Going beyond the hype: conceptualising “media ecosystem” for media management research

ABSTRACT

Faced with competition from electronic communications, ICT and social media firms, and confronted with multi-sided platforms occupying numerous gatekeeping positions, media firms have to rely on others to create value. Competing means collaborating and supporting others to innovate and create joint value. Taking these changes into account, the use of “ecosystem”, in addition to allied concepts such as platform, became more prominent. Ecosystems allow actors to create value that none of them is able to do on their own. This article explains why the concept of media ecosystem can be useful in media management research and in practice and defines and operationalises the concept in a model that can be used for empirical research and in practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Media ecosystem
• business ecosystem
• platform
• innovation
• media market
• coopetition
• Netflix
• ecosystem
• SVOD

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the reviewers and the editor for their thoughtful comments and efforts towards improving our manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest is reported by the authors.

Supplementary materials

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here

Notes

1. Jenkins’ definition of media convergence as “the flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries and the migratory behaviour of media audiences” is a constructive departing point in discussing media convergence as it draws connections to its industrial, technological and social aspects (Jenkins, 2006 p.2–3).

2. Jacobides and Billinger (2006:250) define the “vertical architecture” of the firm as the overall structure of a firm’s value chain.

3. In the process of selection, we eliminated a number of articles which included the words “ecosystem” and “media” but did not fit the criteria to use the ecosystem concept in relation to media (see Appendix).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ivana Kostovska

Ivana Kostovska is a doctoral candidate at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and media economics researcher at imec-SMIT-VUB. She holds a master's degree in Media Management from the University of Westminster. Her research brings forth ecosystem perspective to film and audiovisual policy and strategic and innovation media management, as well as into exploration of the competitive landscape of platforms and traditional and OTT players.

Tim Raats

Tim Raats is Professor at the Communication Sciences Department of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He is head of the Media Economics and Policy Unit at imec-SMIT-VUB. His research expertise is audiovisual support policies, public service media and television production in small markets. He is board member of the Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF).

Karen Donders

Karen Donders is Assistant Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel where she teaches on media economics, policy and political economy of journalism. She is a senior researcher at imec-SMIT. Her fields of expertise are public service media, competition law and media, platform policies, and European media policy. She has published widely on these topics.

Pieter Ballon

Pieter Ballon is Professor at the Communication Sciences Department of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Director of imec-SMIT-VUB. Currently, he is a board member and secretary of the European Network of Living Labs. He specialises in business modelling, open innovation and the mobile telecommunications industry.