How female directors, producers, and writers navigate the challenges and barriers facing female-driven projects at each stage of filmmaking in contemporary Hollywood. Conversations about gender equity in the workplace accelerated in the 2010s, with debates inside Hollywood specifically pointing to broader systemic problems of employment disparities and exploitative labor practices. Compounded by the devastating #MeToo revelations, these problems led to a wide-scale call for change. The Value Gap traces female-driven filmmaking across development, financing, production, film festivals, marketing, and distribution, examining the realities facing women working in the industry during this transformative moment. Drawing from five years of extensive interviews with female producers, writers, and directors at different stages of their careers, Courtney Brannon Donoghue examines how Hollywood business cultures "value" female-driven projects as risky or not bankable. Industry claims that "movies targeting female audiences don't make money" or "women can't direct big-budget blockbusters" have long circulated to rationalize systemic gender inequities and have served to normalize studios prioritizing the white male-driven status quo. Through a critical media industry studies lens, The Value Gap challenges this pervasive logic with firsthand accounts of women actively navigating the male-dominated and conglomerate-owned industrial landscape.

A deep dive into the new era of digital content production and distribution In the twenty-first century, the platforms that both create and host content have become nearly as important as media itself. Companies such as Netflix, Spotify, and YouTube have attained a massive hold on the public imagination and have become an almost ineluctable part of people's everyday lives. While the workings of media distribution had until very recently remained inconsequential to the average consumer, the recent popularization of various online platforms has made the question of distribution immediate to everyone. Digital Media Distribution: Portals, Platforms, Pipelines provides a timely examination of the multifaceted distribution landscape in a moment of transformation and conceptualizes media distribution as a complex site of power, privilege, and gatekeeping. These tensions have local, national, and global consequences on the autonomy of creative workers, as well as on how we gain access to, engage with, and understand cultural products. Drawing on original research into distribution practices in industries as diverse as television, film, videogames, literature, and adult entertainment, each chapter explores how digitization has changed media distribution and its broader economic, industrial, social, and cultural implications. Bringing together experts from around the world and across the media industries, Digital Media Distribution: Portals, Platforms, Pipelines presents a vast array of critical approaches and illustrative case studies for understanding the factors that have an impact on the way media travels and moves throughout our digital lives.

How female directors, producers, and writers navigate the challenges and barriers facing female-driven projects at each stage of filmmaking in contemporary Hollywood. Conversations about gender equity in the workplace accelerated in the 2010s, with debates inside Hollywood specifically pointing to broader systemic problems of employment disparities and exploitative labor practices. Compounded by the devastating #MeToo revelations, these problems led to a wide-scale call for change. The Value Gap traces female-driven filmmaking across development, financing, production, film festivals, marketing, and distribution, examining the realities facing women working in the industry during this transformative moment. Drawing from five years of extensive interviews with female producers, writers, and directors at different stages of their careers, Courtney Brannon Donoghue examines how Hollywood business cultures “value� female-driven projects as risky or not bankable. Industry claims that “movies targeting female audiences don’t make money� or “women can’t direct big-budget blockbusters� have long circulated to rationalize systemic gender inequities and have served to normalize studios prioritizing the white male–driven status quo. Through a critical media industry studies lens, The Value Gap challenges this pervasive logic with firsthand accounts of women actively navigating the male-dominated and conglomerate-owned industrial landscape.

A deep dive into the new era of digital content production and distribution In the twenty-first century, the platforms that both create and host content have become nearly as important as media itself. Companies such as Netflix, Spotify, and YouTube have attained a massive hold on the public imagination and have become an almost ineluctable part of people’s everyday lives. While the workings of media distribution had until very recently remained inconsequential to the average consumer, the recent popularization of various online platforms has made the question of distribution immediate to everyone. Digital Media Distribution: Portals, Platforms, Pipelines provides a timely examination of the multifaceted distribution landscape in a moment of transformation and conceptualizes media distribution as a complex site of power, privilege, and gatekeeping. These tensions have local, national, and global consequences on the autonomy of creative workers, as well as on how we gain access to, engage with, and understand cultural products. Drawing on original research into distribution practices in industries as diverse as television, film, videogames, literature, and adult entertainment, each chapter explores how digitization has changed media distribution and its broader economic, industrial, social, and cultural implications. Bringing together experts from around the world and across the media industries, Digital Media Distribution: Portals, Platforms, Pipelines presents a vast array of critical approaches and illustrative case studies for understanding the factors that have an impact on the way media travels and moves throughout our digital lives.

Hollywood has a complex relationship with local markets around the world. This critical yet accessible overview of Hollywood's local presence investigates the dynamic between the studios' film entertainment divisions and individual media markets - exploring how their position, partnerships and practices function in an era characterised by globalisation, digitisation and convergence. Engaging with key scholarly and industrial debates, the book incorporates first-hand accounts gathered from extensive fieldwork and research. It addresses a wide range of international operations, from creative partnerships and production strategies to promotional and distribution processes. With a particular focus on Europe and Latin America, the text interrogates earlier notions of a 'global Hollywood' and globalisation, where media conglomerates were viewed as economically rational or all-powerful organisations. By exploring how decision-making processes and creative negotiations between Hollywood media executives and local forces operate, it reveals the complex picture of filmmaking and circulation in today's supposedly globalised and digitised societies.

Hollywood has a complex relationship with local markets around the world. This critical yet accessible overview of Hollywood's local presence investigates the dynamic between the studios' film entertainment divisions and individual media markets - exploring how their position, partnerships and practices function in an era characterised by globalisation, digitisation and convergence. Engaging with key scholarly and industrial debates, the book incorporates first-hand accounts gathered from extensive fieldwork and research. It addresses a wide range of international operations, from creative partnerships and production strategies to promotional and distribution processes. With a particular focus on Europe and Latin America, the text interrogates earlier notions of a 'global Hollywood' and globalisation, where media conglomerates were viewed as economically rational or all-powerful organisations. By exploring how decision-making processes and creative negotiations between Hollywood media executives and local forces operate, it reveals the complex picture of filmmaking and circulation in today's supposedly globalised and digitised societies.