Institutional Competitiveness in Media Markets

This inaugural address is a welcome opportunity to call your attention to a new area of research that the International Center for Business and Politics has chosen as one of five areas of special interest. By referring to this area of focus as'institutional competition in the media market' we also signal an approach that will be free of much of the traditional dogma in Danish media research: First of all, we will consider the media as a market for opinion, goods and services - not primarily as a cultural discourse with a singular focus on public service. Secondly, we consider media activity from a social science / leadership perspective - not from the perspective of a journalist or from the ideologically critical perspective of the license payer. Thirdly, we consider competition in the media market as an institutional phenomenon that is not solely conditioned by economic considerations. We aim to find a third way between economic determinism and the optimism of political regulation. The media enterprise as institutionalized practice is, from our perspective, placed at the intersection of the marketplace and politics. We recognize that the daily press, radio and television in Denmark have emerged from a tradition based upon ideals of freedom of expression, democracy and the enlightenment of the general public. At the same time we stress the fact that the media worldwide is Big Business - and that this reality has an increasing effect on Danish competitiveness and business development in general. Not only as a channel for opinion, but as a political actor and a potential business locomotive in the so-called culture- and experience-economy.