Handbook on Media Economics

The “Handbuch Medienökonomie” (Handbook on Media Economics) addresses changes in the media industry within the context of digital media production. It provides an extensive and interdisciplinary overview of media economics research in German-speaking countries. The recently published hardcover version comes five years after the book was first published online.

Unique in Europe

The book, which was published in two volumes, examines aspects of media economics against the background of the challenges posed by digitalisation and changed user behaviour in the media sector and is unparalleled in the European region so far. The articles describe media offers and services, their management and regulation, and institutional arrangements.

“The volume is aimed at researchers, students and research-oriented practitioners who want to reflect on and understand the comprehensive transformation of an originally sector-specific area of research and practice towards an interdisciplinary field involving players from multiple sectors,” the UAS lecturers and editors of the volume, Jan Krone and Tassilo Pellegrini, write in the preface to the book.

Broad Range of Topics Packed on 1,600 Pages

In 64 articles by 81 authors, the volume combines texts from theory-based fundamental research and applied research on more than 1,600 pages. The contents go beyond the core discipline of journalism and communication science. In addition to research results from economics, the handbook presents findings from sociology, law, cultural studies, and information science all pertaining to the status quo and perspectives of an increasingly digital media landscape.

“We believe that media economics reflects a modern concept of transdisciplinary research. Institutionalised as a subdiscipline of journalism and communication studies, it is the link to economics and political science,” Krone and Pellegrini write in their preface.

Theory — Media Technology — Communication Cultures

Following a foreword by Wolf Siegert, a long-standing guest lecturer at the St. Pölten UAS and owner of IRIS Media, the first part of the publication is divided into the sections “Theoretische Zugänge zur Medienökonomie” (Theoretical Approaches to Media Economics) and “Medientechnologien und Datenmanagement” (Media Technologies and Data Management), both prominently underpinning the handbook’s modern focus.

The chapter “Bausteine der Medienwirtschaft” (Components of the Media Industry) is supplemented by the chapter “Kerngattungen und -verbreitungsgebiete” (Core Genres and Distribution Areas) of mass media communication. Two further chapters on communication culture and media systems, and methodological approaches to media economics form the final part of the handbook. An English-language edition is in progress.

Handbuch Medienökonomie (Handbook on Media Economics)

Jan Krone, Tassilo Pellegrini (ed.), 2020, 1,621 pp. in 2 volumes

• Hardcover: €169.99 (D), €174.76 (A), ISBN 978-3-658-09559-8
• eBook: €129.99 (D), €129.99 (A), ISBN 978-3-658-09560-4
• Book with online access: €279.99 (D), €287.84
• Handbuch Medienökonomie
• Handbuch Medienökonomie on link.springer.com