Invisible on the Frontlines of the Media Revolution

Abstract

What if you took up arms and joined a revolution, but none of your fellow revolutionaries even noticed you were there? As a member of the international community of media management scholars, I have had that sense with increasing frequency in the past couple of years. I am sure I am not alone. At the close of our 3 years of shared work on The International Journal on Media Management (JMM), Dr. Alan Albarran, my long-time friend, colleague, and JMM editor, invited the members of the editorial team to share our thoughts on the current state of international media management research. Given the turmoil affecting the industries that are the focus of this journal, this is probably a good time for all of us to reflect on our role as scholars in shaping the media’s uncertain future. Therefore, let me begin my reflections by sharing a recent experience. Last year, 2007, I attended one of the American Press Institute’s (API) Newspaper Next workshops. The Newspaper Next program is an effort by API to identify and test new business models for the U.S. newspaper industry. In developing Newspaper Next, API hired a consulting firm founded by a Harvard Business School professor and convened a national task force of leading media executives. A series of workshops and a training DVD came out of the project. The materials are designed to help newspaper publishers, editors, and other executives understand what is happening to their industry. It also teaches techniques for strategizing and testing new product ideas and markets. API has since issued a second version of the program called Newspaper Next 2.0, and I should note that I have not yet participated in the newer version of the workshop. I have to say that I found the Newspaper Next session I attended interesting and informative, and it certainly proposed some thoughtful approaches to conceptualizing potential new media products. I have shared some of the insights from the workshop with my students and used some of the suggested techniques in my own work. However, what really got my attention at the Newspaper Next seminar was what was not in the workshop: Us. All of us. Any of us. As in . . .