Innovation
in the media business is about change and adaptation to a new strategic
environment that is beginning to take shape (Küng, 2017). The master frame in
the ongoing newspaper industry crisis discourse is that the appropriate
response is to be found in innovations, new business models and better ways to
reach out to audiences (Brüggemann et al., 2016). However, a continuous and
aggressive innovation activity may be challenging for newspaper publishers who
then need to break loose from the old paper production model. With these
outlooks in mind, the paper focuses on strategic management of innovation in
newspapers in the United States. The study relies on qualitative data
consisting of semi-structured in-depth interviews (N=32) with CEOs, editors-in-chief, and other managers in leading US
newspaper companies, as well as with media professionals in newspaper industry
associations and media academics at universities. The goal is to identify
differences in the ways they talk about innovation and change. The data was
collected in the spring of 2017. The study includes also market data analysis
that contextualises the interviews in the market and business setting. In the
theoretical framework, we combine  institutional
theory (see e.g. Lowrey & Woo, 2010; Lowrey, 2011) and framing theory
(Goffman, 1974), focusing on how the actors talk about strategic management and
innovation. The study aims to identify similarities and differences in their
word choices based on the different norms of persons with different backgrounds
and responsibilities. The study provides methodological contribution by
applying a computer-assisted lexical analysis of qualitative interview data.
The results show that there are differences in the use of language associated
with innovation and related keywords based on backgrounds of the personnel and
size of the news enterprise.