1st Edition

Media Management and Digital Transformation

Edited By Arne L. Bygdås, Stewart Clegg, Aina Hagen Copyright 2019
    178 Pages 4 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    178 Pages 4 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Media Management and Digital Transformation provides novel and empirically rich insights into the tensions, struggles and innovations of news making and managing in media organizations.

    From an empirically grounded perspective this book investigates how the 'buzz' of new technology tends to prevent management from seeing which changes are needed and indeed possible to make in the newsroom. It presents ground-breaking research showing that fostering ingenious, innovative solutions can be created from within organizations by engaging and allowing employees to recognize problems, reflect and experiment with new ways of working, using technology as support for change. The research presented arises from a four-year action research project in collaboration with three small and medium-sized Norwegian newspapers, in addition to ethnographic research in newsrooms and on media organizations and phenomena in the USA and Europe. It includes among other empirical examples of newsrooms transitioning from a deadline-controlled workflow to an open-ended flowline production, and provides new tools and methods for fostering collaborative creativity and co-creative innovation practices. It also looks into newsrooms’ attempts to strengthen their audience engagement, metrics performance and external collaborations with technology providers, journalism education and action researchers.

    With theoretical chapters, methodological insights and qualitative case studies of contemporary practices, this book is essential reading for students and practitioners involved with media management globally.

    1. Introduction: Why is innovation needed in organizational media managing?

    Stewart Clegg, Aina Landsverk Hagen & Arne L. Bygdås

    Part I Ethnographing the newsroom

    2. Print and digital: Synchronizing discrepant temporal regimes in the newsroom

    Gudrun R. Skjælaaen & Ingrid M. Tolstad

    3. From deadline to flowline: Managing paradoxical demands in news organizations through metaphor

    Arne L. Bygdås, Aina Landsverk Hagen, Ingrid M. Tolstad & Gudrun R. Skjælaaen

    4. Local journalism seen through the numbers: Interpreting metrics through quantitative and qualitative methods

    Bente Kalsnes

    5. Projects as containers of future hopes and dreams: Organizing innovation projects in the newspaper field

    Elena Raviola, Maria Norbäck & Rolf Lundin

    Part II Interventions: Changing practices in the newsroom

    6. Creating the new while producing the news: Managing media innovation in times of uncertainty

    Øyvind Pålshaugen & Aina Landsverk Hagen

    7. The Idea Propeller: Managing for collective creativity in newsrooms

    Aina Landsverk Hagen & Ingrid M. Tolstad

    8. Managing for audience engagement: Taking steps towards a ‘glowline’ co-production in the newsroom

    Ingrid M. Tolstad, Aina Landsverk Hagen & Gudrun R. Skjælaaen

    9. Challenging digital utopianism: Electronic imaginaries and the second century of radio Christina Dunbar-Hester

    Part III Openings & collaborations: Renewing the newsroom

    10. Managing journalistic innovation and source security in the age of the weaponized internet

    Elizabeth Anne Watkins & C.W. Anderson

    11. Teaming up with technology: Socio-material managerial approaches for digital transformation

    Gudrun R. Skjælaaen & Arne L. Bygdås

    12. Education as innovation: Exploring the synergy of student-journalist collaboration

    Ivar John Erdal

    13. Context and continuities: A plea for media research in medias res

    Øyvind Pålshaugen & Stewart Clegg

    Biography

    Arne L. Bygdås is Senior Researcher at the Work Research Institute at Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway.

    Stewart Clegg is Distinguished Professor of Management and Organization Studies at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia.

    Aina Landsverk Hagen is Senior Researcher at the Work Research Institute at Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway.