| Abstract: | Digitalization is a new but a fast growing issue in media corporations. It is one of the hotspot agendas of all media corporations regardless their ownership, year of establishments or the type of media channel. The main objective of this study was to assess the opportunities and challenges of digitalization on the management of media corporations in Ethiopia. The researcher used strategic management theory, systems theory and technological determinism theory as a theoretical framework for the study. The study was conducted on three media corporations in Ethiopia, namely Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC), Fana Broadcasting Corporation (FBC), and Amhara Media Corporation (AMC). The researcher employed a mixed research method, both qualitative and quantitative to address the basic research questions. The methods of data collection were interview and questionnaire. The researcher tried to interview five management level respondents from the three media corporations and 143 questionnaires are filled and collected to get the relevant data from the digital media affiliated media professionals. The data analysis method for the study was both qualitative and quantitative research methods. The researcher used SPSS for the quantitative analysis respectively. Based on the data, the study revealed that digitalization provides numerous opportunities and positive impacts on the media operation on one hand and there are constraints and challenges on the other hand. As a result of this, the management of media corporations tried to utilize only specific functions of the digitalization such as content production and distribution by the practitioners. This happens due to several factors and the unavailability of digital systems and strategies to manage the capacities and loopholes of digitalization; there is no compatible ground for managing the gaps created due to digitalization. Therefore, making visible transformation from the infrastructure to the intra-structure of the media corporations to turn the constraints of digitalization into potential advantages, the management of the media corporations should work intensively with their internal and external stakeholders. |
