Abstract
In the contemporary media environment, media managers have been forced to reassess everything from editorial workflows to business models to technological platforms. Amid such challenges, legacy news media are encouraged to innovate. Contemporary scholarly literature on media innovation typically adopts a relatively narrow approach when defining and studying the agents involved in shaping media innovations. Ultimately, many studies focus on individual parts of the organization rather than the complete system. There is thus a need to theorize and conceptualize the agents of media innovations in order to understand and improve activities of media innovations. This article presents the AMI approach (Agents of Media Innovations) as a holistic theoretical construct for understanding the agents of media innovation activities. It conceptualizes this approach through a systematic discussion of four interlinked factors: actors, actants, audiences, and activities. These are used to compose and outline what we call the 4A Matrix, encompassing seven distinct and typological ways in which actors, actants and audiences might intersect in the activities of media innovation. In mapping this interplay, the 4A Matrix serves as a heuristic for the scholarly study of media innovations, as well as a conceptual tool for envisioning, at a practical level, how media managers might act strategically.
Highlights
This article conceptualizes the agents involved in media innovation activities— actors, actants, and audiences—focusing on the salient case of innovation among news media companies
This points to the need for taking a more holistic approach, one incorporating human actors and technological actants more thoroughly, to study how organizations turn to media innovation
Under certain conditions, news organizations might give to technology some activities, even leading priorities and core competencies, that previously belonged to humans. This can be seen in the algorithmic selection and sorting of news headlines and machinewritten news stories, as well as an increased reliance on data-backed applications to guide, even automate, decisions about which advertisements to target to particular types of audiences and individuals. Humans retain their role in encoding such tools, but the logic of the organization becomes increasingly situated around letting actants “do the work” when media innovations are implemented into more routinized media work such as journalism
Summary
This article conceptualizes the agents involved in media innovation activities— actors, actants, and audiences—focusing on the salient case of innovation among news media companies. In the salient case of information systems, researchers have argued that a resource-based view should include more technologically specific resources, what Wade and Hulland (2004) discuss in terms of tangible assets such as hardware or network infrastructure, or intangible assets such as software patents This points to the need for taking a more holistic approach, one incorporating human actors and technological actants more thoroughly, to study how organizations turn to media innovation. On the basis of these two points of departures, this article attempts to develop a theoretical construct of the agents involved in activities of media innovations, with an emphasis on innovation at the level of the news media organization This attempt toward a more holistic approach aims to guide how scholars might study and comprehend media innovation beyond the lens of one group of actors, and how media managers and workers might approach media innovation in their practice.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
