Media-consumer Value Co-creation In The Context Of American Media Convergence

In recent years,the scenic phenomenon of media-consumer value co-creation has been streaming out as the world-wide media convergence deeply evolves forward.Just take the case in America as an example,being guided by the convergence principle of equal conversation,communication,collaboraton,integration,share and win-win initiative,more and more media consumers participate in the production and operation activities of media organizations.Via various platforms from content production to communication they interact and cooperate with media whereby value co-creation is achieved.Media-consumer value co-creation embodies a big renovation in the mode of media production and management and that of value creation.It helps build a new media-consumer relationship as well.With the fans economy and Internet-plus economy thriving,consumers who are empowered by Internet technology to unfold their potency and vitality are playing more and more important role in media development.Media-consumer value co-creation provides new opportunities and dynamics for the execution of digital strategy,creation of new business model and accumulation of media's future competitive advantages.Media-consumer value co-creation conerns how to transform the conception and the mode of media operation,how to adjust operation strategies,how to advance technology support and how to create interactive atmosphere to fully unfold the roles of both media and consumers as value co-creators.It deserves more attention and deeper systematic research in deed.This research explores American media-consumer value co-creation.It aims at helping find ways to solve related problems by borrowing American experience.Based on media convergence theory and value co-creation theory,combined with the analysis of the first-hand materials from survey and interview,literature documents from CNKI?SAGE Social Science & Humanities Package,as well as books,articles from other Internet resources,the clues of study is clarified by putting forward the following five questions: In what circumstances and due to what factors the American media-consumer value co-creation comes into being? Why American media and consumers engage in value co-creation? How they realize their value co-creation? How the variety of platforms supports the practice of value co-creation by both the media and consumers? And how the communication network supports the practice? With this clue,the research framework is tentatively made and the model is built to analyze and discuss American media-consumer value co-creation,mainly with the qualitative method.The research is endowed with internet thinking and inter-disciplinary ideas from the fields of journalism and communication,media economics,marketing and management as well.On the study of American media convergence in the context of which media-consumer value co-creation happens,the study first presents and generalizes,from the macro scope of view,the changing landscape in both global and domestic media industry.It discusses how all this factors,such as the fast-paced evolving media technology,the changing media structure,the competitive markets,the global and domestic acquisitions and mergers,together with the capital investment,the loosening American policies and regulations,advance American media convergence and how they foster and develop the sense of mass consumers for American media.Then it illustrates the development of American media convergence in the application of Internet,big data and artificial intelligence.After that,the study,from the micro point of view,analyses and discusses the innovative convergence practices by New York Time,Washington Post,CNN and CBS,focusing on their innovation motives and characters and their innovative practice mainly on media technology,organization,content and business model.The study also discusses the impact of innovative convergence on the American society and its enlightenment.According to the study,American media convergence has its own law and pattern.That is,convergence of technology,content,platforms and channels serves for one-time integrated production,multi-distribution and multi-communication at proper time,for proper consumers with proper content.This law and pattern,together with the subscription first digital strategy,attaches importence to consumers and enhances the tendency of American media convergence,characterized by being consumer-centred,optimizingexperience-oriented,strengthening cooperation and value co-creating with consumers.In all this sense,this study concludes that American media convergence provides guidance characterized by equal conversation,communication,integration,share and win-win initiative,and creates necessary and favorable conditions for American media-consumer value co-creation.The study of media-consumer value co-creation focuses on the four aspects: the media and consumers as the value co-creators,the segments where media-consumer value co-creation takes place,the platforms and channels and the communication networks that support media-consumer value co-creation.The logics and motives of media-consumer value co-creation,roles that they play in content production,distributing and marketing as well as in innovation and development,and the support that the platform and channel networks as well as communication networks provide are analysed and discussed in details.By exploration,the study concludes that the key to media-consumer value co-creation lies in the transformation from production-oriented to service–oriented conception.Modern media organization should follow the tide of media convergence characterized by sharing and serving economy.Based on this conception,media organizations need to distribute properly and unfold the roles of co-creators into full play,especially that of the consumers.Then they need to try best to strengthen cooperation with consumers through all the segments from content production,distribution and marketing to content development and innovation.The study also emphases the necessity of constructing and maintaining good-qulity and differentiated platforms,and the significance of enhancing the convergence of meda and communication networks to media-consumer value co-creation.The research in this dissertation indicates that American experience of media-consumer value co-creaton deserves our study,concerning its effects in building a new relationship between media and consumers,advancing digital strategies as well as renovating value creation network.The research also shows the influence that American media-consumer value co-creation may have on American society and enlightenment it may bring to us.