The Media Logic Of Media Work (original) (raw)

Media Industries, Work and Life

Convergence culture, as a concept, articulates a shift in the way global media industries operate, and how people as audiences interact with them. It recognizes contemporary media culture as a primarily participatory culture. In turn, this assumption renders notions of production and consumption of (mass, mediated) culture not just theoretically problematic – as has been established earlier in disciplines as varied as communication studies, cultural geography, and media anthropology – but also less than useful on a practical level when making sense of the role media play in people’s everyday lives. This paper explores the practical applications of convergence culture from the perspectives of media workers, suggesting not so much the use of “new” categories, but rather an alignment of production, mediation and consumption as constituent practices in all experience of (in) media life.

Editorial: New Forms of Media Work and Its Organizational and Institutional Conditions

Media and Communication, 2022

This thematic issue explores the widening scope of media work and the institutional and organizational conditions that support new forms of media work. The media industry has undergone significant economic, structural, and technological changes during the past few decades, including changing patterns of ownership and digitalization of media production, distribution, and consumption. Simultaneously, practices of media work are adopted also in other industries. The 10 articles in the issue not only focus on the new professional roles and responsibilities emerging in the news media industry but also study the practices of media work in organizations in other fields, such as the music industry and public sector.

The Nature of Work in the Media Industries: A Literature Review and Future Directions

Journalism and Media, 2022

Media work is a culture-making activity affecting the ways people understand the world and, therefore, workers in the media industries have a critical role in shaping collective memories, traditions, and belief systems. While studies regarding the characteristics impacting the nature of work in the media industries have significantly been increasing over the last years, the literature in this area remains highly fragmented. This paper begins to address that shortcoming by conducting an in-depth review of 36 scholarly papers in influential journals published from 2006 to 2020 to provide a comprehensive view of the literature and its approaches. This study elaborates on the concept of media work by organizing previous efforts into five subthemes, including commonalities, contested terrain, gendered profession, emerging practices, and influencing factors. Previous research has emphasized that media workers’ subjective experiences need to be explored further and more in-depth; however, ...

Media Industries: History, Theory, and Method (edited collection)

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.

A Theory of Media Production

Understanding Media Production, 2019

Media studies is founded on sophisticated theoretical approaches to the communication and reception of meaning and to the political economy of media ownership, control and regulation. However, the production processes of media organisations have largely remained a theoretical "black box" (Garnham, 2011:51). In a recent debate on this subject (see Dwyer 2015b, 2016) Murdock and Golding (2016) argued that “the central challenge for theories of media production then is to move between levels of analysis and to integrate them”. As Mayer (2009:15) noted “it is this connection between the micro contexts and the macro forces . . . that is so frequently lost in the efforts to describe the current media landscape, its interconnected industries and its networks of professionals”. This chapter, therefore, tries to develop a theory showing the causal relationships between these levels – macro (economics and political economy), meso (organisation studies) and micro (production studies). A fuller account of the theory is available here: https://www.routledge.com/Understanding-Media-Production/Dwyer/p/book/9781138238145 Inspection copies of the complete book can be ordered here: https://www.routledge.com/textbooks/evaluation/9781138238145

Production Studies, The Sequel! Cultural Studies of Global Media Industries

Production Studies, The Sequel! explores the experiences of media workers in local, global, and digital communities—from prop-masters in Germany, Chinese film auteurs, producers of children’s television in Qatar, Italian radio broadcasters, filmmakers in Ethiopia and Nigeria, to seemingly-autonomous Twitterbots. Case studies examine international production cultures across five continents and incorporate a range of media, including film, television, music, social media, promotional media, video games, publishing and public broadcasting. Using the lens of cultural studies to examine media production, Production Studies, The Sequel! takes into account transnational production flows and places production studies in conversation with other major areas of media scholarship including audience studies, media industries, and media history. A follow-up to the Production Studies, this collection highlights new and important research in the field, and promises to generate continued discussion ...

Expanding production value: The culture and scale of television and new media

Critical Studies in Television, 2019

Web, or networked, distribution technologies have challenged the power of US media corporations, which set high technical standards for production value, a measure of content quality. Legacy TV companies privilege complex, seamless technical execution supported by large crews of workers-lighting, sound, design, visual effects-but exclude as producers culturally marginalised creators perceived as too risky for the big investment necessary to execute it. The internet disrupts these dynamics by allowing for the distribution of smaller scale TV and video productions that are independently or inexpensively made. In smaller scale work, cultural production value asserts more importance , as producers create with and for their community.