Vol. 14, Nª. 2 | 2º semester | Published: 07/01/2016

Guest editors: José María Álvarez Monzoncillo, Guillermo de Haro Rodríguez, Javier López Villanueva (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Spain)

The consolidation of the digital world has ended up influencing all nodes of media value chains. The forces of the change have centred on a group of new technologies (although they form part of a long history of social, cultural and economic changes) which are closely related with the aim to expand and improve audience access to the media. In fact, it seems that it is in the distribution networks that the seeds of change have been sown.

Consumption is increasingly personalised, flexible, and fragmented, on multiple screens. Furthermore, these is a rise in participative culture, where users of the media are involved with its content, evaluating it, and even producing it as an alternative or supplement to professional creations. All of this lies in algorithms which, despite their apparent neutrality, hide clear industrial objectives. With the digital change, the media faces the competitive activities of a group of new participants from other industries, mainly from telecommunications and computing. For the moment, the big, unanswered economic question is which will be the sustainable business models which propel the media in the coming decades. Furthermore, there is significant tension between technological utopias, the role of regulators and relationships between the traditional media.

This issue investigates the new consumer standards, the market structures which survive, emerging business models, restructuring of value chains, and the unprecedented trends which public regulation faces.