Japanese manga comic books have attracted a devoted global following. In the popular press manga is said to have "invaded" and "conquered" the United States, and its success is held up as a quintessential example of the globalization of popular culture challenging American hegemony in the twenty-first century. In Manga in America - the first ever book-length study of the history, structure, and practices of the American manga publishing industry - Casey Brienza explodes this assumption. Drawing on extensive field research and interviews with industry insiders about licensing deals, processes of translation, adaptation, and marketing, new digital publishing and distribution models, and more, Brienza shows that the transnational production of culture is an active, labor-intensive, and oft-contested process of "domestication." Ultimately, Manga in America argues that the domestication of manga reinforces the very same imbalances of national power that might otherwise seem to have been transformed by it and that the success of Japanese manga in the United States actually serves to make manga everywhere more American.

This anthology explores tensions between the individualistic artistic ideals and the collective industrial realities of contemporary cultural production with eighteen all-new chapters presenting pioneering empirical research on the complexities and controversies of comics work. Art Spiegelman. Alan Moore. Osamu Tezuka. Neil Gaiman. Names such as these have become synonymous with the medium of comics. Meanwhile, the large numbers of people without whose collective action no comic book would ever exist in the first place are routinely overlooked. Cultures of Comics Work unveils this hidden, global industrial labor of writers, illustrators, graphic designers, letterers, editors, printers, typesetters, publicists, publishers, distributors, translators, retailers, and countless others both directly and indirectly involved in the creative production of what is commonly thought of as the comic book. Drawing upon diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives, an international and interdisciplinary cohort of cutting-edge researchers and practitioners intervenes in debates about cultural work and paves innovative directions for comics scholarship.

Outside Japan, the term 'manga' usually refers to comics originally published in Japan. Yet nowadays many publications labelled 'manga' are not translations of Japanese works but rather have been wholly conceived and created elsewhere. These comics, although often derided and dismissed as 'fake manga', represent an important but understudied global cultural phenomenon which, controversially, may even point to a future of 'Japanese' comics without Japan. This book takes seriously the political economy and cultural production of this so-called 'global manga' produced throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia and explores the conditions under which it arises and flourishes; what counts as 'manga' and who gets to decide; the implications of global manga for contemporary economies of cultural and creative labour; the ways in which it is shaped by or mixes with local cultural forms and contexts; and, ultimately, what it means for manga to be 'authentically' Japanese in the first place. Presenting new empirical research on the production of global manga culture from scholars across the humanities and social sciences, as well as first person pieces and historical overviews written by global manga artists and industry insiders, Global Manga will appeal to scholars of cultural and media studies, Japanese studies, and popular and visual culture.

Sponsored by the Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology section of the American Sociological Association (CITAMS), this volume is the second of a two-part series that celebrates the section's 30th anniversary. Casey Brienza leads the second of the two volumes - The M in CITAMS@30: Media Sociology - with former CITAMS chairs Laura Robinson, Barry Wellman, Shelia R. Cotten, and Wenhong Chen. Volume 18 continues the discussion begun in Volume 17: Networks, Hacking, and Media--CITAMS@30: Now and Then and Tomorrow. Both volumes highlight some of the best of the vibrant, interdisciplinary scholarship in communication, information technologies and media sociology. Volume 18 develops the field of media sociology vis-a-vis the roles and impacts of the digital and traditional media via rich international case studies that include a broad swath of contexts and cultures. The volume's authors probe the relationships between inequalities and media, as well as offering a scintillating array of scholarship on cultural production and consumption. Assembled together, the work in this volume showcases the value of interdisciplinary scholarship in the sociological study of media, communication, and information technologies. In keeping with the celebration of the thirty-year anniversary, both volumes open with a foreword by past chair Wenhong Chen and close with an afterword by past chair Shelia Cotten.

Sponsored by the Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology section of the American Sociological Association (CITAMS), this volume celebrates the section's thirtieth anniversary. Lead editor Barry Wellman joins forces with former and current CITAMS chairs Wenhong Chen, Shelia Cotten, and Laura Robinson, as well as Casey Brienza, founder of the Media Sociology Preconference, to look back at the history of the section, review some of its most important themes, and set the agenda for future discussion. Alongside its sister volume, The "M" in CITAMS@30: Media Sociology, this valuable book shows the impact CITAMS has had, and continues to have, on academic and public discourse. Featuring leading scholars in the fields of sociology of communication, information technologies and media, it reveals how the section had transcended disciplinary boundaries, and demonstrates how it holds the skills to address some of the biggest challenges of our digital age. It is essential reading for all those interested in both the story of CITAMS to date, and the role it will play in the future.

Japanese manga comic books have attracted a devoted global following. In the popular press manga is said to have "invaded" and "conquered" the United States, and its success is held up as a quintessential example of the globalization of popular culture challenging American hegemony in the twenty-first century. In Manga in America - the first ever book-length study of the history, structure, and practices of the American manga publishing industry - Casey Brienza explodes this assumption. Drawing on extensive field research and interviews with industry insiders about licensing deals, processes of translation, adaptation, and marketing, new digital publishing and distribution models, and more, Brienza shows that the transnational production of culture is an active, labor-intensive, and oft-contested process of "domestication." Ultimately, Manga in America argues that the domestication of manga reinforces the very same imbalances of national power that might otherwise seem to have been transformed by it and that the success of Japanese manga in the United States actually serves to make manga everywhere more American.