Call for Papers: Managing Disruptiveness As the New Normal

The whole notion of a ‘media company’ is undergoing reconceptualization. While the future of media and of media professions are being questioned, studies on media management and media business observe the practicalities of media transformations. In a changing digital realm finding the right business model is only one of many riddles to be solved by media managers who usually pay little attention to theory. On the other hand, involvement in media management makes one an active learner, considering the pace of changes. In this regard modern research on media management is doubly challenged: at first, scholarship needs to keep pace with current changes, and second, theory if it is to have tangible impact needs to be adaptable to the needs and attention spans of those in the industry.

In this issue we will focus on anything from strategic change and innovation on a par with culture alongside studies on technology, audience and leadership. However, to narrow things down, we will look at current media management practices from the angle of disruption.

A report by the McKinsey Global Institute in 2013[1] predicted that the top four of 12 technologies that would ‘transform life, business and the global economy’ in the next decade were media technologies: namely mobile internet; the automation of knowledge work; the internet of things; and the cloud, underlining the importance of academic studies that take disruption as a central concern.

Seen in the dimension of the market space sphere of global media markets, disruptiveness is relative. What is disruptive for the incumbents may be the normality for the innovators. For example what the New York Times may now be struggling to cope with is what the Huffington Post may thrive on. In the Web 2.0 and mobile era when media technology has enabled the audience to come into play as never before, this relativity has become even more complicated. With the ubiquity of innovative technology, disruptiveness may have become the “new normal” of the media industries. If so, managing disruptiveness will become the normality of media management.

This issue of WPCC examines these issues from a variety of perspectives: incumbents, innovators, and/or audiences. We also welcome proposals covering different national markets or with an international dimension.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Audiences and consumption
• Changes to revenue models and general issues of newsroom sustainability
• Amateurs vs. professionals: the new kinds of news providers and the multiplatform traditional media
• Public service media management in the digital age
• The management of creativity
• Rebranding strategies of traditional media
• Innovative approaches to advertising
• Non-profit news
• Paying for news online
• Political economy of media concentration: incumbents v. startups

Proposal deadline: 15 January 2016 (new deadline)

Deadline for full text submission: 1 June 2016 (new deadline)