Digital transformation of media and adjacent industries fundamentally changes the challenges managers face (Bartosova, 2011; Loebbecke, & Picot, 2015; Napoli, 2018; Noam, 2018; Will, Gossel, & Windscheid, 2020). To successfully develop and drive media businesses in the twenty-first century, media decision-makers increasingly need entrepreneurial thinking (Achtenhagen, 2017; Innerhofer et al., 2018; Whittington, 2018). Making sense of their audiences’ digital traces demands at least to some extent also an understanding of information technology (Gillespie, 2014; Kosinski, Stillwell, & Graepel, 2013; Liu, & Hsu, 2019; Napoli, 2018; Newman, 2021; Smith, & Telang, 2016).
Major international players like Amazon, Alibaba, Google, or Netflix have already embraced the new world of data at an early stage and established very successful business models. Scholars thus see it as one of the biggest requirements for media management to stay up to date with the dynamics of digital media markets and technological developments (Förster, & Rohn, 2015; Kolo, & Haumer, 2021; Noam, 2018). However, technological shifts have not only changed management practices, but also brought new approaches to regulation and policy (Budzinski & Mendelsohn, 2021; Donders, Raats, & Tintel, 2020; Donders et al. 2021; Doyle, 2020; Doyle, Paterson, & Barr, 2021) that differ across countries or regions like spanned by the EU. Furthermore, as the COVID-19 pandemic has hit the world, its potentially uneven and inequitable longer-lasting effects across different groups of individuals, industries, and nations have to be taken into account.
Business model and product innovation are driven by digital technologies (Villi, & Picard 2019), entrepreneurs, and intrapreneurs setting up new ventures, as well as changed media policies also blur or change boundaries between media industries, the structure within them, and the relation to other business sectors (Holt, & Perren, 2019). For the emma conference in 2022, we, therefore, focus on the reorganization of media industries driven by digital transformation, entrepreneurship, and regulation.
We particularly welcome submissions related to the conference theme including, but not limited to, the following questions:
Are there game-changing emerging media (technologies) ahead or already around? What drives their emergence? Who are the drivers/entrepreneurs? How are specific media industries affected (e.g., sports media or electronic games)?
How do incumbents implement/integrate them? How will emerging media change value creation and business processes respectively? Do incumbents develop/exhibit dynamic capabilities or ambidextrous leadership respectively to react?
How do structures of media industries change and challenge entire media systems? Are there new forms of symbiosis between start-ups and incumbents?
What kind of regulatory activities are beneficial (for whom?) and who drives them (which institutions?)? What is the role of public (broadcasting) services and media subsidies?
To what extent do regulatory shifts (e.g., GDPR or AVMSD) hinder or ease digital transformation? How can ethical standards keep up with new business models (e.g., data-driven ones)?
How can higher education institutions and their media management and economics programmes cope with the challenges posed by the reorganization of media industries? Which methods, formats, technologies, or tools ensure the employability of media management and economics graduates?
