Teaching Media Entrepreneurship: How a start-up simulation can increase students' knowledge and encourage them to work in entrepreneurial contexts

Abstract

Entrepreneurship and start-up activities are seen as a key response to recent upheavals in the media industry: Newly founded ventures can act as important drivers for industry transformation and renewal, pioneering new products, business models, and organizational designs (e.g. Achtenhagen, 2017; Buschow & Laugemann, 2020). In principle, media students represent a crucial population of nascent entrepreneurs: individuals who will likely become founders of start-ups (Casero-Ripolles et al., 2016). However, their willingness to start a new business is generally considered to be rather low (Goyanes, 2015), and for journalism students, the idea of innovation tends to be conservative, following traditional norms and professional standards (Singer & Broersma, 2020). In a sample of Spanish journalism students, Lopez-Meri et al. (2020) found that one of the main barriers to entrepreneurial intentions is that students feel they lack knowledge and training in entrepreneurship. In the last 10 years, a wide variety of entrepreneurship education courses have been set up in media departments of colleges and universities worldwide. These programs have been designed to sensitize and prepare communications, media and journalism students to think and act entrepreneurially (e.g. Caplan et al., 2020; Ferrier, 2013; Ferrier & Mays, 2017; Hunter & Nel, 2011). Entrepreneurial competencies and practices not only play a crucial role for start-ups, but, in imes of digital transformation, are increasingly sought after by legacy media companies as well (Kung, 2015). At the Department of Journalism and Communication Research, Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media, Germany, we have been addressing these developments with the “Media Entrepreneurship” program. The course, established in 2013, aims to provide fundamental knowledge of entrepreneurship, as well as promoting students‘ entrepreneurial thinking and behavior. This article presents the pedagogical approach of the program and investigates learning outcomes. By outlining and evaluating the Media Entrepreneurship program, this article aims to promote good practices of entrepreneurship education in communications, media and journalism, and to reflect on the limitations of such programs.