Assessing the Disruptive Vulnerability of Broadcast News: An Ex-Post Analysis Generating Ex-Ante Prescriptions

This dissertation endeavors to assess the disruptive vulnerabilities of the broadcast news (BN) industry via a retrospective *ex-post* analysis with the objective of developing forward-looking *ex-ante* prescriptive and performative remedies for BN and the broader journalism industry. Through the lens of Clay Christensen’s disruptive innovation theory (DIT), the analysis begins with demonstrating how the value network, business model, and technology forces of BN, what Christensen refers to as *enablers* of innovation (Christensen, 2009), have become *disablers* of innovation to the detriment of BN and the broader journalism sector. Employing a mixed-methods approach with critical realism and interpretivism as the philosophical underpinnings, the research set out to perform 200 semi-structured interviews (SSI) utilizing a unique and unprecedented research interview method to determine market sentiments about BN and openness to emerging video journalism platforms. SSI questions were informed and cross-referenced by the Pew Research Center, one of the world's leading and most reliable media survey institutions. Qualitative and quantitative data insights were collected and analyzed to determine if there were adverse antecedents suggesting disruptive vulnerability for the industry. The SSI insights were then integrated with learnings from academic literature and proprietary industry sources to generate holistic ex-post insights into the innovation enablers of BN. Foremost of these insights is the breakdown of the BN value network occasioned by five causalities: outmoded institutional logics (legacy knowledge) and losses in credibility, agency, audience, and revenue. BN’s depleted value network has elicited knock-on effects on the other *enablers*, business model and technology, that have become *disablers* of innovation. Social media plays a predominant role in these causalities. Business models have been upended by attention economics machinations where the audience becomes the product sold to advertisers. Technological assaults in the form of AI-driven misinformation and algorithmicizing of user behaviors have led to political polarization and societal unwellness, as affirmed by Pew and this research’s SSIs. This narrative resolves with ex-post insights informing ex-ante prescriptive and performative measures that envision an OTT streaming technology construct to restore BN’s value network, business model, and technology to their healthy, innovation-enabling capacities. The objective is a future-proofed, rehabilitated BN industry powered by cutting-edge digital media logics.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2024

Author dc:creator

• Lile, Stephen

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Urmetzer, Florian
• Ansari, Shahzad

• Breaking News Application
• Broadcast News
• Broadcast News Industry
• Business Model
• Disruptive Innovation Theory
• OTT
• Over-The-Top
• UGC
• User Generated Content
• Value Network

Licence

• https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/a2639b18-7326-42f4-bb5e-44a08c8ce948/download
• https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/

Language dc:language

eng

DOI dc:identifier.doi

https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.108219

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/367749