Online Interactivity and Achieving Business Value Through Digital Media Entrepreneurship

Abstract

Media entrepreneurship is a growing area of research in media business studies. Online interactivity is a relevant driver because of opportunities it provides for entrepreneurs to deliver value directly and inexpensively to target customers. This article presents online interactivity as an under-researched factor in studying digital media entrepreneurship, and used a three-dimensional view of interactivity: intrinsic attribute of communication technology, consistent part of a social interaction, and process of subjective user perception. It finds online interactivity adds value to media firms by increasing audience engagement, hence reducing costs of interaction between media firms and audiences. This research can help to understand levels of environmental pressure for innovation, the organizational and entrepreneurial need to properly act on innovation, the need for strategic choice and decision-making by media firms to initiate and sustain activities of product and process innovation, and the impacts of up- and downstream practices for innovation success of media organizations.