On Automation in Media Industries: Integrating Algorithmic Media Production into Media Industries Scholarship

Abstract

Media industries scholarship has devoted a substantial amount of attention to understanding the decision-making dynamics surrounding the production of media content. This work has addressed factors such as organizational norms and structures, environmental cognitions, and audience information systems. Today, an increasingly important layer over all of these established factors is the role that algorithmically-driven decision-making tools play in the process of producing media content. This essay will argue for the importance of media industries scholarship effectively accounting for this algorithmic turn and its implications for media production. It will illustrate a number of current examples in which algorithms are playing an increasingly influential role in media production, and how these examples connect with media industries scholarship. The essay concludes by proposing some lines of inquiry for future research.