How digital media entrepreneurs talk and think about value creation: a study of commodification

Recent scholarship in the discipline of the political economy of communications, specifically on the topic of digital media, has called for further incorporation of theory from other fields. This study takes up this line of reasoning and contributes to the literature by incorporating the concept of customer value from marketing studies and the concept of opportunity recognition from entrepreneurial studies to examine the process of commodification. Drawing upon the customer value framework devised by Brock Smith and Mark Colgate, this study employs qualitative research to examine how entrepreneurs at the Ryerson Digital Media Zone talk about value. The results of this study demonstrate that the digital media entrepreneurs interviewed do in fact favour certain values over others lending credence to entrepreneurial studies theory that opportunity recognition is a result of specific cognitive frameworks and political economy theory that social and institutional policy and practices impact on media content and behaviour.