[Commlist] Call for abstracts: Publishing Strategies in Online Television

Call for abstracts: Publishing Strategies in Online Television (special 
issue of MedieKultur)*
*
Theme editor: Hanne Bruun

Issue editor: Mads Møller Tommerup Andersen

Deadline for abstracts: July 1st 2024

Link to website: https://tidsskrift.dk/index.php/mediekultur 
<https://tidsskrift.dk/index.php/mediekultur>

Transnational streaming services’ growing proliferation and continued 
success within a larger on-demand-driven media culture is currently 
changing the television industry at a high speed. The transnational 
competition is being addressed by the legacy television industry in 
different ways, and a common denominator is the companies’ strategic use 
of in-house video-on-demand services. This focus involves a 
transformation from broadcasters to online television companies (Johnson 
2019), and this shift changes the working conditions and practices in 
the industry. It has an impact on the publishing strategies and 
practices (Bruun 2019, 2023) known from a multi-channel portfolio, and 
consequently the production cultures of different genres and subject 
areas are changing, as well as the content commissioning and creative 
processes and practices.

A key issue in these processes is that the new publishing strategies in 
an emerging online television industry has an impact on the future of 
public-service television (Donders 2021). The cultural-political role of 
television in society is therefore at the core of the concerns about the 
present development of the industry in Europe. This calls for an 
investigation of how public-service television companies address the 
present development and how different strategies and adaptations fuel 
and shape changing viewer habits in today’s media culture.

Following these changes in the industry and in the position of public 
service, the key questions to be addressed in this special issue of 
MedieKultur on publishing strategies are:

•    How do the new space and time structures in online television 
publishing influence the planning, commissioning, and production processes?
•    How do the changes support, secure, or work against the 
discoverability of the content produced under a commercial as well as a 
public-service mandate?
•    How do the changes to publishing influence the commissioning of 
specific genres of television?
•    How is the need for experiments with formats and content being 
secured or restricted?
•    How are key public-service values such as universality and 
diversity at stake in different organizational and national contexts?
•    How is the cultural-political role of television and of public 
service developed, disrupted, or stimulated in this transformation process?
•    How do these developments create methodological challenges around 
getting access to data, collecting, archiving, and analyzing data that 
call for the development of new skills in media studies?

A particular issue in these processes is also that a new relationship 
must be considered by the legacy television industry between the 
editorial priorities on the one hand and AI-supported personalization on 
the other hand. In many countries, the use of AI-supported 
personalization is on the agenda in public-service television’s 
adaptions to the competition in the industry, and lessons are being 
learned. Furthermore, the competition from transnational streaming 
services also calls for a reconsideration of the kind of content 
produced by the industry to compete in the market. All in all, it is 
safe to say that the integration of in-house video-on-demand-services 
requires new practices to attract and retain viewers/users, and this 
kind of professional work is still under development.

To address these developments, this special issue on publishing 
strategies in online television is looking for contributions from 
different research perspectives and approaches, e.g., comparative, and 
the topics are as follows, but not limited to:

•    Specific strategies of television companies addressing the issue of 
personalization and editorial priorities
•    The strategic use of new time and space structures of television as 
a medium and its influence on the planning, production, and publication 
strategies of commercial and/or public-service television
•    The online transformation and its impact on the creative processes, 
the use of specific genres, strategic genre profiles, and organizational 
structures of the companies
•    The role of business and funding models and their influence on the 
strategies of the companies, including companies with public-service 
obligations
•    The efforts to support and secure the discoverability of the local 
content produced, for example under the public-service brand, by state 
regulation and policy
•    The adaption and/or erosion of key public-service values like 
universality and diversity in different national contexts
•    The methodological challenges and/or solutions to media studies 
involved in the developments in the television industry
•    The influence of the on-demand-services on the cooperation between 
broadcasters and external/independent productions companies
•    The organizational and managerial changes to the television 
companies to meet new publishing needs
•    Interface and catalogue analysis of commercial and/or 
public-service television
•    New practices in the professional and creative work of schedulers
•    Comparative analysis of publishing practices across countries

/Practical info and timeline:/
Please submit an extended abstract of 800-1000 words (not counting 
references) no later than July 1st 2024 via MedieKultur’s online 
platform under the section called “abstracts”: 
https://tidsskrift.dk/mediekultur <https://tidsskrift.dk/mediekultur>
Subsequently, we will send out decisions to accept or reject abstracts 
by 1st September 2024.
If accepted, the deadline to submit the full article of 5000-8000 words 
will be January 1st 2025 where all manuscripts must adhere to 
MedieKultur’s editorial guidelines.

These articles will go through double-blind peer-review in January-April 
2025 where we ask authors to be prepared to make all necessary revisions 
and proofs. We expect to publish this special issue in June 2025.

MedieKultur is an open-access journal and no payment from authors is 
required.

Questions about the call should be sent to: (hbruun /at/ cc.au.dk) 
<mailto:(hbruun /at/ cc.au.dk)>/ (mtommerup /at/ hum.ku.dk) <mailto:(mtommerup /at/ hum.ku.dk)>.

/References:/
BRUUN, H. (2020). Re-scheduling Television in the Digital Era. Routledge.
BRUUN, H. (2023). The Changing role of a video-on-demand service in the 
strategies of public service media. A production study of Danish TV 2 
Play and its impact on the production culture of the schedulers, 
2016-2022. Nordicom Review 44(2), 235-252.
DONDERS, K. (2021). Public Service Media in Europe. Law, Theory and 
Practice. Routledge.
JOHNSON, C. (2019). Online TV. Routledge.

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