Reconsidering Media Economics: From Orthodoxies to Heterodoxies

Abstract

This paper argues the case for closer attention to media economics on the part of media, communications, and cultural studies researchers. It points to a plurality of approaches to media economics, including the mainstream neoclassical school and critical political economy, but also new insights derived from perspectives that are less well known outside of the economics discipline, such as new institutional economics and evolutionary economics. It applies these frameworks to current debates about the future of public service media, noting limitations to both "market failure" and citizenship discourses and identifying challenges relating to institutional governance, public policy, and innovation as public service media worldwide adapt to a digitally convergent media environment.