Special Issue Introduction: Big Data and Media Management
Like many other sectors of economic, political, and cultural life, the media industries are infatuated with the possibilities afforded by big data (see, e.g. Stone, 2014) Perhaps more so than many other industry sectors, the media industries are particularly well positioned to capture and harness the potential of big data. As a recent Forbes article noted, "media companies may have better opportunities than most. [as] every song listened to, every minute of video viewed, every online page that is clicked contributes to the mountains of data that tell them what audiences want" (Kim Wegener, 2014, p. 1) Media sectors in economic distress (e.g. journalism) are increasingly looking to big data in hopes that they may illuminate a path back to profitability (see, e.g. Bell, 2012) Within the media industry, specific developments, such as the emergence of Netflix as a powerhouse content distributor and, subsequently, successful producer of original content, have been attributed to the effective use of big data (see, e.g. Carr, 2013) It is worth emphasizing in the case of Netflix that its gathering and use of large data sets has extended beyond the audience data that accumulates each time a viewer watches and rates content. Indeed, one of the less discussed aspects of Netflix's evolution is that the company's analytics and decision making now also rely upon granular content analysis of all video content in the Netflix library (Madrigal, 2014) Each piece of content is coded across dozens of variables, allowing the company to segment its content offerings into over 75,000 "microgenres" on the basis of content characteristics alone. It is this additional layer of big data gathering and analytics that brought a level of analytical and predictive precision that could not be achieved by analyzing only audience consumption and rating data (Madrigal, 2014) The key point here is that big data in the media sector is not just an audience centric phenomenon; it can be content centric as well. Given this range of developments, a special issue of the International Journal on Media Management exploring the intersection of big data and media management seemed due (if not overdue) The goals for this special