the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the
purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data
concerning a natural person’s sex life or sexual orientation shall be prohibited’
(Regulation 2016, Article 9(1)).
Method
A series of surveys and experiments was conducted. Participants for the surveys
and experiments were recruited using Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). All
MTurk ‘workers’ were required to meet two core criteria in order to maintain
the external validity of the data. These were: (a) ‘HIT Approval Rate’ greater
than 95; and (b) their ‘Number of HITS completed greater than 100’. MTurk
recruits were paid for their participation; the fee was approximately $0.80 per
survey/experiment. The funds for this came from Bournemouth University in the
UK, where I was studying for my PhD. The EU-based sensitive data survey had
225 respondents, while the EU-based experiment had 337 responses. The US-
based sensitive data survey had 201 respondents, while the US-based experiment
had 312 responses.
In the process of designing the experiments, I sought and received permission
to use two ‘privacy seals’ that are commercially in use. The company ePrivacy
operates one such privacy seal accreditation scheme in the EU. Anyone who
wants to display their seal must undertake an in-depth audit of their products.
The privacy seal is awarded as testament to ‘a product’s compliance with the list
of ePrivacyseal EU criteria, which reflects the requirements imposed by EU data
protection legislation. This includes the principles of the new EU General Data
Protection Regulation (applicable from May 2018), as well as those of the EU
Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC’ (ePrivacy 2018).
The company EuroPriSe operates a similar accreditation scheme. Their website
states, ‘The EuroPriSe website privacy certification is awarded to websites that are
compliant with EU data protection law and that meet all of EuroPriSe’s high-
quality data protection requirements’ (EuroPriSe, 2017).
Key Findings
Survey participants were correctly able to differentiate between categories of per
sonal data considered ‘sensitive’ in the GDPR from those categories not considered
sensitive. However, significant numbers of respondents thought that personal
information that indicated their ‘home address details’, ‘mobile telephone number’
and ‘email address’ was given additional ‘sensitive personal data’ protection, even
though it is not afforded this protection in law. The results also show that a sig
nificant percentage of respondents wrongly believed that some categories of data
are afforded additional protection under data protection regulations when they are
not. These data categories can be used/shared to target advertising messages by data
controllers whose users have disclosed their personal data to.
Participants were also asked what categories of personal data they thought
should be categorised as sensitive under data protection regulations. The most
striking findings here are how both EU and US survey findings reveal the same
top four categories of personal data with the highest percentages of respondents
indicating that the category should be classified as ‘sensitive’ personal data. They
are ‘heath or medical data’, ‘physical location or movement’, ‘personal income
details’ and ‘home address or postcode’. The fact that these are not all classified as
‘sensitive’ personal data shows there is a mismatch between the regulations and
consumer expectations.
A series of randomised experiments was conducted to examine what impact, if
any, the presence of a privacy seal has on categories of personal data that we
know both EU and US respondents regard as ‘sensitive’ personal data. Overall,
the experiment results show that the presence of a privacy seal ‘treatment’ does
not result in a statistically significant level of information disclosure compared to
the ‘control’ group where no privacy seal was presented.
Extending Existing Research

The results of this experiment extend existing research findings in a number of
areas. Consistent with the findings from Rifon et al. (2005), the presence of a
privacy seal in our experiments did not influence personal information disclosure
either positively or negatively. On the core issue of privacy seals not impacting
the amount of personal information disclosed, the findings are indeed consistent.
Existing research has also examined the role contextual clues (i.e. a privacy seal
or icon) play in personal information disclosure. Findings from John et al. (2010)
showed that the display of text warnings about potential privacy violations trig
gered privacy concerns resulting in users ‘clamming up’, which reduced infor
mation disclosure. In my experiment findings, the presence of a contextual clue
in the form of a privacy seal did not lead to any statistically significant difference
in personal information disclosure. Therefore, we can say that the presence of the
privacy seal did not have any positive or negative ‘contextual clue’ causal impact
on personal information disclosure.
These findings have potentially very important implications for new media
service providers and, indeed, for media managers. The findings here offer no
evidence that the display of privacy seals ‘trigger privacy concerns’ that, in turn,
lead to a reduction in personal information disclosure. This is an important find
ing for new media firms. Displaying a privacy seal that reduces personal infor
mation disclosure would effectively act as a disincentive for firms to participate in
242 Conor O’Kane
such an accreditation scheme. However, these findings provide empirical evi

dence that privacy seals do not lead to less personal information disclosure. Media
firms who are rigorous in complying with data protection rules can use privacy
seals to communicate this compliance and differentiate themselves in the crowded
new media services markets. It may be a source of competitive advantage. As new
media consumers become increasingly aware of how their personal information is
being used to sell and/or influence their purchasing and indeed voting beha
viours, they may well seek out trusted service providers who offer additional,
externally validated assurances. Media firms that fail to meet consumers’ expec
tations in terms of protecting their personal data risk damaging their brand. Tim
Cook’s comments echo this view.
Additionally, due to the so-called ‘Peltzman effect’ as applied to personal
information disclosure, we would expect the display of a privacy seal (or other
privacy-enhancing technologies) to result in more ‘reckless’ personal information
disclosure, exposing individuals to greater risk of identity theft, fraud, etc. The
results of the experiments conducted do not show any evidence of the presence
of any such ‘Peltzman effect’.
Similarly, there is no evidence of the ‘unintended consequences’ observed by
Carolan and Castillo-Mayen (2014), where mechanisms designed to empower
data subjects with more control are not observable in any predictable manner.
The evidence from the experiments conducted here suggests that a privacy policy
independently verifying compliance with data protection regulations has no sta
tistically significant impact (i.e. higher or lower level of disclosure) on personal
information disclosure.
These findings add further evidence to the existence of a ‘privacy paradox’.
Although both US and EU respondents identified categories of data as ‘sensitive
personal data’, the experiments showed that many were willing to disclose this
personal information for a relatively small financial reward; i.e. $0.80. This is an
example of where stated privacy concerns do not match actual behaviours (Tad
dicken, 2014).
From Theory to Practice – Reflections

While conducting this research in 2018, Christopher Wylie, a data scientist and
former employee of Cambridge Analytica turned whistle-blower, gave evidence
to the UK House of Commons’ Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee
that personal data collected from Facebook was used to target voters and may
even have influenced elections. This was a major international story at the time.
I was contacted by the managing editor of the Trinity Mirror Group (now
called Reach) and asked to write a 1,500-word article for their publication, the
Daily Mirror. The newspaper had a print circulation of approximately 600,000 in
April 2018. The article explained how the ‘personality quiz’ application had been
distributed on Facebook by a researcher at Cambridge University and had collected
personal details on approximately 87 million Facebook members. In the article, I

discussed how the data was harvested from Facebook and how this kind of personal
data collection challenged the core principles of data privacy; i.e. control and
transparency (O’Kane, 2018). The article appeared on page 7 of the print edition
and online on 6 April 2018. A link to the article was tweeted by a UK journalist
and author with over 600,000 followers.
A week later, I was asked to write a shorter follow-up piece on the GDPR and
what tech firms needed to do to regain the trust of consumers. It was here I was
able to argue that some form of external validation of the privacy practices for all
firms that deal with personal data was needed and that a privacy seal type scheme
as envisaged in the GDPR could be a useful way forward.
It was great to have had an opportunity to bring my research interests to a
wider network and mainstream audience. As Oliver (2017) states, ‘early career
academics will be looking at the opportunities that digital technology can offer
them to develop their profile, access new networks and extend the reach and
impact of their research outputs’. It was somewhat challenging to write in a non
academic style, where you cannot assume the reader has any significant knowl
edge of the topic you are writing about. It is certainly true that my personal and
professional networks had helped extend the reach of my research.
For me, the data industrial complex sees new media and tech firms facilitate a
lucrative OBA industry, where personal data is weaponized for commercial and
political reasons. This represents a serious threat that requires a national/interna
tional campaign to inform and mitigate against the most serious consequences.
This should be considered an issue of national health and, as such, a national
public information campaign approach should be adopted to inform the public
about the potential risks and how to take steps to avoid those risks.
Personalised and targeted advertising is seen as the future of advertising (Kumar
& Gupta, 2016; Schultz, 2016; Rust, 2016). Third-party accredited privacy seals
have a role to play in highlighting to data subjects new media services that have
been independently verified as complying with the relevant regulations. It may
also assist them in avoiding services that may use their data in a way that is not
permitted under that law. While privacy seals are not the sole ‘solution’, they
have a role to play in maintaining the confidence of new media consumers.
In the light of regulatory fines in relation to privacy breeches, new media firms
need to manage both the requirements of regulators and the expectations of their
consumers while maintaining revenues/profits. Failure to comply with regulations
may result in significant financial penalties. However, as consumers become more
aware of the potential harm resulting from the misuse of their personal data, it is
likely that some consumers will seek services that guarantee greater protections
for their data. There is an opportunity to gain the trust of new media consumers
in relation to how the privacy of their personal data is managed.
As Evens and Van Damme (2016) note, the willingness of users to share personal
data is essential in order for media organisations to establish intimate relationships
244 Conor O’Kane
with consumers. Transparency in terms of how data is collected, shared and used is
an important component of this relationship. If you already comply with the rele
vant data protection regulations, then why not get this independently verified by a
third party and give consumers that assurance and engender trust?
New media service providers who choose to ignore the warnings from the likes of
Tim Cook risk reputational damage that will impact on revenues and profits. While
service providers must adhere to the relevant data protection laws, it is also likely that
OBA will become more and more sophisticated. It is time for the industry to engage
with tools that can build trust with media consumers. New media researchers have a
role to play in researching initiatives and functionality that helps inform media
managers on how to develop their services to meet all stakeholders needs.
References
Acquisti, A. (2004). Privacy in electronic commerce and the economics of immediate
gratification. Proceedings of the 5th ACM conference on electronic commerce (pp. 21–29).
ACM. Retrieved from: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/988772.988777.
Acquisti, A. (2009). Nudging privacy: The behavioral economics of personal information.
IEEE Security & Privacy, 7(6), 82–85.
Acquisti, A. & Grossklags, J. (2005). Privacy and rationality in individual decision making.
IEEE Security & Privacy, 3(1), 26–33.
Acquisti, A. & Grossklags, J. (2012). An online survey experiment on ambiguity and
privacy. Communications & Strategies, 88(4), 19–39.
Acquisti, A., Taylor, C. & Wagman, L. (2016). The economics of privacy. Journal of Eco
nomic Literature, 54(2), 442–492.
Alphabet Investor Relations. (2018). Alphabet announces fourth quarter and fiscal year
2017 results. Alphabet Investor Relations. Retrieved from: https://abc.xyz/investor/sta
tic/pdf/2017Q4_alphabet_earnings_release.pdf?cache=33ec3b1.
Altman, I. (1977). Privacy regulation: Culturally universal or culturally specific? Journal of
Social Issues, 33(3), 66–84.
Awad, N. F. & Krishnan, M. S. (2006). The personalization privacy paradox: An empirical
evaluation of information transparency and the willingness to be profiled online for
personalization. MIS Quarterly, 30(1), 13–28.
Barnes, S. B. (2006). A privacy paradox: Social networking in the United States. First
Monday, 11(9). Retrieved from: http://dx.doi.org/10.5210/fm.v11i9.1394.
Beck, J. C. (2001). Get a grip! Regulating cyberspace won’t be easy. Business Law Today,
14–19. Retrieved from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23291469?seq=1.
Boerman, S. C., Kruikemeier, S. & Zuiderveen Borgesius, F. J. (2017). Online behavioral
advertising: A literature review and research agenda. Journal of Advertising, 46(3), 363–376.
Brandimarte, L., Acquisti, A. & Loewenstein, G. (2013). Misplaced confidences: Privacy
and the control paradox. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 4(3), 340–347.
Carolan, E. & Castillo-Mayen, M. R. (2014). Why more user control does not mean more
user privacy: An empirical (and counter-intuitive) assessment of European e-privacy
laws. Va. JL & Tech.,19, 324.
Cate, F. H. (2011). A transatlantic convergence on privacy? IEEE Security & Privacy, 9(1),
76–79.
Chellappa, R. K. & Sin, R. G. (2005). Personalization versus privacy: An empirical examination

of the online consumer’s dilemma. Information Technology and Management, 6(2–3), 181–202.
Doyle, G. (2013). Understanding media economics. London: Sage.
Economist. (2017, 6 May). The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data.
Retrieved from: www.economist.com/leaders/2017/05/06/the-worlds-most-valuable
resource-is-no-longer-oil-but-data.
ePrivacy. (2018). E-privacyseal. ePrivacy. Retrieved from: www.eprivacy.eu/en/priva
cy-seals/eprivacyseal/.
EU Directive. (1995). 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24
October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal
data and on the free movement of such data. Official Journal of the EC, 23(6).
EuroPriSe. (2017). Website privacy certification. EuroPriSe. Retrieved from: www.europ
ean-privacy-seal.eu/EPS-en/website-privacy-certification-overview.
Evens, T. & Van Damme, K. (2016). Consumers’ willingness to share personal data:
Implications for newspapers’ business models. International Journal on Media Management,
18(1), 25–41.
Feri, F., Giannetti, C. & Jentzsch, N. (2016). Disclosure of personal information under risk
of privacy shocks. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 123(1), 138–148.
Fried, C. (1968). The value of life. Harvard Law Review, 82(7), 1415–1437.
Granados, N. F., Gupta, A. & Kauffman, R. J. (2006). The impact of IT on market
information and transparency: A unified theoretical framework. Journal of the Association
for Information Systems, 7(3), 148–178.
Jensen, C., Potts, C. & Jensen, C. (2005). Privacy practices of Internet users: Self-reports versus
observed behavior. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 63(1–2), 203–227.
John, L. K., Acquisti, A. & Loewenstein, G. (2010). Strangers on a plane: Context-dependent
willingness to divulge sensitive information. Journal of Consumer Research, 37(5), 858–873.
Kumar, V. & Gupta, S. (2016). Conceptualizing the evolution and future of advertising.
Journal of Advertising, 45(3), 302–317.
Libert, T. & Pickard, V. (2015). Think you’re reading the news for free? New research
shows you’re likely paying with your privacy. The Conversation, 6. Retrieved from: http
s://theconversation.com/think-youre-reading-the-news-for-free-new-research-shows
youre-likely-paying-with-your-privacy-49694.
Lloyd, I. J. (2011). Information technology law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lomas, N. (2018, 22 October). Apple’s Tim Cook makes blistering attack on the ‘data indus
trial complex’. Techcrunch. Retrieved from: https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/24/app
les-tim-cook-makes-blistering-attack-on-the-data-industrial-complex/.
Loring, T. B. (2002). An analysis of the informational privacy protection afforded by the
European Union and the United States. Texas International Law Journal, 37, 423–460.
McLaughlan, M. (2017). Personal data for sale on ‘huge scale’ warns consumer group. The
Scotsman. Retrieved from: www.scotsman.com/news/uk/personal-data-for-sale-on-hu
ge-scale-warns-consumer-group-1-4344881.
Maxeiner, J. R. (1995). Freedom of Information and the EU Data protection Directive.
Federal Communications Law Journal, 48, 93–104.
Murgia, M. (2017, 18 May). Facebook fined €110 by European Commission over WhatsApp
deal. Financial Times. Retrieved from: www.ft.com/content/a2dadc48-3bb1-11e7-821a
-6027b8a20f.23?mhq5j=e1.
Murray, P. J. (1997). The adequacy standard under Directive 95/46/EC: Does US data
protection meet this standard? Fordham International Law Journal, 21, 932–1018.
246 Conor O’Kane
Napoli, P. M. & Roepnack, A. (2018). Big data and media management. In A. B. Albarran, B.
Mierzejewska & J. Jung (Eds.), Handbook of media management and economics (pp. 410–421).
New York: Routledge.
O’Kane, C. P. (2018, 6 April). As Facebook admits grabbing personal data of 87m users,
it’s time we switched off these i-spies. Daily Mirror. Retrieved from: www.mirror.co.uk/
news/uk-news/facebook-admits-grabbing-personal-data-12312131.
Oliver, J. J. (2017). Developing a distinctive digital research profile and network. In N.
Kucirkova & O. Quinlan (Eds.), The digitally agile researcher (pp. 80–87). London: Open
University Press/ McGraw-Hill Education.
Picard, R. G. (2002). US newspaper ad revenue shows consistent growth. Newspaper
Research Journal, 23(4), 21–33.
Posner, R. A. (1978). Economic theory of privacy. Regulation, 2, 19–26.
Posner, R. A. (1981). The economics of privacy. The American Economic Review, 71(2),
405–409.
Privacy International. (2007). A race to the bottom: Privacy ranking of Internet service
companies. Retrieved from: https://privacyinternational.org/sites/default/files/
2017-12/A_Race_bottom.pdf.
Privacy Regulation. (2016). Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of
the Council. Regulation (EU), 679, 2016.
Reidenberg, J. R., Breaux, T., Cranor, L. F., French, B., Grannis, A., Graves, J. T., … &
Ramanath, R. (2015). Disagreeable privacy policies: Mismatches between meaning and
users’ understanding. Berkeley Technology Law Journal, 30(1), 39–88.
Rifon, N. J., LaRose, R. & Choi, S. M. (2005). Your privacy is sealed: Effects of web
privacy seals on trust and personal disclosures. Journal of Consumer Affairs, 39(2), 339–362.
Roberts, J. (2019, 22 July). How Facebook’s $5 billon fine should be spent. Fortune.
Retrieved from: https://fortune.com/2019/07/20/facebook-5-billion-ftc/.
Rohn, U. (2018). Media management research in the twenty-first century. In A. B.
Albarran, B. Mierzejewska & J. Jung (Eds.), Handbook of media management and economics
(pp. 425–441). New York: Routledge.
Rust, R. T. (2016). Comment: Is advertising a zombie? Journal of Advertising, 45(3), 346–347.
Schultz, D. (2016). The future of advertising or whatever we’re going to call it. Journal of
Advertising, 45(3), 276–285.
Stigler, G. J. (1980). An introduction to privacy in economics and politics. The Journal of
Legal Studies, 9(4), 623–644.
Stone, E. F. and Stone, D. L. (1990). Privacy in organizations: Theoretical issues, research
findings and protection mechanisms. Research in Personnel and Human Resources Manage
ment, 8, 349–411.
Taddicken, M. (2014). The ‘privacy paradox’ in the social web: The impact of privacy
concerns, individual characteristics, and the perceived social relevance on different forms
of self-disclosure. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 19(2), 248–273.
Thornhill, J. (2018, 9 October). Silicon Valley needs to earthquake-proof its businesses. FT.
com. Retrieved from: www.ft.com/content/29c162a2-cb19-11e8-b276-b9069bde0956.
Tsai, J. Y., Egelman, S., Cranor, L. & Acquisti, A. (2011). The effect of online privacy
information on purchasing behavior: An experimental study. Information Systems
Research, 22(2), 254–268.
Vila, T., Greenstadt, R. & Molnar, D. (2004). Why we can’t be bothered to read privacy
policies. In L. J. Camp & S. Lewis (Eds.), Economics of information security (pp. 143–153).
Boston, MA: Springer.
Wakefield, J. (2015, 26 November). Facebook quizzes: What happens to your data. BBC
News. Retrieved from: www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34922029.
Warren, S. D. & Brandeis, L. D. (1890). Right to privacy. Harvard Law Review, 4(5), 193–220.
Westin, A. F. (2003). Social and political dimensions of privacy. Journal of Social Issues, 59
(2), 431–453.
Zhu, K. (2002). Information transparency in electronic marketplaces: Why data transpar
ency may hinder the adoption of B2B exchanges. Electronic markets, 12(2), 92–99.
CONTRIBUTORS
Editors
Ulrike Rohn is Professor of Media Economics and Management at Tallinn University,
Estonia, where she works at the Baltic Film, Media, Arts, and Communication School
(BFM) and the Centre of Excellence in Media Innovation and Digital Culture
(MEDIT). She served as President of the European Media Management Association
(emma, 2016–2020), and is co-Editor of the Springer Series in Media Industries and
Associate Editor of the Journal of Media Business Studies. Ulrike’s research interests
include, among others, audiovisual policies, media business models, and international
media strategies. Latter research interest has led to her book publication Cultural Barriers
to the Success of Foreign Media Content: Western Media in China, India, and Japan (2010).
Tom Evens is an Assistant Professor at research group for Media, Innovation and
Communication Technologies (imec-mict-UGent) at the Department of Commu
nication Sciences at Ghent University, Belgium. He specialises in the economics and
policies of media and technology industries, and has published widely on the media
business. He is the lead author of The Political Economy of Television Sports Rights
(2013) and Platform Power and Policy in Transforming Television Markets (2018). He is a
member of several editorial boards and has been consulting several governments and
media organisations on strategy and public policy issues.
Chapter Authors
Sylvia Chan-Olmsted is the Director of Media Consumer Research at the Uni
versity of Florida. She teaches brand management and media management. Her
research expertise includes digital/mobile media consumption, branding and strategic
Contributors 249
management in emerging media industries. Her current studies involve audience

engagement and media brand trust conceptualisation/measurement, emerging media
audience behaviour and branded content. Dr Chan-Olmsted has conducted con
sumer research for the U.S. National Association of Broadcasters, the Cable Center,
Nielsen, Google, Huffington Post, Bertelsmann (G+J), Association of Top German
Sport Sponsors (S20 group) and various industry partners. She holds the Al and Effie
Flanagan Professorship at UF.
Clare Cook is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire, UK. She
researches digital journalism revenue models specifically those operating on the
edge of media systems such as hyperlocals, exiled or politically pressured media. As
co-founder of the Media Innovation Studio her work includes industry analysis,
such as Sustainable Business Models for Journalism (submojour.net), with Nesta
and the World Association of Newspapers and Publishers. She is principal investi
gator on prototype projects with industry partners including Google Digital News
Initiative. She is also a business mentor and her work feeds into policy on jour
nalism sustainability.
Annika Ehlers is a PhD candidate at the Media, Management and Transformation

Center (MMTC) at Jönköping International Business School, Sweden. Additionally,
she is affiliated with the chair of communication management at Ostfalia University
of Applied Sciences, Germany for an EU-funded research project on the role of
location-based services for regional media communication. With a background both
in business administration and communication, she is interested in (media) entre
preneurship, digital communication and online communities.
Britta Gossel is a research associate at the Media and Communication Management

research group at Technische Universität Ilmenau (Germany) with a research focus
on media entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education. She has been active in
research and teaching in Germany and abroad (Jönköping International Business
School (Sweden), Leeds Beckett University (UK), Tallinn University (Estonia), Cork
Institute of Technology (Ireland), De Montfort University (UK)). Currently she is a
fellow of the Hans Weisser Stipendium (2019–2020), which supports her in doing
research about entrepreneurship education in STEM and Media in higher education
in five countries. In 2018, Britta Gossel received the Mathijs Hammer Award of the
European Council of Small Business and Entrepreneurship. Prior to her current
activity, she was among others active as spokeswomen for an MEP in the European
Parliament (Brussels and Straßbourg).
Mikko Grönlund is a Research Manager in the Brahea Centre at the University

of Turku. He has extensive experience in the field of development of media
industries and businesses, their structure, operations and markets. Among his
research interests are also news media business models, and the digital
250 Contributors
transformation in the media. His research has been published in academic journals,
such as Journalism Studies, European Journal of Communication, Digital Journalism, Jour
nal of Media Business Studies, and Nordicom Review.
Erik Hitters is an Associate Professor at the Erasmus School of History, Culture and
Communication of Erasmus University Rotterdam. He has co-founded and is the
managing director of ERMeCC, the Erasmus Research Centre for Media, Com
munication and Culture. He lectures for the MA programme in Media Studies and
IBCoM, the International Bachelor in Communication and Media. Erik’s research
interests lie in the broad field of transformations in the media and cultural industries.
He leads several large research projects, supported by the Dutch Research Council
NWO on the cultural and creative industries.
Sven-Ove Horst is a Senior Assistant Professor for Media and Creative Indus
tries at Erasmus University Rotterdam. He has held previous positions at Bauhaus
University Weimar and Aalto University School of Business. His research centres
on strategic media management, media entrepreneurship, and organisation
theory, and has been published in media management journals. Sven also serves as
associate editor of the Journal of Media Management and Entrepreneurship. He gen
erally likes exploring emergent phenomena, such as strategy, identity work, and
entrepreneurial branding during times of digitisation. He is interested in con
necting theory with practice through leadership development workshops, net
working activities and consulting.
Katja Lehtisaari is an Adjunct Professor in Media and Communication Studies at

the University of Helsinki. She has coordinated projects on researching business
models of journalism and specialises in analysis of media business, media policy, and
journalism, often in an international, comparative setting. She has been a visiting
scholar in both the University of Oxford and the Woodrow Wilson International
Center for Scholars (Washington DC) and is editor-in-chief of Idäntutkimus, a Fin
nish review of Russian and East European Studies.
Carl-Gustav Lindén is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Helsinki, Finland,

University Lecturer at the Södertörn University in Stockholm and Affiliated
Researcher at Nordicom, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He has a PhD in
media and journalism studies. His research interests include augmented journalism,
especially news automation, media business models and local journalism. Lindén was
a business journalist in Finland and Sweden for more than 25 years before moving
into academia. He has also worked as a communications consultant for the United
Nations University.
Gregory Ferrell Lowe is Professor and Director of the Communication Program at

Northwestern University in Qatar (since 2018). He founded and managed Finland’s
Contributors 251
first graduate studies programme in media management and economics at Tampere

University (2008–2017) and worked for ten years as Senior Advisor for Corporate
Strategy and Development in the Finnish national broadcasting company Yleisradio
(1997–2007). He served two terms as President of the European Media Management
Association (emma, from 2012 to 2016) and will complete a two-year period of
service as Chair of the World Media Economics and Management Conference
(WMEMC).
Päivi Maijanen is a post-doctoral researcher at the School of Business and

Management at the LUT University, Lappeenranta, Finland. As for her
research interests, she focuses on strategic management and organisational
renewal in the media, and in particular, on questions related to digitalisation
and changes in managerial and organisational practices and culture. Maijanen
has experience from longitudinal case studies and fieldwork in media compa
nies. Her media expertise is based on both academic and professional experi
ence. Before academia, she was a journalist and manager at the Finnish
Broadcasting Company.
Mercedes Medina is an Associate Professor at the School of Communication,

Marketing and Media Management Department at the University of Navarra, Spain.
Among others, she is the author of European Television Production: Pluralism and Con
centration (2004), Globalization and Pluralism: Reshaping Public TV in Europe (2010) and
Current and Emerging Issues in the Audiovisual Industry (2017), more than 40 journal
articles and 45 chapters in books. Her teaching and research focus on media eco
nomics and media audience research. She is the editor of Communication and Society
and a member of the editorial board of Palabra Clave, Journalism and Mass Commu
nication Quarterly and Innovative Marketing.
Conor O’Kane is a lecturer in economics at the Business School of Bourne

mouth University. He achieved his PhD at the same university in 2019. His
research interests focus on the impact new media technologies have on indivi
duals’ privacy with emphasis on the role data protection regulation has in
improving information transparency.
John J. Oliver is an Associate Professor of Media Management at Bournemouth

University who has published in international media and business journals. His research
has made a demonstrable impact on UK communication regulatory decisions and
influenced the public policy debate on future Internet regulation. His research has also
created financial benefits for several world-class management consultancies and resulted
in multi-million-pound investments made by FTSE 100 firms. The reach and sig
nificance of his research has also extended outside the UK with a number of Middle
East government agencies changing their strategy practices, operational structures and
capacity building capabilities in strategic communications.
252 Contributors
Robert G. Picard is a Senior Research Fellow at the Reuters Institute for the
Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal Society of
Arts, and a Fellow at the Information Society Project at Yale University Law
School. His scholarship focuses on economic of media and communications sys
tems and public policy. He has taught at both the University of Oxford and Har
vard University, is the author and editor of 33 books, and has been editor of the
Journal of Media Business Studies and the Journal of Media Economics.
Tim Raats is a Professor at the Department of Communication Sciences at

the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He holds a PhD in media and communication
studies at the same university. Tim is head of the Media Economics and Policy
Unit at imec-SMIT-VUB (Studies on Media, Innovation and Technology).
He specialises in public service media policy and sustainability of TV produc
tion in small markets. Tim coordinated several research projects for industry
and policy stakeholders. He has published widely in edited volumes and peer-
reviewed journals. Since 2018, he has also been a board member of the Flan
ders Audiovisual Fund (VAF).
Harald Rau is Professor of Communication Management at Ostfalia University of

Applied Sciences in Salzgitter, Germany. For 25 years he worked in media produc
tion and management, as a TV presenter, author and reporter. He has directed
hundreds of business movie projects and invented the first business-TV magazine
ever controlled by state media authority. He graduated in business administration
(FU Hagen), has a doctorate in journalism research (TU Dortmund) and habilitated
in media and communication sciences (U Leipzig). His research concentrates on PSB
media and on the economy of journalism. He has published eight monographs and
several articles, is the research representative of the faculty and coordinates the grad
uate’s programme for communication management.
Mikko Villi is a Professor of Journalism in the Department of Language and

Communication Studies at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. An emphasis in
his work is on the contemporary context for journalism and media work. Among
his research interests are media management, media consumption, media plat
forms, news media business models, and the digital transition in the media. He
has published in a wide variety of academic journals, such as Journalism, Journalism
Studies, Digital Journalism, the International Journal on Media Management, and Journal
of Media Business Studies.
Steve Wildman is a Senior Fellow at the University of Colorado, Boulder and is

Emeritus Professor and J.H. Quello Chair of Telecommunication Studies at Michigan
State University. He holds a PhD in Economics from Stanford University and a BA in
Economics from Wabash College. During his penultimate year as Director of the
Quello Center, Steve served a one-year stint as Chief Economist to the Federal
Contributors 253
Communications Commission, reflecting the focus of his economics research on tele

communication industries and services. He is the author and editor of eight books, and
contributed numerous book chapters and journal articles.
Andreas Will is a Professor for Media and Communication Management at the

Technische Universität Ilmenau (Germany). His research interest comprises media
management, (business models for) digital media offerings, project management, and
utilisation of novel media technologies for business and social applications. Andreas
Will studied Industrial Engineering at the University of Karlsruhe. He holds a Dr.rer.
pol. and a habilitation in Business Administration and Information Systems, both from
the University of Augsburg (Germany). Prior to his current assignment, he held aca
demic positions at the universities of Dresden, Gießen, Augsburg and Magdeburg and
worked as a project manager for software projects for Deutsche Bank Group. Andreas
Will is a founding member of the European Media Management Association.
Julian Windscheid is a research associate at the Media and Communication

Management research group at Technische Universität Ilmenau (Germany). Since
July 2016 he has been involved in various research projects. His research interests
focus on digital communication, media innovation research, media reception and
effects, as well as Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). Previously, he worked as
a research assistant at the Chair of Computer-mediated Communication at the
University of Passau (Germany). Julian studied Media Production and Media
Technology (B.Eng.) at the HAW Amberg/Weiden (Germany) and Media and
Communication (MA) at the University of Passau.
Lisa-Charlotte Wolter is Head of the Brand & Consumer Research Depart

ment and NeuroLab at Hamburg Media School and courtesy Assistant Professor
at the University of Florida. Her research focus is on consumer engagement,
media effectiveness measurement and the impact of emotions. She holds an MBA
from University of Hamburg and also studied at the Copenhagen Business School
and University of Technology Sydney. As a PhD she won a scholarship from
Hubert Burda Media and focused her research on digital brand equity strategies.
Having attained her PhD in Economics at the University of Hamburg in 2014,
she is now responsible for several media and consumer engagement research
projects with industry partners such as Google, Twitter, DIE ZEIT or S20.
INDEX
Aalto University 78 advertising 5, 9–10, 49, 51–2, 55–6; ad

abduction 192–3 blocker industry 5, 107–20, 138–42,
abstraction 17–18 145–7, 151; and audiovisual
academia 2–4, 6–7, 10, 13–14, 18–24; consumption 219, 226–7; and digital
academic associations 12; academic journalism 93–4, 98; and digital privacy
incentive system 19; academic 234–5, 238, 241, 243–4; and digital
independence 10, 24–6, 30; and action transformation 206; and location-based
research 98, 102, 104; and ad blocker services 122; and news media 156, 163;
industry 108–9, 117–19; and audiovisual and practice-led research 69; and
consumption 221, 224, 228–9; and research for innovation 173, 176; and
differing priorities 130; and digital small television ecosystems 145; and
privacy 238, 243, 233; and digital societal impact 163; targeted advertising
transformation 213–15; and ethnography 111, 113, 144, 243; and technology 189,
77–8, 84–5; and industry collaboration 194, 197
33–4, 40, 42–3; and location based AdWords 234
services 122; and news media 157; and Africa 13, 93
practice-led research 59, 71–2; and Ahva, L. 96
research for innovation 173–5, 177–80, Albarran, A.B. 3
183; and small television ecosystems 139, algorithms 12, 54, 189
145–7, 149, 151; and societal impact Alibaba 13
166–7, 169–70; and technology 191, Alphabet Inc 234
197, 200 Altman, I. 236
Academy of Management (AOM) 21 Alvesson, M. 80, 82
accreditation schemes 8, 240, 242–3 Amazon 13, 54, 140, 218–19, 240
Achtenhagen, L. 3 Anderson, S.P. 56
action learning 95 anonymity 98, 100–2, 184, 239
action research 5, 23, 71–2, 93–106 app development 121, 123–4, 127–8,
actionable knowledge 1–2, 4–5, 15, 18–19, 131–2, 145, 176, 194, 223, 235–6
22, 24, 59–74 Appelgren, E. 96
Adblock Report 113 Apple 219, 233
AdBlocker Day 117 Argentina 94
administrators 29, 32, 133, 180, 182–3 Argyris, C. 59, 61, 71
Index 255
artificial intelligence (AI) 17, 195–6, transformation 204–5, 209–12; and

199, 224 entrepreneurship 190; and managing
Asia 13, 93, 125 digital transformation 204–17; and small
Association for Education in Journalism and television ecosystems 138–45, 148–9,
Mass Communication (AEJMC) 35 151; and societal impact 157
Astrazeneca 67 Brown, C. 2
Atlas.ti 177 Bruneel, J. 32
Atresmedia 222, 225–6, 228 Brynjolfsson, E. 48
Audiovisual Trust Label (ATL) 227 budgets 6, 48, 51–2, 71, 98, 109, 133,
audiovisual viewing patterns 7, 138, 140–1, 139–44, 147–9, 160, 168, 228
144, 151, 218–32 business 5, 9–10, 13–17, 32, 34; and action
augmented reality (AR) 189, 192, 194, research 102–3; and ad blocker industry
196, 199 117; and audiovisual consumption 221,
Australia 51, 96 227; and digital transformation 207; and
auto-ethnography 5, 77, 81, 84–5 ethnography 87; and location-based
autonomy 6, 25, 146–7, 151 services 126, 130; and news media
Azerbaijan 98 157–8, 161; and practice-led research
59–60, 62, 65–9, 71; and research for
bandwidth 55 innovation 173–5, 181, 183–4; and
Barnes, S.B. 238 societal impact 167; and university
barriers 32–5, 52, 71, 97, 99, 103, 127, 180 collaboration 36–9, 42–3
Bathelt, H. 174 business centres 174, 176–7, 181–2, 184
Bauman, Z. 83 Business Finland 160
Beacon 127, 235 business models 7, 13, 16, 52, 54–6; and ad
Belarus 98 blocker industry 108, 117; and
Belgium 3, 138, 141 audiovisual consumption 224; and digital
Bell Pottinger 67, 70 privacy 233; and digital transformation
best practices 15, 125, 131, 167, 169, 174, 206; and location-based services 123;
227, 229 and news media 155–6, 160–6; and
Bettis, R.A. 206 practice-led research 68; and research for
bias 12–13, 23–4, 37, 39, 147, 151 innovation 180; and revenue 93–106;
Bieber, J. 162 and small television ecosystems 138; and
big data 16, 222, 224 societal impact 161, 164–5, 167–8, 171;
Bilodeau, B. 70 and technology 188–203
blockchain 192, 197
blogs 41, 233 Cambridge Analytica 233, 242
Boomerang TV 222, 225 Cambridge University 242
Bournemouth University 240 Campos, F. 227
Bowman, E.H. 68 Canada 51, 55
Boyer, E.L. 17 capitalism 102
branding 161–2, 174, 176–7, 190, 242 Carolan, E. 242
Brandstetter, B. 165 case studies 4, 59–74, 93, 209, 215, 218–32
Braunschweiger Zeitung 126 Castillo-Mayen, M.R. 242
Brazil 94, 236 catharsis 220
Brexit 32 censors 50
bricolage 192 Central Europe 32
Britbox 149 Chan-Olmsted, S. 5, 107–20, 228
British Broadcasting Corporation change management 7, 78, 204–5, 207–13
(BBC) 222 chatbots 192, 196–7
broadband 53, 55, 67, 157 Chatham House Rule 101
broadcasting 13, 50, 52–7, 98, 127; and China 13, 51
audiovisual consumption 218–19, citations 19
226–7; and co-location 173; and digital cloud services 82
256 Index
clusters 6, 173–87 Cook, T. 234, 242, 244

co-construction 82, 85–8, 96 Cooley, T. 236
co-located industries 6, 88, 173–87 copyright 17, 101
The Cocktail Analysis 222 Corbin, J.N. 177
cognitive avoidance 113, 115–16 CORDIS database 31
Cohendet, P. 174 corporate social responsibility 16, 26, 76
collaboration 1–7, 15, 21–5, 29–45, 179; and Council for Mass Media 160
academics 46–58; and action research creative business centres (CBCs) 174,
103–4; and ad blocker industry 108–10, 176–7, 181–2, 184
117–18; and advertising avoidance Creative Factory 183
consumers 107–20; and audiovisual creative industries 6, 12–14, 62, 64–5, 139,
consumption 227–9; and digital 173–7, 179–85
journalism 94–6, 98–101; and digital critical studies 30, 88, 104, 228–9
transformation 212–15; and ethnography crowdfunding 94
79, 82, 87; growth of need to collaborate cultural studies 12, 30
46–58; and location-based services 124, culture 33, 43, 46, 50, 52–4; and
126; and news media 156, 159–60; perks audiovisual consumption 220; and digital
of 145–6; and policymakers 46–58; and transformation 211; of disclosure 234–6;
research for innovation 174, 180–3; and and engaged scholarship 11–13, 16, 19,
small television ecosystems 139, 149, 152; 25; and entrepreneurship 199; and
and societal impact 162–5, 167–8, 170; research for innovation 173
types of 34 Cultures of Innovation in the Creative
collegiality 102, 182 Industries (CICI) 173, 176–7, 180,
Colombia 94 182–4
commercialism 11, 24, 33, 57, 178 Cunningham, J.A. 31
communication studies 12, 18, 157, 212 curation 173, 191
competitive advantage 11, 33, 63, 68, 189, Current and Emerging Issues in the Audiovisual
204, 206–7, 222, 235, 242 Industry 224
ComScore 219 customisation 112, 132, 223
conferences 5–6, 21–3, 38, 72, 109, Cyprus 32
117–19, 125, 166, 170, 183, 212
consent 101 Daily Mirror 242–3
consortia 30, 94, 157, 159–61, 163, data analysis/analytics 16, 65, 81, 100, 104,
168–9, 179 109, 150, 188–9, 192, 195–6, 199, 209
consulting 4–5, 21, 37–8, 41–2, 57; and data brokers 10
audiovisual consumption 227, 229; and data collection 5, 16, 26, 29, 34; and ad
digital journalism 94; and digital privacy blocker industry 108–10, 113, 117–18;
233; and ethnography 75, 77–83, 86; and audiovisual consumption 219,
and practice-led research 67, 69, 71; and 221–2, 225, 229; and digital journalism
small television ecosystems 139, 141, 97–8, 100; and digital privacy 238–44;
145, 148, 150, 152; and societal impact and digital transformation 209–10,
159, 164 212–13; and ethnography 75, 78, 80–1,
consumers/consumption 5, 12, 19–20, 46–9, 83, 86–7; and news media 163; and
51–3; advertising avoidance consumers research for innovation 176–7, 181–3;
107–20; audiovisual consumption and small television ecosystems 141, 144,
preferences 218–32; and co-location 173; 146, 149, 152; and societal impact 159,
and digital privacy 234–5, 237–9, 241–4; 165, 168–70; and technology 200
and engaged scholarship 25; and data industrial complex 234, 243
entrepreneurship 189, 196; and data protection 8, 11, 158, 233–8,
location-based services 122, 124; and small 240–2, 244
television ecosystems 142, 147; and Data Protection Directive 236, 240
societal impact 155, 158, 160 databases 31, 123, 125, 127, 142, 219, 228
Cook, C. 5, 93–106 DCR Network 176
Index 257
De Kroon Rotterdam 184 Ehlers, A. 5–6, 121–37

De Wit, B. 63 Eisenhardt, K.M. 63
deadlines 6, 19–20, 149 elections 54, 168, 242
deduction 61 eMarketer 49
delayed viewing 140, 144 empirical studies/empiricism 60, 62, 78,
democracy 11, 50, 53–4, 155, 157 108, 122, 130, 177, 181, 190, 193,
Denmark 51, 139, 142, 159, 161–2 238–9, 242
Department of Culture, Youth and Media Enberg, J. 51
(DCYM) 139, 141–2, 147 entrepreneurship 7, 16, 23, 30, 35, 66, 76,
Despotakis, S. 111 123, 173–7, 179–86, 188–203, 206
developing countries 93–4 ‘Entrepreneurship Education Monitor for
Dewey, J. 61, 96 STEM degree programs’ 199
Digital, Culture, Media and Sport epistemology 60
Committee 242 ePrivacy 240
Digital Film and Series Platforms in Spain 218 Erasmus+ Project 228
Digital News Report 162 Erasmus University 212
digitisation/digitalisation 15, 61–2, 65–7, Eschrich, B. 3
76, 124; digital journalism revenue ethics 25–6, 50, 84–6, 101, 103, 158, 199
models 93–106; digital natives 219; ethnography 5, 75–91
digital payment 192, 195, 197, 223–4, Eurocentrism 30
226–7; and entrepreneurship 189, 191, Europe 30–2, 121, 138, 140, 144, 165,
198; managing digital transformation 180, 218, 227–8, 236
204–17 European Academy of Management
disinformation 11 (EURAM) 21
divestment 64–6 European Audiovisual Observatory 140
Dixon, S. 63 European Broadcasting Union (EBU) 141,
dominant logic 32, 34, 205–11 144, 212
donors 93, 96–8, 104 European Commission 31, 235
dot.com boom 65 European Communication Research and
DPG Media 141, 145 Education Association (ECREA) 21, 166
drama 138–44, 220 European Fund for Regional Development
Dutch Creative Residency Network (EFRE) 125, 133
(DCRN) 174, 180, 182–4, 186 European Group for Organisational Studies
Dynamic Capabilities Theory 61–8, 205–6, (EGOS) 21
208–9, 211, 214 European Media Management Association
(emma) 2–3, 12, 21, 35, 166
early career researchers (ECRs) 35, European Union (EU) 30–2, 122, 133,
40–1, 43 234–42
economics 10–11, 13, 17–18, 25, 29–31; EuroPriSe 240
and ad blocker industry 111; and Evens, T. 1–28, 239, 243
audiovisual consumption 218, 220–1, evidence-based policy 25, 139, 145, 147
228–9; and collaboration 35–6, 43, external involvement/interaction 37–40
46–8, 51, 54–7; and digital journalism extremism 54
97, 103; and digital privacy 233–4,
237–8; and location-based services 128, Facebook 13, 53–4, 94, 140, 156, 219, 233,
130, 134; and news media 156–7; and 235–7, 242–3
practice-led research 59, 65–7, 71; and fake news 11, 54, 228
research for innovation 174–8, 180–2; Federal Communications Commission 4
and small television ecosystems 145, 147, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) 233, 235
152; and technology 190, 199–200 Federation of Consumers and Media Users
economies of scale 10 Association in Spain (iCmedia) 227–8
Econopolis 139, 141 Federation of the Printing Industry in
educators 7, 188, 197–200 Finland 164
258 Index
feedback 23, 67, 79, 84–5, 99, 146, 161–2, audiovisual consumption 221, 228–30;
167–8, 174, 184, 213–14, 225–6 and co-location 175, 180; and
Ferreras, M. 228 collaboration 43, 46–7, 50–1, 55–7; and
Film Fund 144–6 digital journalism 94–6, 101; and digital
financial crisis 65 privacy 234, 238, 244; and
Financial Times 67 entrepreneurship 188, 191–2, 195,
Finland 3, 31, 96, 155–60, 162, 165–70, 197–200; and ethnography 76–7, 79;
204–17 and location-based services 122–3, 125,
Finnish Book Publishers Association 164 128, 133; and practice-led research 62;
Finnish Broadcasting Company (Yle) and small television ecosystems 139, 144,
204–17 146, 149, 152; and societal impact 166,
Finnish Communications Regulatory 169–70
Authority 159–60
Finnish Competition and Consumer gaming 52, 110, 145, 194
Authority 160 García, I. 224
Finnish Media Federation (Finnmedia) 164 Garvin, D.A. 68
Finnish Ministry of Transport and Gatz, S. 138
Communications 156–7, 159–60, 167–9 gender 36–41, 43, 177, 209, 235, 239
Finnish Newspapers Association (FNA) General Data Protection Regulation
160–2, 164–6, 168–9 (GDPR) 8, 234–6, 238–40, 243
Finnish Periodical Publishers’ General Law of Audiovisual
Association 164 Communication 227
Flanders 138–54 generalisability 4, 7, 30, 71, 98, 185
Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF) generative impact 82, 86–8
141–2, 152 gentrification 184
Flanders Media Fund 138–9, 142–4, 148, geo-localisation 121, 124
151–2 geopolitics 13
FOJO Media Institute 97 German Commission on Concentration in
Fordham University 163 the Media (KEK) 127
framework programmes (FP) 31–2 German Communication Association 125
France 30, 142, 144, 149, 235 Germany 3, 30–1, 107–8, 110, 117,
fraud 242 124–31, 144, 160, 165–6, 169, 199, 236
free market 94, 234, 237 Giaglis, G.M. 191
Freedman, D. 147 Gibbons, M. 30
Fried, C. 236 Global Editors Network (GEN) 169
FTSE 100 index 65, 67, 71 Global South 93
funding 3–6, 14, 20, 23, 25–6; and ad Google 68, 94, 129, 139–40, 156, 219,
blocker industry 109–10, 117; and 225, 233–4
audiovisual consumption 228–9; and Google Scholar 19
collaboration 29–34, 36–7, 40–2, 52, 57; Gossel, B. 7, 188–203
and digital journalism 93–4, 97; and governance 101
digital privacy 240; and digital government 6, 20, 25, 31, 33; and
transformation 207, 211; and co-location 179–80, 184–5; and
ethnography 88; and location-based collaboration 35, 37, 41, 43, 46–8, 50,
services 125–6, 129, 133–4, 138–9, 53–4; and digital privacy 234; and
143–4, 146; and news media 160–1; and practice-led research 59, 70–1; and small
practice-led research 59; and research for television ecosystems 141–2, 145–51;
innovation 178–80; and small television and societal impact 156, 159–60, 166
ecosystems 138–9, 143–4, 146; and GPS 121, 124
societal impact 162, 167–8, 170 grant applications 20, 23, 30–1, 40–3
further research 16–17, 22–4, 29–30, 38–9, Grant, R.M. 68
213; and action research 103–5; and ad Greece 55
blocker industry 108, 118; and Greenwood, D.J. 60–1
Index 259
Grönlund, M. 6, 155–72 consumption 219–22, 224–6, 228–30;

gross domestic product (GDP) 48–9, clustered industry 173–87; co-located
51, 155 industry 173–87; and collaboration
grounded theory 177 29–50, 57, 145–6; and differing priorities
Grubenmann, S. 96 130; and digital journalism 97; and
Guba, E.G. 60 digital privacy 234, 237, 244; and digital
transformation 204, 207, 213; and
h-index 19 entrepreneurship 188; and ethnography
Hackett Group 67 75–91; and location-based services 122,
Hamburg Media School 108–9 125–7, 134; and news media 155–72;
Hamburg Publisher Business and practice-led research 61–6, 69, 72;
Conference 117 and research for innovation 173–87;
Hamel, G. 68 slow diffusion in 131; and small
Handbook of Media Management and television ecosystems 139, 145, 149–51;
Economics 188 unclear structures in 131
Hang, M. 188 infographs 235
Harvard Law Journal 236 information asymmetry 238
Harvard University 59 information technology (IT) 123, 125, 128,
hashtags 101, 225 133–4, 189, 200
Hautakangas, M. 96 innovation 6, 14, 29, 31, 33; and ad
HBO 218, 227 blocker industry 108, 110; and
Helfat, C.E. 206 audiovisual consumption 218, 222, 224,
hermeneutics 95 226; and digital journalism 93–106; and
higher education strategy 30–2 digital transformation 209, 215; and
Hitters, E. 6–7, 173–87 entrepreneurship 189–92, 195, 198; and
Holland 236 ethnography 78; and location-based
Hollywood 62 services 121–2, 124, 128–31; and
Horizon 2020 (H2020) 31 practice-led research 59, 62–5, 71–2;
Horst, S.-O. 5, 75–91 research for innovation 173–87; and
House of Commons 242 societal impact 156–7, 161, 163–6, 170
Huawei 13 Instagram 53
Hulu 54, 140 instrumental impact 5–6, 11, 59–72, 75–89
human resources 20, 62, 65, 125, intellectual property (IP) 17, 33, 48,
129–30, 206 69, 101
human rights 236 intelligent automation 188, 192,
humanities and social sciences (HASS) 30–1 195–7, 199
hunter-gatherers 46 inter-organisational relationships (IOR)
hyperlocal journalism 122–4, 129 29, 32
interdisciplinarity 4, 12–14, 21, 25, 123,
Ibrus, I. 190 134, 191
Iceland 159 International Association for Media and
iconology 239 Communication Research (IAMCR) 21
identity 82–4 International Communication Association
identity theft 234, 242 (ICA) 21, 166
ideology 54, 103, 148 International Journal on Media Management 12
Igartua, J.J. 220 International Media Management
imec-SMIT-VUB 139, 141 Academic Association (IMMAA) 21, 35
implemental validity 59–61, 64, 67–8, 71 International News Media Association
India 94 (INMA) 169
induction 61, 95–6 International Symposium on Media
industry 1–7, 9–17, 22–3, 25, 59; and Innovations (ISMI) 166
action research 104–5; ad blocker International Telecommunication Union
industry 107–20; and audiovisual (ITU) 227
260 Index
Internet 47, 50–5, 57, 67, 71; and ad journalism 95, 98; and engaged
blocker industry 111–12, 115; and scholarship 25; and ethnography 75,
audiovisual consumption 219, 222–3; 81–2, 87; modes of production 30–1;
and digital privacy 236, 238; and digital and news media 156; and practice-led
transformation 209; and small television research 59, 66–7, 71–2; and research for
ecosystems 140; and societal impact innovation 174–5, 177–80, 183, 185;
155, 158 and societal impact 171
Internews Europe 97–8 knowledge utilisation 174, 178–9, 183–6
internships 40, 42 knowledge-based view 64–5
intranets 162, 210–11 Kolo, C. 165
Iran 98 Küng, L. 18, 22
Ireland 51 Kuwait 70
IT-Dienstleistungsgesellschaft mbH
Emsland 126 Lampel, J. 62
Italy 30–1, 235 Landry, R. 179, 185
Lappeenranta University of Technology
Jääskeläinen, A. 3 (LUT) 3, 204, 208–12
Jantunen, A. 3 Latin America 13, 93–4
Japan 31 Lazarfeld, P.F. 14
jargon 18, 23, 103, 117 leadership 11, 16, 31, 78, 81, 95, 139,
Jeffcutt, P. 175 149, 169
John Lewis 67 Lehtisaari, K. 6, 155–72
John, L.K. 241 Levesque, L.C. 68
Jönköping International Business School 3 Levin, M. 60–1
Jordan 98 Lewin, K. 95, 100
Journal of Location-Based Services 123 liberationism 98, 101
Journal of Media Business Studies 12 Liberia 70
Journal of Media Economics 12 Lincoln, Y.S. 60
journalism 7, 35, 76, 107, 121–7; and Lind, F. 33
audiovisual consumption 227–8; and Lindén, C.-G. 6, 155–72
digital privacy 243; and digital Link, A.N. 31
transformation 204, 208; and lived experiences 5
entrepreneurship 198–200; journalism Location Insider 127, 131
revenue models 93–106; and location-based services (LBS) 5, 121–37
location-based services 129, 133–4; London Stock Exchange 65
and societal impact 155–72 Lowe, G.F. 1–4, 29–45, 190
journals 4, 6–7, 19, 21–2, 30, 40–2, 72,
117, 119, 224, 228–9, 236 McCann, J.E. 68
Macromedia University 165
Kairos Future 164 McTaggart, R. 60–1
Kantar TNS 156 Maijanen, P. 3, 7, 204–17
Kantarmedia 219, 222, 225–6 Malaysia 94
Kemmis, S. 60–1 Malta 32
Keough, S.M. 69 malware 113
Keskisuomalainen 162 Management Science 17
keynote speakers 37–8, 42–3 managerial cognition 64, 205, 207
Kimber, D. 224 Manero, C.B. 221
Knowledge Days 183 Marcus, A. 69
knowledge production 4, 11, 14, 17–19, marginalisation 5, 30, 98
23; and action research 100–1, 103–5; marketing 33, 51–2, 76, 82, 87; and ad
and ad blocker industry 118; and blocker industry 107–8, 111, 113, 117;
audiovisual consumption 219–21, 229; and audiovisual consumption 222; and
and collaboration 46, 55–7; and digital co-location 176; and digital journalism
Index 261
94; and entrepreneurship 192, 194; and Media Policy Network 160, 168
location-based services 126, 130 media studies 12, 212
marketisation 30 Medina, M. 7, 218–32
Martin, J.A. 63 Medium 53
MCIL Multimedia Sdn Bhd 94 memberships 94
Mechanical Turk (MTurk) 240 mentoring 38
Media Cabinet 141, 148–9 mergers and acquisitions 11, 50, 64–6, 228
Media Companies and Markets Research Mervola, P. 162
Group (GIMEC) 218 Metzgar, E. 123
Media Consumption Forecasts 49 Mexico 94
Media Council 143 Meyer, R. 63
media firm level 62–6, 96, 103 micropayment 123
Media Industry Research Foundation of Middle East 71, 93
Finland 160, 164–5, 168 Mierzejewska, B. 61, 71, 163, 190
media management 1–8; and academics millennials 115, 223, 225–6
46–58; and action research 93–106; and Mir, A. 220
advertising avoidance consumers 107–20; mobile devices 51, 115–16, 121–2,
and architecture of listening 221; and 124–5, 140
audiovisual viewing patterns 218–32; monetisation 69
between critical and administrative monographs 40
research 10, 14–15; and business models monopolies 55, 67
188–203; and clustered industry 173–87; motives 32–5
and co-located industry 173–87; and multi-disciplinarity 30, 62–3, 66, 157,
conflicted logics 32–5; and digital 171, 173
journalism revenue models 93–106; and Muñiz, C. 220
digital privacy 233–47; as engaged Muscio, A. 32
scholarship 9–28; and entrepreneurship
188–203; and ethnography 75–91; and Napoli, P.M. 25, 228
impact 10, 17, 21–4, 29, 75–91, 155–72; neoliberalism 237
and location-based services 121–37; Netflix 13, 52, 54–5, 138–40, 143–5, 149,
managing digital transformation 204–17; 151, 218–19, 225, 228, 233
media firm management 59–74; media Netherlands 3, 51, 142, 149, 174, 176, 179
management research 10–14; and need Netherlands Organisation for Scientific
for growth of collaboration 46–58; new Research (NWO) 179–80
directions in 12–14; news media 155–72; networking 7, 22–4, 72, 79, 89; and ad
and obstacles 10, 18–21; and blocker industry 111; and digital
policymakers 46–58; and practice- journalism 94, 97; and digital privacy
relevant knowledge 10, 15–17; and 233, 235, 237, 243; and location-based
privacy breaches 11, 243; and privacy services 122; and research for innovation
paradox 238–9, 242; and privacy seals 173–6, 180–1; and small television
8, 234–5, 239–43; public service ecosystems 146; and societal impact
management 140, 156, 207–8, 211, 213, 160, 168
224, 227; regional media communication Neu-Ulm University of Applied
121–37; and research for innovation Sciences 165
173–87; and small television ecosystems Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung 126
138–54; and society 4, 6, 29–31, 42, ‘New Business Models in the News
155–72; strategic media management Industry in the United States’ 164
204–5; and technology 188–203; New Economic Models in the Digital
transmedia management 16; and Economy 97
university-industry collaboration 29–45 New Zealand 51
Media Management Master 225 news media 155–72, 190, 226
Media Management and Transformation newspapers 5, 8, 41, 51–2, 56–7; and ad
Centre 3 blocker industry 115–16; and digital
262 Index
journalism 93; and digital privacy 239, 76–9, 81, 84, 87; and location-based
242–3; and entrepreneurship 188, 199; services 127–8, 132; and practice-led
and location-based services 124, 126–7, research 69; and societal impact 157,
130, 132; and small television ecosystems 159–60, 162, 164, 166, 169
142; and societal impact 155–6, 160–5, Pateli, A.G. 191
168–9 path dependence 207
Next Business Innovation Network PayPal 195
180, 185 paywalls 94, 165
NLZiet 149 Pearson Publishing Plc 62, 65–6
non-government organisations (NGOs) 41, pedagogy 78, 95
159–60, 169, 200 Peitz, M. 56
Nordic Noir 141 Peltzman effect 239, 242
NordMedia 166 personalisation 122, 220, 224, 243
North America 125 Personality Media 226
Northwestern University 3 philosophy 60–1, 95, 190, 240
Norway 51, 159, 161–2, 165–6, 169 Piano 94
Nygren, G. 96 Picard, R.G. 1, 4, 29–45, 157, 163,
Nyre, L. 124 169, 190
Pickard, V. 157, 169
O’Connor, L. 17 Piepponen, A. 3
Ofcom 67 platform approach 13, 16–17, 48, 56, 69;
O’Kane, C. 8, 233–47 and ad blocker industry 108; and
Oliver, J. 4–5, 59–74, 95, 243 audiovisual consumption 218–19,
OMK Lüneberg 117 221–3, 226; and digital journalism 93,
Onaran, T. 89 98; and digital privacy 233; and
online behavioural advertising (OBA) 234, entrepreneurship 195; and practice-led
243–4 research 72
Online Marketing Rockstars 117 podcasts 72
ontology 60–1 Poland 31
Open Society Foundations 97–8 policymakers 1–2, 4, 6, 8, 10–11; and
organisational cognition 205, 207–8 audiovisual consumption 218, 227; and
Oslo 165 collaboration with academics 46–58; and
Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences digital privacy 233; and engaged
125–6 scholarship 15–17, 22–3, 25; and news
Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences media 155–72; and perks of
125–6 collaboration 145–6; policy changes
outreach 4 30–2; and practice-led research 67,
over-the-top (OTT) players 138, 222, 71–2; and research for innovation 173,
224, 227 179, 183–5; and small television
Owen, B.M. 55 ecosystems 138–54
Oxford University 162–3 political economy 12, 103
politics 46–7, 50, 52–4, 71, 93–4; and
PageFair 113 digital journalism 97–8, 101, 103; and
Paid Content and Global Development in the digital privacy 233, 236, 240, 243; and
Media 165 digital transformation 207–8, 211; and
Pakistan 70 entrepreneurship 200; and small
participant research 8, 17, 23, 32, 35; and television ecosystems 147, 151; and
ad blocker industry 109–10, 115, 118; societal impact 157, 167
and audiovisual consumption 226, 228; Politiken Plus 162
and co-location 181, 183–4, 186; and pornography 53
collaboration 38, 42, 48; and digital positivism 60–1
journalism 94–5, 97–102, 104; and Posner, R.A. 237
digital privacy 239–41; and ethnography Pozzela, A. 32
Index 263
PQ Media 51 ‘Reasons to consume fiction and

practice-relevant/practice-led research 2–4, entertainment audiovisual content in the
10, 15–19, 21–2, 24–5, 59–74, 108 Spanish market’ 219
pragmatism 60–1, 85, 95, 102–3 recommendations 21, 25, 79, 117–18, 126;
Prahalad, C.K. 206 and audiovisual consumption 219,
Pratt, A.C. 175 223–4; and entrepreneurship 189, 200;
preparatory impact 86–7 and location-based services 134; and
presentism 13 small television ecosystems 139, 141–6,
privacy 8, 11, 17, 35, 107, 112–13, 116, 148–52; and societal impact 158
128, 233–47 reflexivity 78, 80–6, 88, 102, 104, 229, 233
problematisation 83–4, 88, 96–7, 99, 101, regional media 5, 121–37, 161
104–5, 130, 132, 237 regulations 16–17, 49, 52, 67, 69; and
product reviews 49 audiovisual consumption 226–7; and
profit 30, 33, 53, 55–6, 68, 94, 102, 134, digital privacy 234–5, 237–9, 241–4; and
165, 189, 243–4 news media 159; and practice-led
promotion 4, 22, 34–5, 38–43, 52 research 71; regulatory agencies 6, 8, 11,
Protogerou, A. 31–2 53–4, 208; and small television
prototyping 132–3 ecosystems 144, 147, 150; and societal
Proximus 145 impact 160
psychology 112–13, 175, 234 reputation 20, 37, 41–2, 175–7, 182,
publications 6, 12, 22, 32–3, 41–2; and ad 184, 244
blocker industry 118; and audiovisual research and development (R&D) 31–3,
consumption 227; and co-location 184; 104, 165, 180
and digital journalism 101; and digital researchers 1–3, 7, 9, 11, 16; and ad
transformation 212–13; and location- blocker industry 109–10, 117–18; and
based services 122; and small television audiovisual consumption 228–9; and
ecosystems 146; and societal impact collaboration 46; and digital journalism
167, 169–70; trade publications 50, 52, 95; and digital privacy 233, 238, 242,
64, 72 244; and engaged scholarship 18–20, 22,
publishing 5, 18–19, 21, 25, 41; and ad 25; and ethnography 76–86, 88;
blocker industry 107–8, 110–11, 117; integrative research 23; and
and audiovisual consumption 228–9; and location-based services 126, 129–30,
location-based services 126, 130; and 133–4; and news media 155–72;
news media 155, 164, 169; and practice-led research 59, 61, 67, 71;
practice-led research 65; and research for research ateliers 5, 97–103; research
innovation 173, 176; and revenue centres 24, 32, 35–7, 146; research
models 93–106; and societal impact councils 6, 97; research for innovation
161–2, 164–6; and technology 190 174, 176–7, 179–80, 183–5; and small
Pujadas, E. 220 television ecosystems 139, 147–52; and
Puppis, M. 18 societal impact 166, 168–70; and
Putzke, J. 132 technology 190, 197
Resource-based View 64–5
Qatar 3 Reuters Institute 162
Qualtrics 35, 109–10, 118 Revans, R.W. 60–1
quizzes 235, 242 revenue models 5, 16, 48, 56, 65; and
audiovisual consumption 223, 226–7;
Raats, T. 6, 138–54 and digital journalism 93–106; and
Rajahonka, M. 190 digital privacy 234, 238, 243–4; and
rational choice theory 238 entrepreneurship 189, 195; and
Rau, H. 121–37 practice-led research 69; and small
Ray, H. 5–6 television ecosystems 130, 140–2; and
Reach 242 societal impact 161, 165
real-time graphics photorealism 192, 196 Ries, E. 192
264 Index
Rifon, N.J. 241 Slovak Republic 94

Rigby, D. 70 small and medium-sized firms 138, 173,
Roepnack, A. 163 175–6, 185
Rogers, T.B. 111 smartphones 53, 116, 121, 124, 127, 223
Rohn, U. 1–28, 233, 239 Snapchat 53
role models 199 social media 53, 56, 100–1, 123, 128; and
Rory Peck Trust 98 audiovisual consumption 219, 229; and
Rotolo, D. 190 digital privacy 233, 237; and
Russia 51 entrepreneurship 189, 194, 199; and
Rwanda 96 small television ecosystems 149
social sciences 17–18, 30, 61, 95, 131, 179,
Salazar, N. 3 190, 236
Salto 149 Societal Impact Value Cycle (SIVC) 177,
Saudi Arabia 70 179–80, 185
SBS 141 society 11–12, 14, 25, 46–9, 54; and
Scandinavia 160–3, 165–6, 169 audiovisual consumption 225, 227–9;
scenario planning 68–70 and co-location 176; and digital
Schatsman, G. 3 journalism 95; and ethnography 76; and
Schibsted Media Group 165 practice-led research 59–61; societal
Schmitz Weiss, A. 124, 127, 131 impact 4, 6, 29–31, 42, 155–72, 177–85;
scholars 1–4, 7–8, 19–24, 26, 29; and and technology 191, 199–200
action research 102, 104; and ad blocker software 94, 100–1, 111, 113, 176,
industry 111; and audiovisual 189, 195
consumption 224–5, 228–9; and Soto-Sanfiel, M. 220
collaboration 34–40, 42–3; and digital South Africa 70
journalism 97; and digital privacy 239; Spain 3, 218–32
and location-based services 122; and Spanish Academic Quality Assessment
news media 161; and practice-led Agency (ANECA) 229
research 59, 61, 63; and societal Spanish Media Research Association
impact 170 (AIMC) 222
scholarship 4, 8, 29–30, 34, 36; and ad Spanish Ministry of Economy and
blocker industry 108–9, 119; and Competitiveness 218
collaboration 42–3, 57; and digital Spanish National Institute of Statistics 222
journalism 101, 104; engaged scholarship Spanish National Market and Competition
9–28; and ethnography 75–6; and Commission (CNMC) 222
societal impact 169–71 Spanish National Observatory of
science, technology, engineering and maths Telecommunications and the
(STEM) subjects 7, 30, 199 Information Society (Ontsi) 222
search engines 48–9, 56, 195–6 Spanish National Science and Technology
security 20, 37, 107, 113 Strategy 218
self-referencing theory 111 Spanish Official College of
Selsky, J.W. 68 Telecommunications Engineers
seminars 23, 37–8, 42, 174 (COIT) 227
Seyedghorban, Z. 113 Spanish Secretary for Telecommunications
Shamir, J. 220 and Information Society 227
Shamsie, J. 62 Spanish Statistics Institute (INE) 223
Shanahan, K.J. 69 Spence, A.M. 55
Shaver, D. 190 sponsorship 93
Silverman, D. 60 Sri Lanka 98
Sköldberg, K. 80, 82 stakeholders 1–3, 5–10, 14–15, 17, 19–25;
Sky Plc 62, 65–6, 71, 218, 225–6 and action research 96, 98, 100, 102–4;
Skype 109, 117, 163, 193, 214 and ad blocker industry 117; and
slide-set presentations 150–1 audiovisual consumption 225–8; and
Index 265
digital privacy 244; and digital and practice-led research 62, 65, 68;
transformation 208, 211–12; and and research for innovation 174, 177–8;
ethnography 75–91; and location-based and societal impact 171; wearable
services 122, 124–6, 133; and news technology 192
media 156–7, 159–61; and practice-led Tedlock, B. 79, 82
research 60, 72; relevance for local Teece, D.J. 63, 206
stakeholders 84–6; and research for Telefónica 218, 222
innovation 174, 179–80; and small Telenet 145
television ecosystems 144–9, 152; and television (TV) 52, 54–6, 65, 67, 95,
societal impact 162, 164–5, 167–9; and 115–16, 138–56, 176, 209, 218–20,
technology 188, 191, 197, 199–200 222–8
Starbuck, W.H. 18 temporary contracts 19, 34, 36, 42
start-ups 94, 123, 180, 188, 192–3, 195, Ten Keys to Understanding the Consumption of
198–200 Audiovisual Content in Spain 225
The State of Media and Communications Policy Tencent 13
and How to Measure it 158 tenure 4, 22, 34–5, 38–43
Statista 48, 55 Tesco 67
Statistics Finland 155, 159–60 thick descriptions 77
Steiner, P. 55 Thomas, H.M. 96
Stigler, G.J. 237 Thomson Reuters 65, 228
Strategic Management Society (SMS) 21 TikTok 53, 56
strategy as practice (SAP) 77, 81–4, 87 time-series analysis 64
Strauss, A.L. 177 timeframes 126, 129–30, 149–50, 169
streaming 54, 115–16, 138, 145, 218–19 tisoomi 108–10, 114, 117
Street Fighter 127, 131 Topsector Creative Industry 179–80, 185
Strengthening Media in Exile 97 Tranfield, D. 23
Strijp-S 183 transformation 6–7, 13, 15–17, 25, 47; and
sub-Saharan Africa 93 collaboration 50, 57; and digital
subscription-based services (SVOD) 140, journalism 95; and ethnography 76, 85,
144, 149 88; and location-based services 124;
subscriptions 52, 54–6, 94, 142, 145–6, managing digital transformation 204–17;
161, 163, 165, 218, 223, 227 and news media 155; and practice-led
Suomen Lehdistö 164–5 research 61–2, 64–7; and societal
surveillance 234 impact 171
Sweden 32, 51, 96, 159, 161, 166, 169 transparency 8, 26, 104, 157–8, 167, 227,
Switzerland 141, 144 234, 236, 238–9, 243–4
synergies 5, 10, 77, 82, 87–9, 102 Treiß-Media 126
Syria 98 Trinity Mirror Group 242
Triple Helix model 31
taxation 167, 211 trust 20, 25, 34, 75, 79; and audiovisual
Tech Crunch 127, 131 consumption 227; and digital journalism
technology 4, 6–7, 9, 15–16, 29; and 98–9; and digital privacy 239, 242–4;
action research 103; and ad blocker and digital transformation 209, 214; and
industry 107–8, 113–14; and ethnography 85, 87; and small television
audiovisual consumption 218, 220–1, ecosystems 145; ‘Trust Label’ 228
223, 226; and collaboration 31, 33, 47, Tumblr 53
49–53; and digital journalism 98–9; and Turkey 31
digital privacy 233, 235, 237–8, 242–3; Turkmenistan 98
and digital transformation 209, 212; Twitter 53
emerging technology 7, 188, 190–200;
and entrepreneurship 188–203; and Ukraine 98
location-based services 121–5, 127–8, Unilever 67
131–2; and news media 155, 157, 163; United Arab Emirates (UAE) 70
266 Index
United Kingdom Research and Innovation viral processes 56

(UKRI) 59 virtual reality (VR) 188, 192, 194,
United Kingdom (UK) 3, 30–2, 51, 55, 59; 196, 199
and digital journalism 95, 97; and digital Von Rimscha, M.B. 189
privacy 240, 242–3; and location-based Voncom 235
services 123; and practice-led research voters 100, 242
62, 64–5, 67–71; and small television Vrije Universiteit Brussel 139
ecosystems 142, 149 VRT 141, 143, 145, 148
United States (US) 3, 48, 51, 55, 61; and VTM.Go 145
digital privacy 233, 239–40, 242; and
location-based services 121, 124; and Wagemans, A. 96
small television ecosystems 140; and Wagenhofer, R. 3
societal impact 160, 162–6, 169 Walton, J.S. 68
universities 1, 6–7, 19–20, 22, 24; and Watson, T.J. 83
audiovisual consumption 226–30; and wearable technology 192
digital journalism 101; and digital Web 2.0 52–3, 233
transformation 204; and Web of Science database 123
entrepreneurship 199, 212; and websites 56, 64, 82, 107, 110–11, 113, 123,
ethnography 78, 85; and location-based 128, 164, 184, 239–40
services 125–6, 129–30, 133; and news Webster, J.G. 221, 228
media 157; and policymaker-academic Westin, A. 236
collaboration 46–58; and practice-led Westlund, O. 124
research 59; and small television WhatsApp 235
ecosystems 139, 141, 145; and societal Wilbur, K.C. 56
impact 160, 163, 165–6, 170–1; Wildman, S. 4, 46–58
university-industry collaboration 29–45 Will, A. 7, 188–203
University of Florida 108–9 willingness to accept (WTA) 48
University of Helsinki 157, 160, 162, Windscheid, J. 7, 188–203
164, 166 Wirtz, B.W. 189–90, 193, 195
University of Jyväskylä 157, 160, 166 Witschge, T. 96
University of Navarra 218, 225, 228 Wolter, L.-C. 5, 107–20
University of North Texas 3 workshops 23, 37–8, 42, 79, 93, 97, 100,
University of Santiago de Compostela 227 159, 174, 183, 214, 229
University of Tampere 157 World Association of Newspapers and
University of Turku 157, 160 News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) 169
university-industry collaboration (UIC) 4, World Bank 49, 51
29–45 World Café 99–100
Urgellés, A. 224 World Media Economics and Management
user-created content 52, 56, 233 Conference (WMEMC) 21, 35, 166
Uzbekistan 98 World Population Review 49
World War II 236
valorisation practices 177–9 Wylie, C. 242
Van Damme, K. 239, 243
Van de Burgwal, L. 177–8, 180, 185 Yale University 163
Van de Ven, A.H. 17–18 Yanow, D. 84
Van der Heijden, K. 68 YouTube 13, 53, 56, 68–70, 194,
Van Maanen, J. 77 225–6, 233
venture capital 52
video-on-demand (VOD) 138, 140, 142, Zaire 236
144, 148–9, 218, 222–3 Zenith Media 49, 51
Villi, M. 6, 155–72 Zott, C. 62

(Media Management and Economics Series) Ulrike Rohn, Tom Evens - Media Management Matters - Challenges and Opportunities For Bridging Theory and Practice (2020, Routledge) - Libgen - Li

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

(Media Management and Economics Series) Ulrike Rohn, Tom Evens - Media Management Matters - Challenges and Opportunities For Bridging Theory and Practice (2020, Routledge) - Libgen - Li

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

‘Media Management Matters is a welcome addition to the media management and

economics ﬁeld. Moving beyond a pure academic discussion, the contributors

‘Aiming at understanding media ﬁrms and the uncertain environment in which

This edited volume explores media management as engaged scholarship, building a

Ulrike Rohn is Professor of Media Economics and Management at Tallinn University,

Media Management Matters

Handbook of Media Management and Economics

The Media Economy

The Social Media Industries

Edited by Ulrike Rohn and Tom Evens

ISBN: 978-0-367-21099-1 (hbk)

6 Evaluating Action Research to Innovate Digital Journalism

List of Contributors 248

stations to big online platforms, from journalistic brands to entertainment outlets,

As it is with all collections, there is a limit as to how many chapters can be

Contents of the Book

impact outside academia. Second, we position media management scholarship on

What is Media Management Research?

Economics of the Media

Cultural and Societal Concerns

lead to algorithmic biases. As such, the importance of media management

New Directions in Media Management

tremendous transformations of the media industries, media management research

challenging research questions, experimenting with innovative methods and fur­

Media Management between Critical and Administrative Research

Practice-relevant Knowledge, but for Whom?

management research that policymakers do not overlook the special characteristics

Media Management as an Engaged Scholarship

Obstacles to be Relevant outside Academia

that media management itself is, by nature, interdisciplinary. As a result, many

Suggestions to Create Greater Impact outside Academia

If we want our research results to reach decision-makers in industry and policy,

of the existing science base. In a systematic review, academics and stakeholders

Discussion: Academic Independence is Crucial

contribution to informed decision-making necessary for supporting the sustainability

process. Besides a stricter application of ethical procedures already in place in most

Center for Media at Risk, Annenberg School of Communication, University of Penn­

Changing Policy and Structure in Higher Education

intellectual rationale supposes innovation is more regularly achieved by bridging spe­

Motives, Barriers and Conﬂicted Logics

• Corporate focus on short-term profits

FIGURE 2.1 Summary of Characteristic Drivers and Barriers in University–Industry

� Translational collaboration is characteristic when diﬀerent dominant logics

The likelihood of developed collaboration (their normative priority) is

� Junior scholars will be more dependent on external funding than senior

1. AEJMC: Media Management, Economics & Entrepreneurship Division of

A large majority of media management researchers (70%) are situated in media

External Involvement and Interaction

quarter never (24%). Although a large minority (41%) conducts collaborative

Priorities for Tenure and Promotion

of publication, although a distant third. A bit more than one-quarter of the

Oliver, C. (1990). Determinants of interorganizational relationships: Integration and future

Why Policymakers Care about Media

Media and Media Services Are Economically Signiﬁcant Industries

Media Are Major Consumer Goods

Media Signiﬁcantly Impact the Functioning of Other Industries

Media Products and Services Are Cultural Goods

Media Play Critical Roles in the Political Systems of All Countries

Media Should Attract More Attention from Policymakers in the

Changing Economic Impact

Impacts on Culture and Political Systems

The Need for New Thinking and New Ideas

emerge in the online environment is an open question. The multisided platform

challenging research questions, experimenting with innovative methods and fur

Center for Media at Risk, Annenberg School of Communication, University of Penn

intellectual rationale supposes innovation is more regularly achieved by bridging spe

� Knowledge-based View (intangible resources, skills and capabilities): an aspira

Cornelissen, J. P., Haslam, A. S. & Balmer, J. M. T. (2007). Social identity, organiza