TOWARDS CROSS-PLATFORM VALUE CREATION

Abstract

Old media companies are being challenged by new structures of relating content to other ‘value’ creators, both within the controlled channels of the company and outside the companies’ own channels. On the basis of two ethnographic case studies of cross-platform production at a commercial regional newspaper (now media house) and a non-commercial public service broadcaster, the article identifies four main content flow structures that form part of the strategic challenges of the companies: Create and Play, in which the company maintains control and ownership over the content; Discover and Link, in which the company releases the content from its context, but retains ownership; Fetch and Distribute, in which the company is deprived of control and ownership over the content; and finally Open and Play, in which the users, in various ways, produce the content and the communications framework. The content flow structures constitute a common basis for cross-platform strategic analysis across non-commercial and commercial old media companies, and various understandings of ‘value’ and change related to these structures are discussed in the article.

Keywords:

• computer-mediated communication
• media studies
• economics
• organizational studies
• social networking

Notes

More information about the income basis of the companies and the full accounts for the economic figures and percentages in the companies’ revenue models can be found in Bechmann (2009, pp. 113–118).

The numbers were retrieved from http://www.internetworldstats.com/list2.htm on 4 January 2012.

Double and triple coverage figures show that the same user is reached several times, which may be desirable for advertisers who wish to ensure that their message sticks.

The figures are extracted from Index DK/Gallup Marketing 1H Software, November 2008.

This could be compared with content in the music industry, where music may be given away in exchange for increased income from concert revenues and merchandise. The repetition, experience and identity value of news may as yet be different.