Multi-platform media and the digital challenge: Strategy, Distribution and Policy

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This project is about economic and social aspects of transformations taking place in the media industry as a result of digital convergence and growth of the internet. It sets out to analyse the recent migration of media businesses towards diversified digital distribution and multi-platform growth strategies and the impact this has had on economic efficiency, the organization of production, and on the nature and diversity of content. What challenges are faced by public policy?Using key case studies, the scope of the investigation will cover:- economic opportunities and advantages created by multi-platform expansion; - the role of convergent digital technologies and growth of the internet in encouraging such strategies;- the impact of multi-platform on the production of media content and on diversity and pluralism; - implications for public policy and regulation.The project investigates how current organisational responses to the arrival and growth of digital delivery platforms and especially the internet have altered and potentially improved the economics of supplying media. A multiple case study approach will be adopted focusing on significant target organizations within the main sectoral categories - television, magazines and newspapers - which this project is seeking to examine, e.g. BBC, ITV, MTV, All3Media, Lion TV, News Corporation, Guardian Media Group, Telegraph Media Group, Financial Times, The Herald & Times Group, IPC, Bauer Consumer Media and Dennis Publishing. How is the move to a multi-media approach affecting flows of jobs and investments across industry and to what extent this approach is enabling firms to exploit their resources and serve audience demands more effectively? Another central concern is to investigate empirically how the adoption of a multi-platform outlook is affecting content. The project will examine how decisions about production, the assembly of finished products and content services, and the distribution and delivery of items of media content are changing in response to the impetus to deploy a 360-degree approach. The research will also examine how the overall composition of media output is changing. In doing so it aims to find out whether multi-platform publishing and distribution is contributing to a widening of content diversity and choice or whether, conversely, multi-platform may be encouraging standardization and uniformity in the form of safe and popular themes and brands. At a moment of increased recognition of the potential dangers posed by concentrations of media ownership and by lack of plurality in media provision, a study of the impact of multi-platform strategies on diversity of content promises to be of particular value. The project will also contribute knowledge and offer potential impact in other key areas of public policy where digital convergence and emerging responses on the part of media organizations are crucial - notably, by analysing the role of creative industries policies in supporting creativity and innovation. The main resource requested is input from two part-time (0.5) Post-Doctoral RAs to support the project. The appointment of two RAs will allow flexibility in management of the timing of research activities throughout the lifetime of the project and will facilitate recruitment of researchers with complementary skills in the main methodologies to be used (e.g. interviewing, observation and content analysis). The RAs will play a full role in all stages of the project, from initial data-gathering, to field research and content analysis, to analysis and writing up and to communication of findings, and engagement and exchange. The PI and CoI have expertise in economics of media (Doyle) and in sociology of media and cultural policies (Schlesinger). Both have extensive experience of engagement with policy-makers and industry and of contributing to public debate on media-related and wider cultural policy questions.