The effects of global chain ownership on digital transformation and management of news media

Chain ownership of media brands is increasingly exceeding country borders. Increasingly globalised corporations own large sections of European legacy media markets. One such example is the Belgian company DPG Media, which possesses legacy news brands in Flanders (Belgium), The Netherlands and Denmark. Scholarship has thus far mostly neglected how this progressively global chain ownership in the media industry affects management structures across countries as well as digital transformation initiatives. Through a series of semi-structured expert interviews with various members of the company from three different countries, we shed light on how increased collaboration between nations’ news outlets can both positively and negatively impact media management and diversity.