Heterodox approaches to save the day: A framework for analysing data-related innovation in legacy media businesses

Abstract

That legacy media organisations are struggling in this era of global platformisation and datafication is well established. Yet, the power of platforms as well as critiques of them could be seen as being framed and facilitated by the prevailing forms of neoclassical economics. This paper addresses how analysis and planning of data-driven innovation in legacy media organisations could benefit from the perspectives deriving from heterodox economics. Using approaches within heterodox economics as a foundation, we build on two novel conceptual frameworks – innovation commons and cross-innovation systems, where decentralisation of media markets and collaboration between agents on different levels are central. Further, three tools – open data, blockchains and agent-based modelling (ABM) – offer ways to operationalise these frameworks. Central to these tools are further democratisation and growing complexity, openness and dynamism that enable media organisations to identify paths towards data-driven innovation that could improve the competitiveness of the legacy media industry in the platform economy.