Strategic Responses to Disruptive Digital Innovation and Their Effects in the News Media Industry

Abstract

Digital innovation (DI) drives the digitalisation of goods and services, which also destroys established business models while creating new value chains. This effect is known as disruptive digital innovation (DDI). Beyond transportation and lodging, the effect is also evident in the news media industry. DIs facilitate an ecosystem in which the distinction between service providers and users become blurred – social media is birthing microbloggers as alternatives to incumbent media networks. There are questions on how firms—both incumbent and startups—strategically respond to DDIs and their effects. For the news media in developing countries, the concern is more acute. First, there are fewer established news sources; second, internet and media regulations are often non-existent or nascent stages, so experimentation is easier for DDI-enabled firms and citizen journalists; and third, fake news is not healthy for contexts with a history of political instability or where people have limited avenues to verify news, be it online, radio, or print. The need for this research is now.