Journalism Innovation Labs 2.0 in Media Organisations: A Motor for Transformation and Constant Learning

Abstract

Media organisations and their newsrooms are not structurally equipped to adapt to the dynamic transformation that is increasingly demanded of them. To change this, ten years ago, growing numbers of media organisations began founding journalism innovation labs within their operations. More recently, a new generation of innovation lab has come about that builds on the experiences of the first labs. This paper examines—on the basis of organisational culture and innovation culture as theoretical framework—how journalism innovation labs 2.0 in media organisations are organised and which learnings the lab members have made compared with the pioneers of the first generation. The explorative study focused on five labs in Germany. In some phases of the innovation process the new labs benefited from the pioneering work of the predecessor labs. However, changes in the lab organisation became apparent. A developmental leap is reflected in the manifold efforts of the lab employees not to stay in their laboratory environment but instead to act as an innovation motor for the transformation of their media organisation by knowledge transfer, sharing of new ideas and approaches through advanced training, comprehensive and transparent innovation communication, agile project accompaniment, and personnel rotation. The innovation labs 2.0 apply a process of constant learning and dynamic change.

Innovations in Journalism as Complex Interplay: Supportive and Obstructive Factors in International Comparison

“…Micro-level analysis deals with individual agents and units of innovation such as newsrooms, labs, start-ups, etc. (Bisso-Nunes & Mills, 2022;Borges-Rey, 2020;Hogh-Janovsky & Meier, 2021). It is rare to find studies that combine all three levels of analysis.…”

The lab, the space and the meetup: locating technological experimentation in everyday life

“…Looking at the discourse in innovation and change not only in academia, but also in professional practice, the lab is nowadays considered a central place of innovation: setting up an innovation lab is seen as a first step of change not only in journalism [Hogh-Janovsky & Meier, 2021;Mills & Wagemans, 2021], but in other industries, public administrations [McGann, Blomkamp & Lewis, 2018] [Greve, De Vita, Leminen & Westerlund, 2021. The positive connotation of lab even goes beyond the context of innovation, in that it is not uncommon to refer to cafés or music venues as labs to emphasize their experimental nature.…”

“…Through these events, they can benefit from the "capacity of hackathons to act as journalistic laborites for news communities" [Boyles, 2020[Boyles, , p. 1343. In this sense, it is not just about understanding the current labs at established media organizations as permanent settings for experimentation, as it is often the case in journalism research [García-Avilés, 2021;Hogh-Janovsky & Meier, 2021;Mills & Wagemans, 2021]. The point is to establish a laboratory attitude toward a particular professional domain -an approach the hackathon exemplifies.…”