Exploration and Exploitation of Data in Journalistic Media: A Framework of Organisational Ambidexterity

In an era shaped by platformisation and datafication, journalistic media organisations must reconcile commercial sustainability with democratic responsibility. This article examines how media organisations mobilise data for innovation through the lens of organisational ambidexterity. Drawing on a multiple-case study of four European media organisations—two public service broadcasters and two private media firms—it analyses how different types of data (open data, audience data, metadata, and archive data) are explored to develop new capabilities and exploited to optimise existing processes. The findings show that exploration and exploitation are not mutually exclusive but co-existing orientations embedded within broader strategic configurations of data use. Moreover, data practices are consistently shaped by institutional commitments to public value, including transparency, inclusivity, cultural preservation, and democratic engagement. We argue that ambidexterity in journalistic media differs from its classical performance-oriented conceptualisation: rather than representing a simple trade-off between innovation and efficiency, it operates within a normative public value constraint that structures strategic decision-making. By integrating newsroom innovation scholarship with ambidexterity theory, the study contributes a refined framework for understanding data-driven innovation in contemporary journalistic media.