Navigating media management in exile as multi-staged, unstable, mixed embeddedness

Managers of exile news media need to run their organisations whilst their operations are in constant flux, evolving through enforced shifts in location. Therefore, their business models develop through multiple stages of instability. By way of workshops and interviews with exile media leaders and staff from an international non-governmental organisation supporting exile media in different regional contexts, this study identifies five phases of this multi-staged instability and the ways in which media navigate each phase. It then analyses these processes and practices through the lens of mixed embeddedness theory. The study points to ways to strengthen support to exile media, and to further research that could further deepen understanding about how exile media survive and, in some cases, thrive.