Introduction of Journalists and Multinational Media Firms

The world of business is significantly impacted by the constantly advancing technology and it opens new pathways for organizations to take. However, it is not as simple as it appears because other than just influencing business operations, this advancement is threatening them. Just as technology facilitates different tasks and functions, it also complicates them and in this period, the focus on changing dynamics of media organizations is more important and critical than ever. It gains more significance considering how rapidly monetization, distribution, and creation of content are being modified and disrupted. At present, disruption is palpable and universal as it demands some serious commitment and focus on transformation. Inertia is not an option anymore as organizations contemplate what will be driving brand and customer relevance, operational excellence, and strategic growth. When considering the new developments in technology including Augmented Intelligence and Virtual Intelligence, there are different opportunities and challenges that organizations are facing. It is also important to understand that trends and predications made by Reuters Institute regarding Journalism, Media and Technology are very important in so many ways. The Reuters Institute did survey from 200 digital leaders, editors and CEOs. The findings of the survey are crucial to analyze future trends which are going to continue in future regarding media industry and journalists.

Opportunities and Challenges for Journalists and Multinational Media Firms

Following are some challenges and opportunities that multinational media organizations are facing:

Enhancing the business model and Challenges for Journalists and Multinational Media Firms

Disruption is actually sweeping through the industry of media, empowering the rapid expansion and invention of different new business models. It is also leading to confusion and uncertainty about the reliability of ecosystems established in organizations. Customers are expending both entertainment and media providers of various genres to provide value, convenience, and choice. They also want customized and personalized experiences that are prevalent on the basis of cross-platform and demand. Moreover, customers need enhanced data protection with limited advertising.

Creating a strategy or plan for revenue growth needs bolstering creativity and challenging the present constructs. From advertising, revenue is actually threatened by the changes in customer behavior to the one-off purchase of content and subscription. Abruptly, multinational organizations find themselves needing to create new muscles for driving consumer approaches for expansion and growth. Moreover, with new technological developments, organizations have to minimize costs while driving efficiency. Incremental approaches to the transformation of the business model are unlikely to keep up with the change rate. Hence, confident and bold leadership has become more important (Fisher, 2010).

Making the organization adapt to new reality

How an organization operates, works, and think in different domains like IT, finance, and HR present new opportunities for transforming the firm. And as it thinks about all those people who are driving the business, it should also rethink how talent is deployed, developed, retained, and attracted in a customer-centric dynamic business. And with the financial analysis of organizations, it is determined that there is an opportunity of bringing more automation to them and improving efficiency and efficacy because IT has taken a new turn. Since an operating and strategic role is played by technology, IT can efficiently empower every task to more actionable and meaningful business intelligence. Intensifying the competition for advertisers and viewers, combined with the prevalent declines in subscribers, is seemingly putting significant pressure on the performance of various media organizations. On the other side of the margin squeeze, an increment in costs can be identified, especially in significant areas of talent and content.

It is not surprising that cost-cutting has again shifted as a top priority for different teams of management but the solution is more nuanced and holistic today than brute-force reductions. It can be said that multinational media organizations require a new standard of operational excellence. It is the type of expense reduction which is capable of delivering long-term and short-term efficiencies.

Focusing on new currencies of advertising

For all the discussion and conversation around the growth of digital advertising, the industry has realized that most of it is seemingly accruing to the dominant duopoly of digital advertising. But still, there is a broad recognition TV is still important. Although the lines are blurring between OTT platforms of view, VOD, and linear platforms, there is not even a single question that there might be an opportunity for making a linear TV more effective and smarter. For the industry of TV to advance beyond buying and planning on the basis of conventional demographics, it will need industry-wide collaboration on the sell- and buy-side of the situation and equation. It will also need a willingness to comprehend the dramatic enablement of technology like blockchain, virtual reality, and augmented intelligence for an industry working in rows and columns. With the line blurring between digital and linear media, new currencies are being developed by advertisers for better understanding and targeting consumers. Moreover, audiences are shifting across platforms of video and it is creating a challenge for organizations.

Advertising models, with this fragmentation, are evolving different and new forms including addressable, 360 degrees, vertical, native, and programmatic advertisements. The measurement of audience has become not only complex but it is also lagging.

Providing new experiences to customers

In the typical model of media and entertainment, monetization, distribution, and creativity were linear and for most of the part, customers were not only passive but also waiting for the content which was available at a specific time dictated by other people. A new order of the world has been created by digitalization that is more complex, disintermediated, atomized, and most importantly, dynamic. Consequently, consumers of media are empowered more. Combined with the advancement of technology, they have rising expectations regarding how services and products must be provided.

Only a little time ago, customers would be delighted to stream a show or movie on various devices but now, customers expect personalized and customized experienced throughout their daily life, from financial services and mobility to entertainment and communications. Actually, the fact is that organizations now have trained individuals to expect different technological levels in how content is provided to them. Now, each and every person has higher expectations regarding how different media organizations can help them in sharing, transacting, experiencing, and discovering. However, the core of these requirements and expectations sits at the basic belief that it is important for the experience to be connected. For engaging customers in new experiences, media firms shouldn't only focus on better creativity but also on deepest commitment to join dots for customers through technology and data (Fitzgerald, Kruschwitz, Bonnet, & Welch, 2014).

Mitigating cyber risks

Although problems and complexities of cybersecurity were relegated to CSO, CIO, or CTO, now they have been elevated to C-Suite in no small section because of the public attention around the risk of companies on this issue. In media organizations, protecting consumers and content is now a serious concern as it is not just a question. It requires organizations to focus on this properly. The attention of regulators is being amplified by them on cyber issues and it includes the impending deadline of May 2018 in the EU for GDPR or General Data Protection Regulation. Organizations of media have to consider prioritizing and planning cybersecurity, protecting assets and customers, and developing the present efforts for maintaining that attention in a consistent manner. Every download, view, and click seems to result in a large amount of data being developed on a daily basis. It seems to offer media organizations a competitive advantage but it is also an attractive source of cybercriminals. A four-step approach towards cyber-security should be taken by media organizations:

Prioritizing: Prioritizing and identifying assets that are considered most important to the firm.

Planning: Improving different processes for responding, detecting, protecting, and planning to cyber risks.

Protecting: Considering the effect of different security breaches that are presented by third parties and developing a supplemental plan for addressing these gaps and issues.

Preserving: Developing a consistent plan of improvement which allows the management of consistent change effectively and efficiently (Straubhaar, LaRose, & Davenport, 2013).

Competing for required content

Although the model of the media business, especially for premium content of video, undergoes some massive challenges around and distribution and advertising fees, there exists no question that content is still the king. Customers are being benefitted from the revolution of content creation and creativity but the business model for some aspects is challenged here, considering the fact that new competitors are now participating in the market for both consumer attraction and premium content. With commerce players and social media putting in large investments in licensing or original content, more typical players of media are finding the economics of content acquisition and creation, challenging.

The quick proliferation of platforms of video distribution and an uplift in the metrics of engagement, advertising revenue, or subscription fees, has developed a tight competition for acquiring and developing the required quality content. With a significant amount of content available over distribution alternatives, media organizations have to think of reliable innovative strategies for enabling customers to reach compelling programs for watching. It is actually expected that machine learning and AI technologies will be leveraged in the media organizations for dissecting patterns of viewing from a different perspective to create customized and personalized recommendations into the digital interaction of customers. In addition, the significance of collaboration of network with distribution frenemies will rise and it will be curating relevant content to platforms (Picard, 2001).

Creating scale – both vertical and horizontal

The industry of media was characterized historically by brand ownership's fierce decentralization – concentration on franchise and brand development correlated with consumer understanding and creativity. But the traditional outlook of organizations has been broken by dynamic digitalization and it encourages them to rethink about the way how they approached markets. Consequently, building scale has become a very important and dominant trend throughout the industry of media. For all media organizations wanting to capitalize on either scale need a deep commitment to transform the operating model during the process of merging, not only for growth but also for cost reduction.

The emergence of international e-commerce, advertising, video, and social organizations, with their investments worth billions, significant financial resources, and high growth rates, is creating a reality which is quite competitive. And this backdrop is seemingly empowering a sense of urgency throughout the sector of media organizations to respond to this condition in a strategic manner. Leaders of media organizations view inorganic action as the most reliable and quick way of gaining heft, increasing shares, rationalizing marketplaces, adding new capabilities, and reshaping their present portfolios of the asset. The top rationales for media and entertainment organizations in the area are optimizing service portfolios and products while gaining a market share.

Optimizing the marketplace

Since new technologies are accelerating how demand and supply are intersecting in all sectors and industries, the dynamics of different media marketplaces are being superfluid, and are pressurizing all parts of organizations to move in a rather quick way. Programmatic transactions' dynamics are actually now spreading to other areas of business which embrace automation and data. They were first pioneered in digital media and financial markets. With the infusion of digital dynamics into both digital and traditional media, opportunities for accelerating marketplaces of media will be consistent in growing. Digital dynamics have now become a serious concern for organizations and it is important for media firms to focus on them in order to advance in the industry.

Reinventing the model of tax

The reform of the United States of tax seems to represent the most important and critical change in years and creates a strong impetus for challenging tax strategies and operating models of most media organizations. For media organizations operating in different nations, there is a chance of repatriating the accumulated foreign assets and earnings with a toll charge (in accordance with whether the assets are in the form of cash or not). An international minimum tax is effective established by other changes on foreign earnings. For most of the organizations, pending and recent tax reform requires a rapid focus on foreign offshore, cost-sharing, management of supply chain, and overseas licensing models (Dennis, Warley, & Sheridan, 2006).

Making an international matter

Identifying the best model of business, ownership, and strategy structure for achieving effectiveness and success in global markets needs both flexibility and nuance. The scale is built by globalization for media organizations, opportunities for monetization, and new markets are also opened. Although economic nationalism and the idea of barriers of higher trade might delay the global strategies, new technologies are consistent in obscuring the significance of geographic borders. For building the precise and suitable model of business, go-to-market plan and operating structure for global expansion need flexibility, especially across important market priorities in entertainment and media which normally include the UK, the US, and China. Each and every market is illustrating the necessity of a distinctive approach.

Globalization is very important for media and entertainment organizations that are looking to create scale, remain competitive, and open completely new markets. Even though the emergence of economic nationalizes and the idea of higher barriers of technology can be observed, the application of new modes of technology is effectively overcoming these barriers. It is true that business models have been transformed and new turns of technology are influencing media organizations, but there is also a possibility of taking advantage of this revolution and gaining a competitive edge. However, there is still a question about whether media organizations are transforming with enough speed or not.

In spite of which trend is resonating the most with the business reality of the organization, there is no question that a focus on transformation in terms of technology is necessary, considering the fact how quickly trends and dynamics are changing in the field of media (Napoli & Caplan, 2017).

The most important elements regarding Journalistic Context

The trends and predictions made by the survey were very crucial with regards to journalistic context. There were many elements which were important for journalists. It was found out that modern newsroom and modern news industry is putting lot of pressure on journalists and workers. Moreover, the pay rates of journalists are not up to the mark, and they are not getting what they actually deserve. The newsroom has become more diverse as well, which means that staff is facing the issue of diversity and it was considered to be a concern in the eyes of survey respondents. It was also important to know that survey considered AI as a crucial component for journalism. The social media is also increasing its influence in the media industry and newsrooms are feeling this pressure from social media. The social media also spreads misinformation and it is certainly a big concern for journalists, because wrong information spreads so quickly across internet. This content based on disinformation is going to be a threat for journalism industry. The people are getting conscious about content and they certainly will value more authentic content. The journalists will have to come up with meaningful content. These elements are important as well as relevant to the contemporary media and journalistic activities.

Conclusion on Challenges for Journalists and Multinational Media Firms

Overall, it can be said that technology is playing a major role in changing how multinational organizations are operating. With its consistent transformation, it is pressurizing firms to follow its lead and change how they function in the marketplace. Furthermore, expectations of customers about the content and their experiences have risen which has pushed media firms to focus more on producing reliable and compelling content. Blockchain and Virtual Reality are new trends in the media industry and utilizing them is the most sustainable way of achieving a competitive edge in the market and attracting consumers.

References of Challenges for Journalists and Multinational Media Firms

Dennis, E. E., Warley, S., & Sheridan, J. (2006). Doing digital: An assessment of the top 25 US media companies and their digital strategies. Journal of Media Business Studies, 3(1), 33-51.

Fisher, E. (2010). Media and new capitalism in the digital age: The spirit of networks. Springer.

Fitzgerald, M., Kruschwitz, N., Bonnet, D., & Welch, M. (2014). Embracing digital technology: A new strategic imperative. MIT sloan management review, 55(2).

Napoli, P., & Caplan, R. (2017). Why media companies insist they're not media companies, why they're wrong, and why it matters. First Monday, 22(5).

Picard, R. G. (2001). The economics and financing of media companies. Fordham Univ Press.

Straubhaar, J., LaRose, R., & Davenport, L. (2013). Media now: Understanding media, culture, and technology. Cengage Le