Innovation & creativity: Media as business and commons

Abstract

This chapter argues that research on media innovations benefits from combining insights and concepts from the business literature with the critical theory approach typical of media and communication studies. Business, economics and marketing literature rarely address innovations in media industries, and communication and media scholars seldom look beyond their own disciplinary boundaries when studying media innovations. This chapter first reviews how the interrelated notions of innovation and creativity are conceptualized in the literature, and next how innovation and creativity apply to media industries. Using music streaming services as a case, I argue how innovation and business literature provides perspectives useful for understanding the development and adoption of these services. Key notions include a turn to experience-centric approach to innovation, customers as co-producers of service-value, and the context of innovation extending to include multiple actors and their interactions. Whereas the innovation literature has much to offer, media and communication scholars are likely better positioned to investigate media innovations than scholars from the business and marketing fields. This is due to the pro-innovation bias and lack of critical approaches in the innovation literature. A core concern for the study of media innovations is therefore to also question innovation