This book examines the creative impact of licensing on the entertainment industry, how licensing practitioners’ occupational disposition is formed, and the role licensing professionals play in managing the circulation of intellectual property.Offering a study of the spatial logics and fantasies employed by the licensing field via its annual trade show, the Licensing Expo, this volume investigates how space and place are instrumental in both fortifying and exposing the political-eco...

Point of Sale offers the first significant attempt to center media retail as a vital component in the study of popular culture. It brings together fifteen essays by top media scholars with their fingers on the pulse of both the changes that foreground retail in a digital age and the history that has made retail a fundamental part of the culture industries. The book reveals why retail matters as a site of transactional significance to industries as well as a crucial locus of meanin...

In popular culture, management in the media industry is frequently understood as the work of network executives, studio developers, and market researchers—“the suits”—who oppose the more productive forces of creative talent and subject that labor to the inefficiencies and risk aversion of bureaucratic hierarchies. However, such portrayals belie the reality of how media management operates as a culture of shifting discourses, dispositions, and tactics that create meaning, generate value, an...

Originating as a radio series in 1933, the Lone Ranger is a cross-media star who has appeared in comic strips, comic books, adult and juvenile novels, feature films and serials, clothing, games, toys, home furnishings, and many other consumer products. In his prime, he rivaled Mickey Mouse as one of the most successfully licensed and merchandised children’s properties in the United States, while in more recent decades, the Lone Ranger has struggled to resonate with consumers, leading to ef...

The management and labor culture of the entertainment industry.In popular culture, management in the media industry isfrequently understood as the work of network executives, studio developers, andmarket researchers—“the suits”—who oppose the more productive forces ofcreative talent and subject that labor to the inefficiencies and risk aversionof bureaucratic hierarchies. However, such portrayals belie the realityof how media manag...

How are children-and their parents-affected by the world's most influential corporation? Henry A. Giroux explores the surprisingly diverse ways in which Disney, while hiding behind a cloak of innocence and entertainment, strives to dominate global media and shape the desires, needs, and futures of today's children.

Trenchantly on point and bursting with insight, anthropologist Grant McCracken shows American corporations how keeping a finger on the pulse of contemporary cultural trends can change their business practices for the better -- and ahead of the curve.Levi-Strauss, the jeans and apparel maker, missed out on the hip-hop trend. They didn't realize that those kids in baggy jeans represented a whole new -- and lucrative -- market opportunity, one they could have seen com...

An anonymous musician plays Pachelbel's Canon on the electric guitar in a clip that has been viewed over sixty million times. The Dramatic Gopher is viewed over sixteen million times, as is a severely inebriated David Hasselhoff attempting to eat a hamburger. Over 800 variations, parodies, and parodies-of-parodies are uploaded of Beyonce Knowles' Single Ladies dance. Tay Zonday sings Chocolate Rain in a video viewed almost forty million times and scores himself a record deal. Obama Girl en...

Today's consumers have unprecedented choice in terms of the technologies and platforms that access, produce, and distribute media content. The development and overlap of television, the internet, and other media technologies is fragmenting and empowering media audiences more than ever. Building on his award-winning book, Audience Economics, Philip M. Napoli maps the landscape of our current media environment and describes its challenge to traditional conceptions of the audience.

“One of the most thoughtful voices from within academia” (Washington Post) argues the American university is stuck in the past—and shows how we can revolutionize itWe’re living in a period of great upheaval—yet there hasn't been a corresponding change in our system of higher education. In The New Education, Cathy N. Davidson argues we need a new theory and practice of learning that emphasizes achievement not as a score on a test but as the ability...

Grad Skool Rulz: Everything You Need to Know about Academia from Admissions to Tenure is for students in Ph.D. programs. These programs have a poor track record. Less than 50% of students who begin their Ph.D. program will leave with their degree. Many of those who graduate will needlessly spend a decade or more pursuing their degree.Grad Skool Rulz is designed to help you finish graduate school in a reasonable amount of time and successfully land that tenure track job. This book g...

The history of documentary has been one of adaptation and change, as docu-mentarists have harnessed the affordances of emerging technology. In the last decade interactive documentaries (i-docs) have become established as a new field of practice within non-fiction storytelling. Their various incarnations are now a focus at leading film festivals (IDFA DocLab, Tribeca Storyscapes, Sheffield DocFest), major international awards have been won, and they are increasingly the subject of academic ...