An engaging and accessible introduction to the field, Understanding Media Industries helps students develop deeper and more critical knowledge of industries. This book provides students with a thorough discussion of how media industries work, why they work as they do, and the broader theoretical and practical implications of media industry structure and function. The authors' unique Industrialization of Culture Framework organizes the book and helps students to consider media industries in different nations and historical periods.

Understanding Media Industries

Politics & Social Sciences

Havens, Timothy

Lotz, Amanda

Social Sciences

Oxford University Press

This is an introduction to the media industries, a topic that sometimes has its own course but is also incorporated into courses on media criticism, media literacy, and even a basic mass media course where the instructor wishes to teach from topical paperbacks as opposed to a big textbook. The book examines the influence of media industry organization and practices on society; at the same time, it offers students pursuing both scholarly and professional careers related to the media industries a comprehensive overview of how the industries work, why they work as they do, and what the broader theoretical and practical implications of the media industries are. Questions such as "why is media industry organization important?", "how do we make sense of media industry changes?" and "what are the key issues facing media industries?" animate the analysis.

Business & Money

Industries

Black Television Travels: African American Media around the Globe (Critical Cultural Communication, 16)

“Black Television Travels provides a detailed and insightful view of the roots and routes of the televisual representations of blackness on the transnational media landscape. By following the circulation of black cultural products and their institutionalized discourses—including industry lore, taste cultures, and the multiple stories of black experiences that have and have not made it onto the small screen—Havens complicates discussions of racial representation and exposes possibilities for more expansive representations of blackness while recognizing the limitations of the seemingly liberatory spaces created by globalization.”  —Bambi Haggins, Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies at Arizona State University  “A major achievement that makes important contributions to the analysis of race, identity, global media, nation, and television production cultures. Discussions of race and television are too often constricted within national boundaries, yet this fantastic book offers a strong, compelling, and utterly refreshing corrective. Read it, assign it, use it.” —Jonathan Gray, author of Television Entertainment, Television Studies, and Show Sold Separately  Black Television Travels explores the globalization of African American television and the way in which foreign markets, programming strategies, and viewer preferences have influenced portrayals of African Americans on the small screen. Television executives have been notoriously slow to recognize the potential popularity of black characters and themes, both at home and abroad.  As American television brokers increasingly seek revenues abroad, their assumptions about saleability and audience perceptions directly influence the global circulation of these programs, as well as their content. Black Television Travels aims to reclaim the history of African American television circulation in an effort to correct and counteract this predominant industry lore. Based on interviews with television executives and programmers from around the world, as well as producers in the United States, Havens traces the shift from an era when national television networks often blocked African American television from traveling abroad to the transnational, post-network era of today. While globalization has helped to expand diversity in African American television, particularly in regard to genre, it has also resulted in restrictions, such as in the limited portrayal of African American women in favor of attracting young male demographics across racial and national boundaries. Havens underscores the importance of examining boardroom politics as part of racial discourse in the late modern era, when transnational cultural industries like television are the primary sources for dominant representations of blackness.

Humor & Entertainment

Television

NYU Press

Black Television Travels explores the globalization of African American television and the way in which foreign markets, programming strategies, and viewer preferences have influenced portrayals of African Americans on the small screen. Television executives have been notoriously slow to recognize the potential popularity of black characters and themes, both at home and abroad. As American television brokers increasingly seek revenues abroad, their assumptions about saleability and audience perceptions directly influence the global circulation of these programs, as well as their content. Black Television Travels aims to reclaim the history of African American television circulation in an effort to correct and counteract this predominant industry lore.
Based on interviews with television executives and programmers from around the world, as well as producers in the United States, Havens traces the shift from an era when national television networks often blocked African American television from traveling abroad to the transnational, post-network era of today. While globalization has helped to expand diversity in African American television, particularly in regard to genre, it has also resulted in restrictions, such as in the limited portrayal of African American women in favor of attracting young male demographics across racial and national boundaries. Havens underscores the importance of examining boardroom politics as part of racial discourse in the late modern era, when transnational cultural industries like television are the primary sources for dominant representations of blackness.

Media Industries in the Digital Age: How Media Businesses Work Today

Lotz, Amanda D.

Polity

Providing an inside look at the cultural assumptions and business practices of television merchants, this book argues that the market in television programs responds principally to institutional needs, rather than to the wishes of the viewing public or the skills of television's creative artists.

Global Television Marketplace (International Screen Industries)

Marketing & Sales

British Film Institute

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