Editors: Salla-Maaria Laaksonen (University of Helsinki) & Mikko Villi (University of Jyväskylä).
The special issue explores the widening scope of media work and the institutional and organizational conditions that support new forms of media work. The media industry has undergone significant economic, structural and technological changes during the past few decades, including changing patterns of ownership and digitalization of media production, distribution and consumption. Media work has been affected, for example, by the emergence of new digital players and changes in consumers’ media behaviour (Villi & Picard 2019). The inclusion of social media in media work patterns (Nielsen & Ganter 2018) and other digital platform-centric practices are emerging as a response to the new, digitalized media environment. As a result of increasing competition, media organizations need to consider strategic communication and branding activities (e.g., Malmelin & Moisander 2014; Laaksonen et al. 2019). These factors among many others have influenced the ways of working and content of work in the media as well as the organizational dynamics in media organizations.
The changes give rise to new forms of work in the media and also to media work in organizations in other fields. Media work, as defined by Deuze (2007), refers to planning, producing, and marketing media contents, products, services, and brands within media organisations. Media work is not limited to journalistic work but consists also of other activities undertaken by media professionals aimed at advancing the success of media products and services (Malmelin & Villi 2017). In addition, forms of media work are also emerging in other industries, for example in various organizations who aim for professional, media-like content production as a part of their communication strategy, or communications agencies who produce communication and marketing content for their customers. Further, the increasing significance of public social media and the demands for organizational openness and dialogue (e.g., Albu & Flyverbom 2016) require media skills from nearly all employees.
For this issue, we invite theoretical and empirical papers that study the changing nature of media work as well as the new institutional environments for media work from different perspectives, including but not limited to:
- New professional roles and responsibilities emerging inside the media industry
- Theoretical and conceptual development of media work in the social media era
- Institutional responses to environmental changes in media organizations
- Media work in entrepreneurial media outlets
- Practices of media work in organizations in other fields than the media (e.g. corporate media, public organization media)
- Mixing of strategic communications and journalistic work
- Organizational communication approaches on media work, such as internal mediated practices and their functions in organizations
Keywords:
Media work, organizations, organizational communication, organizing, entrepreneurship, media industry, strategic communication, corporate media, journalism
Timeline:
- Abstract submissions: 1-15 December 2020
- Full paper submissions: 15-30 April 2021
- Publication date: October/December 2021
Instructions for Authors:
Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal’s instructions for authors and send their abstracts in a Word file (about 250 words, with a tentative title and reference to the thematic issue) by email to the Editorial Office (mac@cogitatiopress.com). When submitting their abstracts, authors are also asked to confirm that they are aware that Media and Communication is an open access journal with a publishing fee if the article is accepted for publication after peer-review (corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee).
Open Access:
The journal has an article publication fee to cover its costs and guarantee that the article can be accessed free of charge by any reader, anywhere in the world, regardless of affiliation. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and advise them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication fees. Institutions can also join Cogitatio’s Membership Program at a very affordable rate and enable all affiliated authors to publish without incurring any fees. Further information about the journal’s open access charges and institutional members can be found here.
Journal website: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication
References:
Albu, O. B., & Flyverbom, M. (2016). Organizational Transparency: Conceptualizations, Conditions, and Consequences. Business & Society.
Deuze, M. (2007). Media Work. Polity Press: Cambridge, UK.
Laaksonen, S-M., Falco, A., Salminen, M., Aula, P. S. & Ravaja, N. (2019). Brand as a cognitive mediator: Investigating the effect of media brands as a structural feature of textual news messages. Journal of Product and Brand Management 28(1).
Malmelin, N. & Moisander, J. (2014). Brands and branding in media management – Toward a research agenda, International Journal on Media Management 16(1), 9-25
Malmelin, N., & Villi, M. (2017). Media work in change: Understanding the role of media professionals in times of digital transformation and convergence. Sociology Compass, 11 (7).
Nielsen, R. K., & Ganter, S. A. (2018). Dealing with digital intermediaries: A case study of the relations between publishers and platforms. New Media and Society, 20(4), 1600–1617.
Villi, M., & Picard, R. G. (2019). Transformation and Innovation of Media Business Models. In M. Deuze & M.
Prenger (Eds.), Making Media. Production, Practices, and Professions (pp. 121–131). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.