In the last years the digitization process grew up really fast and many media especially the established media (e.g. print, movie, picture, Museum) had to change because new media (e.g. Internet, Video Games, Smart-Phones) displace the old ones.
Thus, the “old” media had to find a way how to “survive” or exist in relation to the new media. Joseph Schumpeter called this process where the “new”, destroys the “old” as Creative Destruction (“Schöpferische Zerstörung”).
In my work, I will especially talk about two established media, the print media, the television (including the cinema) and also a “new” one like the Video Games. First I will give an introduction about to the selected media and describe how these kinds of media have developed in the last years and how they will be developing in the future. Also, I will show chances and risks of the digitalization process for my selected kind of media and which strategy the different media use to protect their places on the market against other competitors or which they use to enter new markets. In the end, the following question should be answered, ‘Can this process of digitization of media are called as creative destruction in the sense of Schumpeter?’.
– Matthias Wilde
The structure of your paper is clear, but I would, however, add a point: before you can answer to your research question, it might make sense to explain more in detail the concept/theory of the creative destruction of Schumpeter. It is very good that you show the development of the media (I guess online and offline) and strategies to protect the market place, but it is not clear to me what do you mean with competitors. Is it a protection against only other online provider or competitive offline publisher or competitors in general?
I think it might be good to concentrate on one medium, such as newspapers. Or is there a reason for covering all of them? If there is, then it might be good to compare them to each other somehow. However, it’s a good way to narrow it down with the theory of creative destruction.
With the case of television/cinema, this digitalization phase can be seen as the second round. Television was meant to kill the movies. Are you comparing this to the new creative destruction?
Your approach on this seems to be clear and well structured. But first I’d prefer an explanation of what Schumpeters theory is about so that we can get an idea of it. I would agree Hilda concerning the scope of media you’re willing to analyze. Could be too much. Maybe it’s easier to concentrate on less as I think it might be difficult to compare them according to the same criteria.
Your synopsis about the change from print to television media is clearly and understandably structured. The quote from Schumpeter illustrates the development the media faces pretty well. Nevertheless I would recommend you to specify your headline and topic in greater detail, because “The digitalization of media” is a very wide field to explore and the reader does not recognize your exact main topic, print and TV/ video games, by reading your headline. Adding to that you might think about an example in the print media which suffered from the trend towards the television media. And maybe I did not understand, but another thing I recognized was that your third point, video games, does not fit in my understanding with the Schumpeter argument and with the final question you want to answer in your paper. Since you write about ‘old’ destroys the ‘new’- what is the old counterpart of video games? Maybe you can clarify that in your paper later.
Good. Don’t use too many words to present the history of the media types and focus on what you want to argue. Otherwise you don’t have any room left for the actual argument.