In search of new openings and actionable knowledge: coping with emerging phenomena in the media business

Media management scholarship has both the task and mission to be relevant and meaningful for the media industry. This mission can be considered the raison d’être that also provides the legitimate grounding for media management as an academic field (Achtenhagen, 2016; Küng, 2007). This naturally implies some obligations and guidance for media management scholars. This special issue of the Journal of Media Business Studies contributes to this mission by providing a selection of articles developed from the papers presented at the 2019 European Media Management and Association (emma) conference in Limassol, Cyprus. The conference was organised under the topic of Media Management and Actionable Knowledge: The Relationship Between Theory and Practice with an aim to highlight media management scholarship as a practice-relevant field. Actionable knowledge emphasises a vivid relationship between theory and practice. Actionable knowledge refers to both knowledge that empowers and helps actors to achieve their goals (Argyris, 2003) and advances the theoretical understanding of the nature of current and emerging phenomena in the media industry.

To fulfil the mission of being relevant for practice, scholarship should be based on the continuous examination, exploration and explanation of important and emerging phenomena in the media environment by conducting research that simultaneously follows scientific rigour and reasoning. To keep the research field impactful requires the ability to recognise and understand turbulent media environments and their constantly changing dynamics at all levels, from the global industry to the work of individuals. As the final goal is to develop media management as a research field with theoretical rigour and practical relevance, one of the core tasks is to ask the right questions. Some of these questions include the following: What are the most interesting issues requiring investigation? What are the appropriate theoretical concepts to deploy when dealing with these issues? Perhaps most importantly, how can the empirical results be utilised to develop and refine theoretical concepts and models to further advance media management research, and to better address the specific characteristics of the media industry?

Although media management is quite a young research field, it has developed and matured over the course of the last decade in terms of research and as an academic community (Achtenhagen & Mierzejewska, 2016; Ots et al., 2016; Picard & Lowe, 2016). The relevance of this field will undoubtedly continue to grow in importance as digital advancements, new business models, and changing user preferences have made the role of media in our societies more important than maybe ever before. During these tumultuous times, we can exemplify the work of media management scholars by means of the managerial concept of ambidexterity (Tushman & O’Reilly, 1996), which has also been used in some studies of media management (e.g. Maijanen & Virta, 2017; Nicoli, 2012; Nölleke-Przybylski et al., 2019). In the business context, ambidexterity refers to the ability to exploit the current business and, simultaneously, explore and develop new businesses (March, 1991; O’Reilly & Tushman, 2011). This aptly applies to the work of media management scholars, who are continuously coping with the already established concepts and theories from different research traditions (e.g. communications, economics, management, and organisational theory) while at the same time exploring new phenomena, redefining concepts and developing new ones to better analyse the constantly changing and complex media business environments. In recent years, phenomena such as platform-based content production, media ecosystems and artificial intelligence have required new conceptualisation and theoretical modelling in attempts to capture their essence. In the midst of technological innovations and new forms of organising, scholars have come back to the roots by asking basic questions such as what media is, or what journalism is. As media management scholars, we are simultaneously coping with the past and future. Starting from what we already know, we are looking forward to examining emerging issues and phenomena. This is how we gradually build on our academic heritage while at the same time maintaining our relevance for the industry itself.

Following this reasoning, media management scholars have increasingly focused on the collaboration between academia and the media industry (and other related stakeholders). One such example is a book by Stavros Georgiades (2015) titled Employee Engagement in Media Management: Creativeness and Organisational Development, in which different media organisations in Europe, the United States, and South America were examined to develop a theory of practical utility (Corley & Gioia, 2011). The recent “emma book” Media Management Matters: Challenges and Opportunities for Bridging Theory and Practice, edited by Rohn and Evens (2020), goes even deeper. In addition to showcasing interesting examples of industry-academia collaboration, the book by Rohn and Evens discusses the essential questions of how media management can produce more practice-relevant insights by drawing on engaged scholarship and how media management research can be better disseminated outside academia.

This special issue of the Journal of Media Business Studies follows the same line of reasoning. Representing the spirit of the “emma” conference in Cyprus in 2019 and its theme of Media Management and Actionable Knowledge, the studies of this special issue tackle trends and challenges in the media business from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. Specifically, the selected articles either develop new theoretical concepts to capture current emerging phenomena, or they contribute to analysing and solving more isolated empirical problems.

The study of Ivana Kostovska, Tim Raats, Karen Donders and Pieter Ballon provides an important theoretical contribution by defining and operationalising the concept of an ecosystem for the use of media management research. With the new concept of a media ecosystem, the authors tackle a very important current phenomenon in the media business in their examination of how technological innovations and convergence are radically changing the nature of competition. Traditional boundaries are disappearing, and organisational flexibility is required. Value creation is based on interdependent stakeholder relationships and collaboration between stakeholders with specialised complementary assets. No one can manage value creation alone; as the authors state, “competing means collaborating and supporting others to innovate.” Based on a systematic bibliometric analysis of ecosystem-related literature, the authors define the media ecosystem concept as a “multi-layered and dynamic structure of interdependent organisations and stakeholders that interact and co-evolve around one or several focal firms that provide media products or services, to create a joint value proposition.” This definition provides a good starting point for new studies to test the model empirically and develop it further. Importantly, the media ecosystem concept provides a useful tool to analyse and understand the essential underlying dynamics and features of the new networked media business environment.

The article by Isabelle Krebs, Philipp Bachmann, Gabriele Siegert, Rafael Schwab and Raphael Willi refers to the “hypercompetition” in the digital media business and explores the influence of new “non-journalistic” digital media (such as corporate publishing, non-profit organisations, amateurs, semi-professionals and influencers) on competition in the news media industry. To put it more concretely, the study adds to our knowledge by analysing whether and how the digital news offerings of the new news providers on platforms provided by Google and YouTube have replaced traditional news brands. As the authors highlight, we are lacking empirical evidence of the competitive situation involving news media brands. As a conceptual novelty, the authors launch the special concept of a “liquid media market” – based on Bauman’s (2000) Liquid Modernity – to describe the current competitive and complex situation “in which once-solid patterns of competition are eroding, since everything must compete with everything else for consumer attention and advertising revenues.” As a consequence, “the liquefaction of media markets leads to blurred boundaries, such as those between journalistic and non-journalistic sources.” The results of Google and YouTube searches in Switzerland conducted by web scraping software show that the situation for the traditional news media brands is quite solid and strong on Google but more “liquid” on YouTube. As the authors suggest, these results call for appropriate strategies from traditional media brands if they want to counteract this development. The authors present two possible scenarios for the future: either traditional media brands can regain their importance in times of information overload and fake news, or non-journalistic players can become more professional and dominate the online markets. These possible scenarios open up interesting avenues for further research.

In another study, Vanessa Rahe, Christopher Buschow and Daniela Schlütz analyse the brand perception of subscription-based video-on-demand (S-VoD) streaming services. Specifically, they are concerned with the important role of brands as a source of competitive advantage in these volatile markets. The focus here is on recipients’ brand perception of Germany’s two leading streaming services, Netflix and Amazon Prime video. The study applies the function-oriented media brand model with a customer-centred perspective based on the idea that a brand fulfils two functions: cognitive relief/simplification (reducing complexity) and activation (supporting identification, i.e. personal and social self-definition and prestige in terms of social self-presentation to others). Based on an online survey, the results show that Netflix seems to score better with its brand perception in both functions. Netflix has a clearer performance promise: it is simple to use and serves individualised media consumption. It also helps consumers to express their identity and serves as a source of cultural capital and differentiation (e.g. quality series). As the authors indicate, these interesting results can serve as insights for media managers in competitive markets and highlight the power of brands in digital markets.

The article by Jonas Brühl and Joachim Eigler tackles a current challenge faced by movie theatres regarding optimal personnel deployment strategies. The authors emphasise the fact that personnel costs play an important part in the movie theatres’ cost structure, and the optimisation of these costs is becoming even more critical as the uncertainty of the markets intensifies with the recent decline in the number of moviegoers. Based on accurate calculations of daily moviegoers and the corresponding working hours (e.g. checkout and concession) in Germany for 15 months between 2017 and 2018, the paper suggests a model for efficient personnel deployment to help movie exhibitors in their decision making. As for future studies, the authors suggest that the model be tested in more detail in case studies.

This special issue ultimately illustrates how rich and exciting the media business is for us scholars to explore and study. The published papers aim at either conceptualising a new phenomenon (e.g. the analysis of ecosystems by Kostovska et al.) or solving a more practical managerial problem (e.g. optimising the personnel deployment of movie exhibitors, as described by Brühl and Eigler). Theoretically, the studies either explore and apply new concepts to capture the essence of a specific phenomenon (e.g. the concept of the “liquid media market” by Krebs et al.), or they apply and refine old concepts and models to analyse something new (e.g. the study of Rahe et al. using a function-oriented media brand model).

With the selected articles, this special issue for its part advances the theoretical knowledge and practical relevance of the media management scholarship. We hope these contributions will attract media managers to these approaches and inspire media management scholars in their pursuits of conducting impactful research and to create actionable knowledge to advance media management scholarship.