Media Industries

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Description

Over the past three decades, media institutions have undergone profound changes, transforming almost every aspect of their operations, from the production of artifacts and the management of creativity to the promotion and distribution of stories, songs, and information.  The structure and scope of their activities have also changed due to new technologies, cross-media conglomerates, and transnational patterns of circulation.  Indeed, we have at once entered an era of global media and personal media. That is, many cultural artifacts now traverse great distances and reach vast audiences, but others are crafted for local communities or niche audiences accessed via mobile media.

This seminar examines the operations, discourses, and logics of contemporary cultural industries, interrogating their impact on creativity, culture, and society. Seminarians will furthermore reflect on the concepts and methods that scholars use to analyze these industries, and they will have the opportunity to develop a research project on a topic of their choice.

FAMST 267 will pay particular attention to film, television, music, and video game industries, considering such aspects as structure, practice, creativity, labor, precarity, gender, race, social media, platformization, financialization, and globalization.