Understanding the Problematic Relationship between Economics and Communication Studies and Potential Solutions

This article argues that communication scholars should collaborate with pluralist economists rather than traditional ones, as alternative economic theories are better suited to understanding the evolution of communication industries and to integration into multidisciplinary theoretical frameworks. In order to illustrate this point, first the main features of traditional economics that are incompatible with the study of the communication sector are outlined, then, a selection of theories and concepts from complexity economics, service innovation studies and the neo-Schumpeterian approach are presented. Moreover, as an example of the efficacy of alternative economic theories for explaining change in the communication sector, these concepts are used to provide arguments for the convergence of media and communication industries and to describe the main innovation drivers of the video tape and disk rental industry