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 meaning and interactional participation for consumers. In addition to examining how industries connect books, DVDs, video games, lifestyle products, toys, and more to consumers, it also interrogates the changes in media circulation driven by the collision of digital platforms with existing retail institutions. By grappling with the contexts in which we buy media, Point of Sale uncovers the underlying tensions that define the contemporary culture industries.

The Routledge Companion to the Cultural Industries is collection of contemporary scholarship that seeks to re-assert the importance of cultural production and consumption against the purely economic imperatives of the 'creative industries'. Across 43 chapters drawn from a wide range of geographic and disciplinary perspectives, this comprehensive volume offers a critical and empirically informed examination of the contemporary cultural industries. A range of industries are explored, from video games to art galleries, all the time focussing on the culture that is being produced and its wider symbolic and socio-cultural meaning. Individual chapters consider their industrial structure, the policy that governs them, their geography, the labour that produces them, and the meaning they offer to consumers and participants. The collection also explores the historical dimension of cultural industry debates, providing context for new readers, as well as critical orientation for those more familiar with the subject. Questions of industry structure, labour, place, international development, consumption, and regulation are all explored in terms of their historical trajectory and potential future direction. By assessing the current challenges facing the cultural industries, this collection provides students and researchers with an essential guide to key ideas, issues, concepts, and debates in the field.

Extremist Propaganda in Social Media: A Threat to Homeland Security presents both an analysis of the impact of propaganda in social media and the rise of extremism in mass society from technological and social perspectives. The book identifies the current phenomenon, what shall be dubbed for purposes of this book "Blisstopian Societies"-characterized in the abiding "ignorance is bliss" principle-whereby a population is complacent and has unquestioning acceptance of a social doctrine without challenge and introspection. In these subcultures, the malleable population self-select social media content, "news," and propaganda delivery mechanisms. By doing so, they expose themselves only to content that motivates, reinforces, and contributes to their isolation, alienation, and self-regulation of the social groups and individuals. In doing this, objective news is dismissed, fake-or news otherwise intended to misinform-reinforces their stereotyped beliefs about society and the world around them. This phenomenon is, unfortunately, not "fake news," but a real threat to which counterterror, intelligence, Homeland Security, law enforcement, the military, and global organizations must be hyper-vigilant of, now and into the foreseeable future. Chapters cite numerous examples from the 2016 political election, the Russia investigation into the Trump Campaign, ISIS, domestic US terrorists, among many other examples of extremist and radicalizing rhetoric. The book illustrates throughout that this contrived and manufactured bliss has fueled the rise and perpetuation of hate crimes, radicalism, and violence in such groups as ISIS, Boko Haram, Neo-Nazis, white separatists, and white supremacists in the United States-in addition to perpetuating ethnic cleansing actions around the world. This dynamic has led to increased political polarization in the United States and abroad, while furthering an unwillingness and inability to both compromise or see others' perspectives-further fomenting insular populations increasing willing to harm others and do violence. Extremist Propaganda in Social Media relates current Blisstopian practices to real-world hate speech and violence, connecting how such information is consumed by groups and translated into violent action. The book is an invaluable resources for those professionals that require an awareness of social media radicalization including: social media strategists, law enforcement, Homeland Security professionals, military planners and operatives-anyone tasked with countering combat such violent factions and fringes in conflict situations.

Artists are creative workers who drive growth in the creative and cultural industries. Managing artistic talent is a unique challenge, and this concise book introduces and analyses its key characteristics. Artist Management: Agility in the Creative and Cultural Industries makes a major contribution to our understanding of the creative and cultural industries, of artistic and managerial creativities, and of social and cultural change in this sector. The book undertakes an extensive exploration of the increasingly pivotal role of artist managers in the creative and cultural industries and argues that agile management strategies are useful in this context. This book provides a comprehensive and accessible account of the artist-artist manager relationship in the twenty-first century. Drawing from research interviews conducted with artist managers and self-managed artists in five cities (New York, London, Toronto, Sydney and Melbourne), this book makes an original contribution to knowledge. Nation-specific case studies are highlighted as a means of illuminating various thematic concerns. This unique book is a major piece of research and a valuable study aid for both undergraduate and postgraduate students of subjects including arts management, creative and cultural industries studies, arts entrepreneurship, business and management studies and media and communications.

The acceleration of massive global climate change creates a nexus for the examination of power, political rhetoric, science communication, and sustainable development. This book provides an international view of twenty first century environmental communication, from journalism to artistic expression, to critically explore mediated expressions of climate change. Seeking to understand how government policies, environmental news reports, corporate messages, and social influences communicate the complexities of climate change to the public, this book examines the roles that journalism, entertainment, and strategic messaging play in mediating meanings of science, health, economy, and sustainable solutions. It considers the critical importance of the study of climate change communication, which is inherently interdisciplinary, as well as globally and locally impactful. With topics ranging from communicating resilience through environmental journalism and linguistics, the storytelling of climate change explanations in the news, the role of visual communication in capturing and addressing climate change, and the communication of the health impacts of climate change, this book will appeal to undergraduate and graduate students and scholars in environmental sciences, international relations and politics, media, journalism and mass communication.

China is transforming Africa's information space. It is assisting African broadcasters with extensive loans, training and exchange programmes and has set up its own media operations on the continent in the form of CCTV Africa. In the telecommunications sector, China is helping African governments to expand access to the internet and mobile phones, with rapid and large-scale success. While Western countries have ambiguously linked the need to fight security threats with restrictions of the information space, China has been vocal in asserting the need to control communication to ensure stability and development. Featuring a wealth of interviews with a variety of actors - from Chinese and African journalists in Chinese media to Chinese workers for major telecommunication companies - this highly original book demonstrates how China is both contributing to the 'Africa rising' narrative while exploiting the weaknesses of Western approaches to Africa, which remain trapped between an emphasis on stability and service delivery, on the one hand, and the desire to advocate human rights and freedom of expression on the other. Arguing no state can be understood without attention to its information structure, the book provides the first assessment of China's new model for the media strategies of developing states, and the consequences of policing Africa's information space for geopolitics, security and citizenship.

Master the secrets behind video game production - from concept to completion - with these comprehensive tips and tricks from two accomplished, working game producers. Discover how to lead a team, communicate effectively, budget, schedule, staff, and design quality next-generation games. Producing Games walks you through every stage of the production process with a focus on the part the producer plays at each phase.

This comprehensive Reader brings together seminal texts in media and communication from both traditional as well as more recent scholarship.

Readings are drawn from an international range of scholars and organized to reflect the growing internationalization of the field, with clearly defined sections covering key aspects of global communication. In addition to the core academic readings, key policy documents are also included to demonstrate the development of the political, economic and technological infrastructure that underpins the global system of media and communication.

Theoretical and empirical work examining disruptive activity within industry has previously been restricted to the free market, even if an element of ad hoc government interference has occurred. In contrast, this book makes a unique evaluation of a situation that prevails across a significant part of the industrial sector where involvement is subject to the acquisition of an operating licence. Taking telecommunications as an illustrative industry, with a particular focus on mobile telecommunications, the book focuses on the regulatory bodies that are tasked with licence issuance. New entry is usually attempted by a single company, often with existing links within the telecommunications sector, and usually within a single country. This book provides detailed accounts of both the individual countries and international operators in question, while also including a case study of CK Hutchinson which has been associated with multiple country entries. It also examines how disruptive activity is evolving from its roots in the mobile sector to encompass so-called "quad-play" which includes fixed-wire broadband and pay-TV. Disruptive Activity in a Regulated Industry: The Case of Telecommunications will appeal to postgraduate researchers and academics in the fields of economics, innovation, regulation, and governance.

From early first-wave programs such as Candid Camera, An American Family, and The Real World to the shows on our television screens and portable devices today, reality television consistently takes us to cities-such as New York, Los Angeles, and Boston-to imagine the place of urbanity in American culture and society. Jon Kraszewski offers the first extended account of this phenomenon, as he makes the politics of urban space the center of his history and theory of reality television. Kraszewski situates reality television in a larger economic transformation that started in the 1980s when America went from an industrial economy, when cities were home to all classes, to its post-industrial economy as cities became key points in a web of global financing, expelling all economic classes except the elite and the poor. Reality television in the industrial era reworked social relationships based on class, race, and gender for liberatory purposes, which resulted in an egalitarian ethos in the genre. However, reality television of the post-industrial era attempts to convince viewers that cities still serve their interests, even though most viewers find city life today economically untenable. Each chapter uses a key theoretical concept from spatial theory-such as power geometries, diasporic nostalgia, orientalism, the imagination of social expulsions, and the relationship between the country and the city-to illuminate the way reality television engages this larger transformation of urban space in America.

Monetizing Entertainment: An Insider's Handbook for Careers in the Entertainment & Music Industry offers a thorough, guided exploration of the current state of the industry, with an emphasis on trends in copyright, digital streaming, and practical advice for developing a career as an artist, technician, or industry executive. This book investigates a variety of topics within the entertainment and music industry, ranging from traditional and emerging business models to intellectual property rights to the creative destruction happening currently. The book strategically outlines the existing gaps that make being successful as an artist a dynamic interaction between creativity and business. This book includes the following: An overview of the creative destruction process that has destroyed some of the old business models and created a number of career options. A look at innovative, entrepreneurial career options. A step-by-step examination for both creative and business professionals of the administrative and financial structures of the industry. Detailed analysis of trends and topics shaping the current entertainment and music industry drawn from insiders' perspectives and other contemporary resources. An accompanying website (www.routledge.com/cw/wacholtz), hosting case studies, videos, data, infographics, and blog posts on business models, is the perfect companion to this authoritative resource.

Media Ownership and Agenda Control offers a detailed examination of media ownership amidst the complexities of the information age, from the resurgence of press barons to the new influence wielded by internet giants. Much of the discussion pivots around recent revelations and controversies in the media industry, such as the findings published in 2012 from the Leveson Inquiry, the US Federal Communications Commission's ruling on net neutrality in 2015, Edward Snowden's decision to leak National Security Agency (NSA) documents in 2013 and the legal battles over ancillary copyrights waged in Germany and elsewhere. Justin Schlosberg traces the obscure and often unnoticed ways in which agendas continue to be shaped by a small number of individual and institutional megaphones, despite the rise of grassroots and participatory platforms, and despite ubiquitous displays of adversarial journalism. Above all, it explores the web of connections and interdependence that binds old and new media gatekeepers, and cements them to the surveillance and warfare state. This ultimately foregrounds the book's call for a radical rethink of ownership regulation, situating the movement for progressive media reform alongside wider struggles against the iniquities and injustices of global capitalism. This book's re-evaluation of the nature of media ownership and control in a postdigital world will prove to be an invaluable resource for students of media studies and journalism, as well as all those with an interest in the changing dynamics of media power. Get involved: Reclaimthemedia.org

Exclusive Podcast Academy training now available in a book! Podcast Academy, the leader in audio/video podcast and new media education, brings you their first book, Podcast Academy: The Business Podcasting Book, based on their seminars. Written by industry experts, this book brings you practical experience that you can apply to your own business. It covers planning, content creation, legal considerations, branding, marketing, advertising, monetization, and much more. The authors and contributors have been behind many of the earliest corporate podcasts and share their knowledge, success, and real-world experience with you. Podcasting is changing the way organizations are communicating with their customers, prospects and the media. It is an essential new medium for any company looking to extend their communications outreach, and expand their brand awareness. This applies for companies, organizations, charities, schools and groups that range in size from small to Fortune 500 enterprises. If you are thinking about podcasting as a medium for your organization, The Business Podcasting Book will give you a solid understanding of how to create your own company's voice, measure your efforts and maximize your opportunity. Implement your podcasting strategy now!

This book aims to feed into the critical debates about media, power and change through the respectful inclusion of a wide variety of critical approaches and traditions. This diversity is simultaneously structured and balanced by a deeply shared set of concerns, that are mobilised to defend core societal values including social justice, equality, fairness, care for the other and humanity. Critical Perspectives on Media, Power and Change raises questions about how the omnipresent media can contribute to the materialisation of these core values, and how it sometimes works against them. Rethinking social change, mediatisation and regulations are thus significant issues - explicitly addressed in this book. In addition the authors show how the role of the critical media and communication scholar merits and requires (self-)reflection; critical voices matter, but they also face structural limitations. This book was originally published as two special issues of Javnost - The Public.

Creative Industry practices are increasingly manifested through hybrid models and methods and emerging sub-sectors. With ever finer dividing lines between form and content, product and service, participation and consumption, the distinctions between sectors are increasingly blurred, while new, convergent models emerge. Reflecting this fluid context, this book provides a new perspective on strategy in the Creative Industries. Based on extensive original research and live empirical data derived from case studies, interviews, and observations with creative managers, it reveals strategic decision-making by analysing business manoeuvres and stages of innovation in the Creative Industries. Through analysing the interactive features of aesthetically driven information assets, and how new user/consumer cultures are applied, it uncovers the principles that are transforming strategy in the Creative Industries. This innovative volume will be of significant interest to scholars, advanced students and practitioners in the Creative Industries as well as well as industry consultancies and practitioners.

Netflix is the definitive media company of the 21st century. It was among the first to parlay new Internet technologies into a successful business model, and in the process it changed how consumers access film and television. It is now one of the leading providers of digitally delivered media content and is continually expanding access across a host of platforms and mobile devices. Despite its transformative role, however, Netflix has drawn very little critical attention-far less than competitors such as YouTube, Apple, Amazon, Comcast, and HBO. This collection addresses this gap, as the essays are designed to critically explore the breadth and diversity of Netflix's effect from a variety of different scholarly perspectives, a necessary approach considering the hybrid nature of Netflix, its inextricable links to new models of media production, distribution, viewer engagement and consumer behavior, its relationship to existing media conglomerates and consumer electronics, its capabilities as a web-based service provider and data network, and its reliance on a broader technological infrastructure.

This book analyses media conglomerates owning multiple media holdings under centralized ownership within and across media markets. It argues that Asian capitalists utilize both a market-oriented ideology and family connections to build their media empires, thereby creating cultural conglomerates that exercise corporate censorship over media markets. It focuses on family-controlled media conglomerates in Korea, specifically the international business giant, Samsung, and its related media companies, Cheil Jedang and JoongAng Ilbo, all of which are controlled by the single Lee family. Utilizing the theoretical approach of political economy of communication, the book examines how and why the Lee family exercise corporate censorship over Korean society. Offering an essential take on Asia's political economy of communication in order to understand the workings of Asian media empires, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Korean Studies, Korean Business and Mass Communications.

In Citizens of Scandal, Vanessa Freije explores the causes and consequences of political scandals in Mexico from the 1960s through the 1980s. Tracing the process by which Mexico City reporters denounced official wrongdoing, she shows that by the 1980s political scandals were a common feature of the national media diet. News stories of state embezzlement, torture, police violence, and electoral fraud provided collective opportunities to voice dissent and offered an important, though unpredictable and inequitable, mechanism for political representation. The publicity of wrongdoing also disrupted top-down attempts by the ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional to manage public discourse, exposing divisions within the party and forcing government officials to grapple with popular discontent. While critical reporters denounced corruption, they also withheld many secrets from public discussion, sometimes out of concern for their safety. Freije highlights the tensions-between free speech and censorship, representation and exclusion, and transparency and secrecy-that defined the Mexican public sphere in the late twentieth century.

Public service media (PSM) have been the mainstay of Western European broadcasting for a number of decades. Yet despite a general political consensus in favour of PSM, recent technological, economic and political changes have led to a questioning of their value. This new collection of essays explores the history of PSM in selected European countries, from their early establishment as the main media in many countries to charting their transformation and evolution in recent years. The contributions consider the political, economic and market-integration issues that impact PSM, while also highlighting the importance of the ideology that originally accompanied PSM in its initial years, to see how relevant they are in the contemporary world. The book consists of two complementary parts: Part I: Theoretical Aspects and Global Influences on Public Service Media in Europe Part II: A Comparative Analysis of Public Service Media across Europe With contributions from leading experts, the first part offers a thorough examination of the current concepts and conditions that influence PSM in Europe. The second offers a comparative study of PSM in several European countries including France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and Sweden. Offering the most comprehensive study of the field to date, Public Service Media in Europe will be useful for students and researchers in public media, political communication, international and comparative media.

Festival and Events Management: an international perspective is a unique text looking at the central role of events management in the cultural, tourism and arts industries. With international contributions from industry and academia, the text looks at the following: * Events & cultural environments * Managing the arts & leisure experience * Marketing, policies and strategies of art and leisure management Chapters include exercises, and additional teaching materials and solutions to questions are provided as part of an accompanying online resource.

The last decade has witnessed the rise of big data in game development as the increasing proliferation of Internet-enabled gaming devices has made it easier than ever before to collect large amounts of player-related data. At the same time, the emergence of new business models and the diversification of the player base have exposed a broader potential audience, which attaches great importance to being able to tailor game experiences to a wide range of preferences and skill levels. This, in turn, has led to a growing interest in data mining techniques, as they offer new opportunities for deriving actionable insights to inform game design, to ensure customer satisfaction, to maximize revenues, and to drive technical innovation. By now, data mining and analytics have become vital components of game development. The amount of work being done in this area nowadays makes this an ideal time to put together a book on this subject. Data Analytics Applications in Gaming and Entertainment seeks to provide a cross section of current data analytics applications in game production. It is intended as a companion for practitioners, academic researchers, and students seeking knowledge on the latest practices in game data mining. The chapters have been chosen in such a way as to cover a wide range of topics and to provide readers with a glimpse at the variety of applications of data mining in gaming. A total of 25 authors from industry and academia have contributed 12 chapters covering topics such as player profiling, approaches for analyzing player communities and their social structures, matchmaking, churn prediction and customer lifetime value estimation, communication of analytical results, and visual approaches to game analytics. This book's perspectives and concepts will spark heightened interest in game analytics and foment innovative ideas that will advance the exciting field of online gaming and entertainment.

Between 1925 and 1951, Kent Cooper transformed the Associated Press, making it the world's dominant news agency while changing the kind of journalism that millions of readers in the United States and other countries relied on. Gene Allen's biography is a globe-spanning account of how Cooper led and reshaped the most important institution in American--and eventually international--journalism in the mid-twentieth century. Allen critically assesses the many new approaches and causes that Cooper championed: introducing celebrity news and colorful features to a service previously known for stodgy reliability, pushing through disruptive technological innovations like the instantaneous transmission of news photos, and leading a crusade to bring American-style press freedom--inseparable from private ownership, in Cooper's view--to every country. His insistence on truthfulness and impartiality presents a sharp contrast to much of today's fractured journalistic landscape. Deeply researched and engagingly written, Mr. Associated Press traces Cooper's career as he built a new foundation for the modern AP and shaped the twentieth-century world of news.

This anthology brings together voices from industry and academia in a call for elevating the status, identity, value, and influence of technical communicators. Editors Barbara Mirel and Rachel Spilka assert that technical communicators must depart from their traditional roles, moving instead in a more influential and expansive direction. To help readers explore the possibilities, contributions from innovative thinkers and leaders in technical communication propose ways to redefine the field's identity and purposes and to expand the parameters of its work. The chapters included here all point toward new directions for greater growth and influence of the field. Contributors depart from traditional ideas and solutions and discuss new and in some cases radical points, provoking further thought and discussion. Its exploration of fresh territory uncovers new research topics and directions, and provides an examination of both internal, industry-academia relationships and external relationships between technical communicators and other professionals. In its entirety, this collection represents an inclusive vision for the future, targeting such wide-ranging issues as creating effective professional organizations, disseminating research to diverse audiences, transitioning to more influential job roles, exerting leadership in usability, and creating hybrid identities and collaborative programs between industry and academic to support them. The diverse voices from industry and academia will inspire readers to think differently about the discipline's identity and direction, and to build on the ideas they find herein to effect change within their own spheres. As required reading for academics and professionals in technical communication, this collection is a critical step in reshaping and reinvigorating the technical communication field to ensure its survival and growth in the 21st century.