Books & Reports

Books

Hearts and Minds book cover

Hearts and Minds: Harnessing Leadership, Culture, and Talent to Really go Digital

Lucy is a brilliant thought leader, and understands the synergies and complexities of digital transformation, and specifically what’s at the heart of it all.

Andrew Morse, EVP and Chief Digital Officer, CNN Worldwide

News organisations have been on a digital transformation journey for two decades.  Strategies and business models are now mostly clear, but progress is slow and successful digital pivots an anomaly.  Having a strategy is not the same as achieving it:  implementation means moving from rational plans to the messy realities of human action, to a complex set of intertwined changes in how organisations are led, structured and staffed, and in how people in them think, act and take decisions.

Taking the central themes of LeadershipCultureGens Y and ZDiversity, Equity and Inclusion, and New talent, Roles and Structures, this book draws on over a hundred interviews to lay out how internal organisations need to be reshaped.  It explores the central challenges, and presents best practice approaches for each element, to ensure hearts and minds are truly harnessed to really go digital.

Once again, Lucy Kueng gives us deep insight into the most important drivers for the ongoing digital transformation in the newsrooms. The importance of leadership, culture and talent cannot be overestimated, and she combines her own research and practical experience in a brilliant way. It’s a must-read for anyone working in the media industry.

Siv Juvit Tveitnes, EVP News Media, Schibsted

Download the book (PDF)

Transformation Manifesto

Transformation Manifesto. 9 Priorities for Now

This is an urgent call to action for all of us who lead newsrooms to seize this moment and make every change we might have been hesitating over. Lucy’s insight comes from unparalleled access to news operations around the world, so you know that you are learning from the experiences of your peers. Her judgement is as flawless as it comes.

Polly Curtis, Managing Director PA Media

This is a rare reset moment. Covid-19 has been a crisis on so many levels, but it is also a huge opportunity – to rethink, to innovate, to shed things that need to be let go of, and to build for the future.

This is the time to accelerate digital transition. People – even older demographic groups – have gone digital big-time.  Structural shifts that were expected to take a decade are showing up in forecasts for the next twelve months.

This is an unmissable opportunity to rethink organizations for a future that will be with us sooner than many had reckoned with. Organizations are unfrozen, people are expecting change, and we have precedent: companies have pulled off more digital transformation in five months than in the past five years.

It is time to be bold, to make decisive moves to reach the future faster.  Digital transformation is complex, and many have got stuck on the journey. This book highlights nine priorities to get unstuck – from pruning projects and processes that are hangovers from previous eras and rebalancing cost structures, to developing a visceral sense of audiences, and re-sculpting culture to become truly customer-centric and inclusive of all talent.

And last but not least, Covid-19 and remote working have put unprecedented pressure on leaders and their teams, so there’s advice too on taking care of your teams and your own career in a challenging, but potentially transformational, time.

Download the ebook (free)

Going Digital - A Roadmap for Organisational Transformation

Going Digital. A Roadmap for Organisational Transformation

“Legacy media need to put as much emphasis on transforming their organisations as they do transforming their content” – this is the premise underlying ‘Going Digital. A Roadmap for Organisational Transformation’.

How are media firms approaching the challenges of increasing agility, merging the cultures of journalism and tech, and handling the ceaseless stream of ‘shiny new things’, ranging from AR to Alexa? When should they learn from Silicon Valley, and when should they turn away?

Through deep research at companies including The Washington Post, Axel Springer, Schibsted, Vox, the Financial Times, The New York Times, The Economist, Le Monde, El Pais, Dagens Nyheter and The Guardian, this report identifies best practice in organisational transformation. Combining themes such as agility, strategy, culture management, the integration of tech and leadership, it presents a roadmap for change in the face of digital disruption.

Published in November 2017 by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Oxford University, and Google

Download the report (free)

lk_book

Innovators in Digital News

Lucy Kueng’s book provides lucid analysis based on detailed inside looks at five of the world’s most interesting news organisations. Everyone in the news business should read it. –

Tom Standage, Digital Editor and Deputy Editor, The Economist

News organisations are struggling with technology transitions and fearful for their future. Yet a cadre of news organisations – some new, some old – has emerged who are succeeding with digital news. Why are Vice and BuzzFeed investing in journalism and why are pedigree journalists joining them? Why are established news organisations letting experienced journalists go but recruiting technologists? Why does everyone seem to be embracing native advertising? Why are some news organisations more innovative than others?

This book looks at several key players in the digital news industry and draws on extensive first-hand research inside the organisations. It explores how international media organisations – including The Guardian, The New York Times, Quartz, BuzzFeed and Vice – approach digital news. How do they operate? How do they innovate? What strategies have they adopted and why? Which structures, skills and attitudes are necessary to make digital journalism succeed? How are they financing their operations?

Lucy Kueng identifies and discusses the common elements that underlie these organisations’ success with digital news. While far from a universal prescription for dealing with the turmoil in the media industry, this book provides valuable pointers for how all players, legacy and clean sheet, can seize the growth potential.

Published in 2015 by IB Tauris
ISBN: 978-1784534165

Purchase a copy of the publication via Amazon or IB Tauris

Strategic Management in the Media: Theory to Practice

Strategic management in the media, 2nd edition

Winner of the AEMJM Media Management and Academics Division 2009 Book Award

Kueng’s book stands out for its focus on concepts, drivers, and dynamics. Its scope and learning are brilliant and dazzling–the ascendancy of the media tech sector, the culture of digital organizations, their creative workforce, and their strategic leadership. This greatly updated and upgraded edition will be a source of insight for aspiring students and a tool for industry veterans who seek the perspective of academia.

Eli Noam, Professor Columbia University NY

Once again, Lucy Kueng has produced the standard text in media management. Fully updated, it offers a comprehensive and accessible guide to strategic management in the media for students, lecturers and researchers. It is compulsory reading in my classes!

Ulrike Rohn, President, European Media Management Association

Addresses the growing interest worldwide in the field of media management with a comprehensive, accessible and expert introduction to the practice of strategic management as applied to the media industry. It focuses explicitly on the theory and task of strategic management in the media sector and is is international in orientation, drawing on cases and examples from all over the world. New media issues are integrated with traditional media industry themes, reflecting the gradual growth of the Internet and digital technologies into the mainstream mass media and all strategic and management theory is presented within the context of the media industry. Emphasis is put on a number of strategic management concepts which are of special relevance for the media industry – leadership, business model, creativity and culture. Cases include News Corporation, Endemol, BBC, Bertelsman, CNN, MTV, Disney and Pixar.

Published in 2008 by Sage (www.sagepub.com)
ISBN: 9781412903134
Available in Polish (Wolters Kluwer Polska)

You can purchase a copy of Strategic Management in the Media Industry in most good bookshops, including Amazon.

Inside the BBC and CNN: Managing Media Organisationsinside_BBC_book

This book provides a unique insight into two of the world’s best-known media organisations during a period of great change and new challenges. Drawing on five years’ intense research among senior managers inside both organisations, it explores the beliefs and attitudes that shape management and priorities and broadcasting policy. Controversially, it examines how each organisation’s distinct cultural beliefs have laid the foundation for past success – and will determine their ability to respond to the strategic challenges that lie ahead.

Published in 2000 by Routledge (www.routledge.com)
ISBN: 978-0-415-21322-6
Available in Taiwanese (Asia Pacific Press), Korean (Communication Books), Indonesian (Kantor Berita) and Chinese (Tsinghua University Press).

You can purchase a copy of Inside the BBC and CNN in most good bookshops, including Amazon.

The Internet and the Mass Mediainternet_media_book

Lucy Kung, Robert G. Picard, and Ruth Towse (Editors)

This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the impact of the Internet on media and mediated content industries. It discusses the changes this emergent communications platform is engendering for the media and content industries and the implications of those changes. Its contents are drawn from the findings of a five-year EU sponsored research initiative, the ‘Cost A20 Programme on the Impact of the Internet on the Mass Media’. Its authors include Europe’s leading scholars in the field. The chapters look at the impact of the Internet on technology, platforms and innovation, content, users, and media organisations’ strategies, structures and business models.

Published in 2008 by Sage (www.sagepub.com)
ISBN: 9781412947350

You can purchase a copy of The Internet and Mass Media in most good bookshops, including Amazon.

Leadership in the Media Industry: Changing Contexts, Emerging Challengesleadership_media_book

Lucy Küng (Editor)

The topic of leadership in the media industry is a compelling one. Randolph Hearst, William Paley, Robert Maxwell, Rupert Murdoch and Ted Turner represent some of the most flamboyant leaders industry has known. But leadership is also a sprawling area of management theory characterised by ambiguity and controversy. This volume presents a selection of papers from an international conference on Leadership in Media Organisations which brought together researchers from around the world.

JIBS Research Report Series No. 2006-1
Published in 2006 by Jønkøping International Business School
ISBN 91-89164-66-0

Downloadable at: www.ihh.hj.se/mmt/leadership.htm

 Case Studies

Digital Terrestrial Television in the UK: The BBC and the Launch of Freeview

Published in 2005 by the European Case Clearing House (www.ecch.com)
Ref. No. 305-293-1

This case, commissioned by the BBC, tells the story of the launch of Freeview. This digital terrestrial television service was launched by the BBC in partnership with arch rival Sky, and Crown Castle. In the space of just six months it took over the ruins of a failed digital terrestrial platform and launched an entirely new service. Viewership increased from 600,000 homes in October 2002 to over 5 million as of January 2005. It explores the factors that enabled the BBC to establish the consortium and get the new service up and running so fast and so successfully. It focuses particularly on issues of strategy in dynamic conditions, creativity, collaborative leadership, and the marketing and branding of digital services.

When Old Dogs Learn New Tricks: The Launch of BBC News Online. (with Teaching Note)

Published in 2003 by the European Case Clearing House (www.ecch.com)
Ref. No. 303-119-1

This case, also commissioned by the BBC, concerns the inside story behind the launch of BBC News Online, which is now the sixth most visited news site in the world. It focuses particularly on the factors that allowed an old media industry with a strong culture, long history, and bureaucratic processes to respond so quickly and successfully to the launch of the Internet. It is designed to sensitise students to the challenges of strategic change – even successful strategic change – in established firms.