The Transformation of Media — Economic and Social Implications

When trying to connect markets and societies, one focal point of concern is the media sector. Both, media markets and society are interdependent. Market behaviour in media influences society and society influences market behaviour. Information technology is a major driver of transformation for both, media society and markets as well as for their mutual interdependence. Traditionally, research focuses only one side, whereas an interdisciplinary view is neglected in most cases. On the following pages, we discuss the potential for such an interdisciplinary research concerning the media sector and try to show its importance especially with regard to the influence of information technology. Firstly, we shortly introduce basic principles and recent evolutions of the media sector. In a second step, we present the views of business administration and communication science on the sector and its recent developments. Thirdly, we identify a certain complementariness of both disciplines, discuss conceptual consequences and derive potential research perspectives resulting from these complementary views. As a main result, inside both disciplines we find process-related views and functional analyses, but with different objectives. Major research concerns cover economic efficiency for the case of business administration and social fit for the case of communication science. Accordingly, functional views in these disciplines centre on economic functions in one discipline and on social functions in the other. We argue, that both types of functions seem to be interdependent, as social functions afford economic functions to be fulfilled and vice versa. This and further identified complementarities open the field for interdisciplinary research on the media sector and its transformation by information technology.