On July 15th 2009 I handed in my PhD Thesis titled Crossmedia (pdf of full thesis in Danish). The thesis outlines crossmedia as an innovation network for traditional media organizations analyzing crossmedia as changes within business models, work processes & skills and conceptual designs.
English Summary
Media production is not only about producing newspaper articles or shows for
TV. It is about making products that bring all the different media touch points
users have into play. How should we perceive this shift from monomedia
production to production crossing media boundaries? Which patterns arise and
what conceptual changes occur through conflicts and compromises? This thesis
regards such processes as an ecological coherence termed cross media.
The thesis aims to enrich the understanding and the
conceptualization of cross media in traditional media organizations including
especially former newspaper and broadcast organizations. The main argument
is that cross media above all is to be perceived as innovation networks in an
extensive transition process – not only as patterns of reproduction and
collaboration. Cross media becomes a way of surviving new media technologies
where traditional media organizations do not hold a central position to begin
with. This innovation process involves three characteristics: gathering two or
multiple media in the same media organization, production to internet based
and/or mobile media, and design of communication to multiple media
concerning forms of interplay.
The study draws on ethnographic case studies of entertainment
concepts for young people at DR (Danish Broadcasting Corporation) and three
types of news at Nordjyske Medier (regional media house including newspaper
production). At the same time theoretical studies of change processes, media
and networks supplement the case studies. The study looks for common
patterns in the conceptualization of cross media in two very different cases.
The common patterns are derived from financial ground, genre and media
(industry). The conceptualization evolves as an iterative process between theory
and empirical data. The contribution is twofold.
First, a theoretical framework for understanding cross mediaproduction
is developed as a way to encompass media change processes with
innovation as the focal point. This framework is a theoretical contribution to
understand and operationalize crossmedia as innovation networks. The
theoretical framework syntesizes analytical concepts such as alliances, change
agents, translation, boundary objects and use them to develop understandings
of key notions such as innovation, culture, skills, strategies, concepts,
producers, users, and last, but not least, media.
Second, the thesis develops varied and detailed
conceptualizations and typologies of crossmedia. From a genealogical point of
view, the study shows that cross media is a network of different initiatives
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sensitive to different change agents rather than one radical innovation. In
retrospect, this innovation network points to certain patterns in the
understanding of cross media. These patterns do not replace each other but
coexist. The cross media conceptualization has three focal points in the thesis:
Changes in business models, work (processes and skills), and conceptual design.
As business models cross media is conceptualised as coexisting
forms of bundling and unbundling. The thesis refines the idea of COPE
(Create Once Play Everywhere). The term is instead divided into different
coexisting media circulation patterns with different premises of ownership,
control and openness: CAP or Create and Play (full ownership and control),
DAL or Distribute And Link (traffic ownership but not control of context),
FAD or Fetch And Distribute (no control of content neither ownership nor
context), and OAP or Open And Play (voluntary openness to free coproduction
and circulation). The thesis especially points to radical conceptual
changes around Fetch and Play-patterns, also called data piracy.
As work (processes and skills) different interests are bound in a
cross media conceptualisation that consists of multiskilled producers, project
management, network collaboration (between users and employees), and
innovation. The thesis identifies different alliances that dominate the way in
which cross media is evolving: Efficiency, career, profession, and innovation.
An essential conclusion is that tensions between these alliances result in the
breakdown of boundary objects and crossmedia-supportive initiatives such as
IT-planning systems, project leaders (media conductors and trimedial projects
leaders), coordination meetings, physical layout, and concept description
systems and routines.
As conceptual design, cross media is seen as different kinds of
flow-patterns. The thesis distinguishes between parallel and sequentiel designs
and analyses five underlying patterns of flow: Conceptual, navigational,
versioning, functional, and translative. This way it is not only content that is
being reproduced and reused, it is also to a great extent other binding elements
such as hosts, branding, and jingles.
Overall, the thesis identifies two coexisting patterns across cases,
analytical perspective, and levels of analysis. These are cross media as media
circulation and universe production. Media circulation builds primarily on
unbundling production whereas universe production operates on different
kinds of bundling strategies. The thesis points to how the career alliance
nurtures the conceptual framing of crossmedia as universe production, whereas
the efficiency-alliance nurtures media circulation within the media organisations
own control. Media circulation outside the control of the organisations (FAD)
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is nurtured only by the innovation-alliance, whereas the profession-alliance sees
media circulation as ‘bad cross media’ because it is based on showeling and
cloning. Universe production is perceived as ‘an extra work load’. In the light of
this the thesis concludes, that at the time of the study there are three main
patterns of cross media: universe production, media circulation with ownership
of traffic (CAP), and free circulation where users fetch, distribute, and coproduce
freely.
Based on the results and conclusions the thesis encourages
further and future development of medium theory in relation to media change
and media complementarity. Furthermore, it suggests how the identified
conceptualizations set new demands for media legislation. The thesis
exemplifies how the findings can be taken into account so that the legislation is
less likely to function as an obstacle for future use of cross media as innovation
netvorks.
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