International Encyclopedia of Communication Online

Extract

The core task of media management is to build a bridge between the general theoretical disciplines of management and the specificities of the media industry. Media management is, however, neither a clearly defined nor a cohesive field but rather a loose agglomeration of work by researchers from various scientific fields. The syllabi from the rash of media management courses that have sprung up over the past decade all over the world exhibit very few commonalities, and an enormously diverse range of theories, topics, and core readings. Notable is that very few of these courses stem from management or business schools. The majority come from mass communications and journalism or economics institutions ( Küng 2007 ). In contrast to media economics, which since its emergence in the 1970s has acquired an established set of theoretical approaches and an extensive body of literature, media management is still embryonic; the International Journal of Media Management was established only in 1998, the Journal of Media Business in 2004, the European Media Management Association (EMMA) in 2003, and the International Media Management Academic Forum in 2004 (→  Media Economics ). As Albarran and colleagues have observed, the field of media management “crosses interdisciplinary lines, theoretical domains, and political systems” (2005, 3). This, combined with its newness, has given rise to ... log in or subscribe to read full text