Alisa Perren

The American Comic Book Industry and Hollywood traces the evolving relationship between the American comic book industry and Hollywood from the launch of X-Men, Spider-Man, and Smallville in the early 2000s through the ascent of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Arrowverse, and the Walking Dead Universe in the 2010s.

Perren and Steirer illustrate how the American comic book industry simultaneously has functioned throughout the first two decades of the twenty-first century as a relatively self-contained business characterized by its own organizational structures, business models, managerial discourses, production cultures, and professional identities even as it has remained dependent on Hollywood for revenue from IP licensing. The authors' expansive view of the industry includes not only a discussion of the “Big Two,” Marvel/Disney and DC Comics/Time Warner, but also a survey of the larger comics ecosystem. Other key industry players, including independent publishers BOOM! Studios, IDW, and Image, digital distributor ComiXology, and management-production company Circle of Confusion, all receive attention. Drawing from interviews, fieldwork, archival research, and trade analysis, The American Comic Book Industry and Hollywood provides a road map to understanding the operations of the comic book industry while also offering new models for undertaking trans- and inter-industrial analysis.

MEDIA INDUSTRIES: HISTORY, THEORY, AND METHOD outlines the diverse ways that media industries have been studied in the past and offers an innovative blueprint for future research and criticism. Contextualizing the current moment of unprecedented technological change, media convergence, and globalization, the authors engage in cross-disciplinary exploration from a range of historical, critical and theoretical perspectives.

Bringing together newly commissioned essays by leading scholars in film, media, communication, sociology and cultural studies, MEDIA INDUSTRIES constructs a unique road map for industrial analysis of film, radio, television, advertising and new media. Collectively, these 21 essays provide a crucial resource for those encountering the study of the media industries for the first time as well as for those interested in conducting cutting-edge research in this burgeoning field. Rich explanations of key terms and foundational ideas vividly illustrate the dynamic transformations taking place across varied national, regional and international contexts.

MEDIA INDUSTRIES is divided into four sections: History, Theory, Methodologies and Models, and Future Visions. Case studies on such diverse topics as the relationship between ESPN and hip-hop culture, the historical interactions of Hollywood and Washington, the shifting power relations between online fans and media producers, the growth of regional media archives, and multi-national production and distribution ventures across Latin America ground the broader concepts of each section. Taken together, the work in this collection marks a crucial step in expanding discussions of the media industries across numerous disciplines in the humanities and social sciences while also helping to bridge the gap between the industry and the academy.

Introduction: Does the World Really Need One More Field of Study?: Jennifer Holt and Alisa Perren.

Part I: History.

Editors’ Introduction.

1. Nailing Mercury: The Problem of Media Industry Historiography: Michele Hilmes.

2. Manufacturing Heritage: The Moving Image Archive and Media Industry Studies: Caroline Frick.

3. Film Industry Studies and Hollywood History: Thomas Schatz.

4. Historicizing TV Networking: Broadcasting, Cable, and the Case of ESPN: Victoria E. Johnson.

5. From Sponsorship to Spots: Advertising and the Development of Electronic Media: Cynthia B. Meyers.

6. New Media as Transformed Media Industry: P. David Marshall.

Part II: Theory.

Editors’ Introduction.

7. Media Industries, Political Economy, and Media/Cultural Studies: An Articulation: Douglas Kellner.

8. Thinking Globally: From Media Imperialism to Media Capital: Michael Curtin.

9. Thinking Regionally: Singular in Diversity and Diverse in Unity: Cristina Venegas.

10. Thinking Nationally: Domicile, Distinction, and Dysfunction in Global Media Exchange: Nitin Govil.

11. Convergence Culture and Media Work: Mark Deuze.

Part III: Methodologies and Models.

Editors’ Introduction.

12. Media Economics and the Study of Media Industries: Philip M. Napoli.

13. Regulation and the Law: A Critical Cultural Citizenship Approach: John McMurria.

14. Can Natural Luddites Make Things Explode or Travel Faster? The New Humanities, Cultural Policy Studies, and Creative Industries: Toby Miller.

15. Cultures of Production: Studying Industry’s Deep Texts, Reflexive Rituals, and Managed Self-Disclosures: John Thornton Caldwell.

16. The Moral Economy of Web 2.0: Audience Research and Convergence Culture: Joshua Green and Henry Jenkins.

Part IV: The Future: Four Visions.

Editors’ Introduction.

17. From the Consciousness Industry to the Creative Industries: Consumer-Created Content, Social Network Markets, and the Growth of Knowledge: John Hartley.

18. Politics, Theory, and Method in Media Industries Research: David Hesmondhalgh.

19. An Industry Perspective: Calibrating the Velocity of Change: Jordan Levin.

20. Toward Synthetic Media Industry Research: Horace Newcomb.

This collection offers perspectives and insights from leading scholars across the field of media industry studies. Media Industries is a peer-reviewed, multi-media, open-access online journal that supports critical studies of media industries and institutions worldwide. We invite contributions that range across the full spectrum of media industries, including film, television, internet, radio, music, publishing, gaming, advertising, and mobile communications. The journal's authors are encouraged to explore a range of industry-related processes, such as production, distribution, infrastructure, policy, exhibition, and retailing. Contemporary or historical studies may explore industries individually or examine inter-medial relations between industrial sectors employing qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methodologies; of primary importance is that submissions adopt a critical perspective. This book collects Media Industries Volume 1 Issues #1-3, featuring essays by members of our esteemed editorial board.

During the 1990s, films such as sex, lies, and videotape, The Crying Game, Pulp Fiction, Good Will Hunting, and Shakespeare in Love earned substantial sums at the box office along with extensive critical acclaim. A disproportionate number of these hits came from one company: Miramax. Indie, Inc. surveys Miramax’s evolution from independent producer-distributor to studio subsidiary, chronicling how one company transformed not just the independent film world but the film and media industries more broadly. As Alisa Perren illustrates, Miramax’s activities had an impact on everything from film festival practices to marketing strategies, talent development to awards campaigning.

Case studies of key films, including The Piano, Kids, Scream, The English Patient, and Life Is Beautiful, reveal how Miramax went beyond influencing Hollywood business practices and motion picture aesthetics to shaping popular and critical discourses about cinema during the 1990s. Indie, Inc. does what other books about contemporary low-budget cinema have not—it transcends discussions of “American indies” to look at the range of Miramax-released genre films, foreign-language films, and English-language imports released over the course of the decade. The book illustrates that what both the press and scholars have typically represented as the “rise of the American independent” was in fact part of a larger reconfiguration of the media industries toward niche-oriented products.

In 2013, El Rey launched as an ad-supported cable channel. Cofounded and majority owned by Robert Rodriguez, El Rey tapped into the filmmaker-entrepreneur’s appeal by targeting both a young Latino audience and a wider audience of genre fans. Unfortunately, shifting industrial, economic, cultural, and technological conditions ultimately led the channel to cease operations in 2020. This article traces El Rey’s evolution from its initial inception up through its programming strategies in the COVID-19 era. El Rey is presented as a small, upstart channel that differentiated itself in an increasingly challenging television landscape. Although larger structural conditions in the end made its survival untenable, the story of El Rey can be seen as representing a new direction for linear cable television in the 2010s.

Alisa Perren and Thomas Schatz honor television studies scholar and former Peabody Director Horace Newcomb’s career. The authors illustrate how one of Newcomb’s less frequently cited books, The Producer’s Medium (coauthored with Robert Alley),
expresses themes central to his larger body of work and serves as a groundbreaking study of American television, authorship, and industry in its own right. In addition, they illustrate key ways that the book might inspire contemporary investigations into convergent-era television.

Using the U.S. context of video streaming services as our primary focus, this course will survey how media industry structures, practices, and content have been changing with the rise of streaming services such as Netflix, Apple+, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Hulu, HBO Max, Paramount+, and Peacock. The course has three main goals: First, we will examine the breadth of industry-oriented scholarly approaches taken to the study of streaming, with a focus on streaming video. Second, we will discuss how the growth of streaming video services intersects with different media and technology companies’ production practices, distribution strategies, and broader business objectives. Third, we will consider the larger industrial, economic, cultural, creative, and social impact accompanying the widespread adoption of streaming services.

Three main objectives will guide us throughout the semester:  First, we will survey the history of the media industries and of media industries-related scholarship. Using Hollywood’s film and television operations as our primary objects of analysis, but referring to other contexts throughout, we will consider key ways that regulatory and technological shifts, along with growing impulses toward globalization, have intersected with industrial changes.

Second, we will look at the range of qualitative methods that have been employed to research the media industries. In the process, we will read several case studies that provide applications of each of these approaches.

Third, we will explore the evolving field of media industry studies. This field, which incorporates work in film, media, communication, sociology, anthropology, science and technology studies, and cultural studies, argues for the importance of integrating analysis of media structures with consideration of cultural and textual matters. Although our readings will focus most heavily on filmed entertainment from Hollywood, students are welcome to research such areas as video games, music, comic books, publishing, and radio in their final projects. Further, students are encouraged to apply the theoretical and methodological frameworks surveyed in class to other local, regional, and national contexts.

Course description and objectives:
This course provides an introduction to key methodological approaches used by media studies scholars. There are four primary objectives to the course: First, we will address the considerations involved in developing and designing research projects, addressing potential ethical, political, and logistical challenges involved in conducting different types of research. Second, we will survey several qualitative research methods employed by media studies scholars including historiography, discourse analysis, genre studies, ethnography, interviewing, and more. We will assess how such methods can be employed in the study of media industries, texts, and audiences. Students will be asked to undertake a series of assignments through which they apply and critique various methodologies as well as workshop ideas about possible projects they might undertake. Third, we will engage in a number of question-and-answer sessions about methodology and research strategies with a variety of scholars, including several RTF faculty members. In addition, we will read several different examples of the breadth of work produced in RTF. Fourth, students will be asked to build on our semester-long survey of methodological challenges, concerns, and practices by developing their own research proposals. Such proposals can serve as the starting point for thesis and dissertation projects.

Objectives and Outcomes: By the end of this semester, students should be able to…
• Survey several main methodological approaches used in media studies;
• Discuss, critique, and apply various media studies methods;
• Appreciate the breadth of scholarship produced by RTF faculty members and students;
• Develop a thesis or dissertation proposal employing some of the methodologies addressed over the course of the semester.

Three main objectives will guide us throughout the semester: First, we will survey the history of the media industries and of media industries-related scholarship. Using Hollywood's film and television operations as our primary objects of analysis, but referring to other contexts throughout, we will consider key ways that regulatory and technological shifts, along with growing impulses toward globalization, have intersected with industrial changes. Second, we will look at the range of qualitative methods that have been employed to research the media industries. In the process, we will read several case studies that provide applications of each of these approaches. Third, we will explore the evolving field of media industry studies. This field, which incorporates work in film, media, communication, sociology, anthropology, and cultural studies, argues for the importance of integrating analysis of media structures with consideration of cultural and textual matters. Although our readings will focus most heavily on filmed entertainment from Hollywood, students are encouraged to research such areas as video games, music, comic books, publishing, and radio in their final projects. Further, students are encouraged to apply the theoretical and methodological frameworks surveyed in class to other local, regional, and national contexts.

Course Description: What is going on in the media industries today? What kinds of issues and challenges are entertainment industry professionals dealing with? This class has two key goals: First, students will learn how the media industries operate, gaining a sense of the "big picture" of the contemporary film, television, and digital video landscape. Large-scale issues being faced by those working in the entertainment industry-including the impact of conglomerate ownership, regulation, globalization, and digitization on creative practices and work roles-will be addressed through readings and class discussion. Second, students will hear from a range of guest speakers coming from Hollywood, New York, and Texas about their personal experiences navigating the media business, past and present. While a few of those visiting the class will work in production (writing, producing, etc.), most of our guests will work in other types of creative, managerial, and executive roles (e.g., talent management, business affairs, marketing and distribution, etc.). Class discussion will focus in part on connecting guests' experiences to larger industrial practices and concerns. Objectives and Outcomes: By the end of this course, you should be able to… • Recognize how industry mandates, conditions, and practices shape media products; • Understand key debates and issues being discussed by media professionals today; • Identify how digital technologies are affecting longstanding practices in film and TV; • Appreciate how individuals are navigating diverse career paths in the media industries, balancing creative pressures and economic imperatives.

Course description: This course surveys the history of American television during the 20th century. After initially examining how American broadcast television's structure and content built on radio's foundations, we will proceed to explore the complex ways that technological, social, political, industrial, and cultural factors interacted to shape the form and content of broadcast, cable, and satellite television. Our discussion of industrial practices and regulatory decisions will be balanced with an analysis of representational and formal-aesthetic practices. The semester will briefly conclude with a consideration of the meaning and implications of digital convergence on contemporary American – and global – media culture.

Objectives and outcomes: By the end of the course you should be able to…
• Assess how and why TV developed as it did at specific historical moments;
• Analyze television as a cultural and social force;
• Appreciate how previous regulatory, industrial, and creative decisions continue to impact the structure and content of contemporary television;
• Understand and critique the different ways that scholars research and write about television history.

What is television today? How is the television industry responding to dramatic technological, economic, and cultural shifts? How are changes in the TV industry impacting storytelling practices? What roles does television play in contemporary American society? In what ways are TV’s aesthetics changing in the age of the mobile phones, tablets, and HDTVs? How have representations of gender, race, and class changed due to television’s transformation from a three-channel mass medium to a niche-oriented, “anytime, anywhere” medium? How are the relationships between television producers and viewers evolving?

In this course, television’s formal traits, as well as its rapidly changing cultural, social, political, and industrial position, will be explored. Over the course of the semester, we will examine a range of U.S. television programs through different critical lenses such as style, genre, and narrative. In addition to this examination of television texts, we will analyze its larger TV’s industrial context, as well as production and reception practices. We will also consider the ways that TV presently is being transformed as it is converging with other digital technologies. Students will learn the fundamentals of TV analysis and then be asked to relate these analyses to screenings. Come prepared to engage – and debate – complex ideas and sophisticated arguments.

(Please note there are two attachments to download - the syllabus and a recent publications reading list)

Three main objectives will guide us throughout the semester:  First, we will survey the history of the media industries and of media industries-related scholarship. Using Hollywood’s film and television operations as our primary objects of analysis, but referring to other contexts throughout, we will consider key ways that regulatory and technological shifts, along with growing impulses toward globalization, have intersected with industrial changes.

Second, we will look at the range of qualitative methods that have been employed to research the media industries. In the process, we will read several case studies that provide applications of each of these approaches.

Third, we will explore the evolving field of media industry studies. This field, which incorporates work in film, media, communication, sociology, anthropology, and cultural studies, argues for the importance of integrating analysis of media structures with consideration of cultural and textual matters. Although our readings will focus most heavily on filmed entertainment from Hollywood, students are encouraged to research such areas as video games, music, comic books, publishing, and radio in their final projects. Further, students are encouraged to apply the theoretical and methodological frameworks surveyed in class to other local, regional, and national contexts.