Business ecosystems in digital journalism: cross-border collaborative investigations as a novel organizational form

Abstract

This chapter focuses on cross-border collaborative investigations in digital journalism through the lens of digital business ecosystems research. By summarizing the state of research on objectives and motivations, actors and their positions (particularly the role of keystone organizations) and the activities and links in such ecosystems, it opens up an innovative perspective on a novel organizational form of digital journalism. Given journalism's crucial role in society and the enormous struggles the industry is facing economically in the wake of digitization, digital journalistic ecosystems can be considered specific contrasting cases amongst conventional business ecosystems. The chapter therefore asks what research on digital business ecosystems can learn from the case of journalism, emphasizing the need for empirical follow-up research.