Brands and Branding in Media Management—Toward a Research Agenda

TLDR

The article reviews and conceptualizes existing research on brands and branding within media management, highlighting its growing strategic importance in competitive media markets. The study aims to map how brands are conceptualized in media management literature and to identify gaps, thereby proposing a future research agenda. It concludes that advancing the field requires a systematic theoretical analysis of media brands and the unique strategic complexities of the media environment.

Abstract

This article provides a systematic overview and conceptual analysis of existing research on brands and branding in the literature on media management. The aim is to advance knowledge in the field by mapping out the different ways in which brands are understood and conceptualized in the literature. In doing so, the article identifies overlooked research areas and works toward a research agenda for future scholarly research on the topic. Overall, it is argued that the further development of the area calls for a more systematic theoretical analysis of the nature of media brands and the specific features and complexities of the media field as a strategic business environment where brands are built and managed. The development of the research area would seem to be crucial not only for scholarly reasons, but also because strong brands seem to be gaining strategic value and importance in today's changing and highly competitive media markets.