Projectification in the Media Industries

Abstract

Since the death of the Hollywood studio system, projects have been the established way of producing content in a large part of the media industries. This includes sectors such as film and TV, advertising, electronic gaming, the recording industry, and book publishing. There seems to be an increasing trend of ‘projectification’ also in other parts of the media industries, for example, news media, which traditionally have not been organised according to a project logic. The aim of this chapter is to discuss the notion of projectification as it relates to the media industries and consider the implications this may have for media management. The chapter starts with an introduction to the general project management literature, describing its origins and development including the more recent discussion of projectification. It then turns to the media setting and discusses how content production is increasingly organised in projects and how this gives rise to what has been described as ‘project networks’ that evolve over time. Here the authors discuss what a project mode of organising means for the people set to manage media production, as well as for the individual media professional. The chapter ends with a discussion of what the trend of projectification in the media industries implies for the management of media—not only for the production of content but also for other, more strategic, endeavours.