LIFE: A Transdisciplinary Inquiry examines nature, cognition and society as an interwoven tapestry across disciplinary boundaries. This volume explores how information and communication are instrumental in and for living systems, acknowledging an integrative account of media as environments and technologies. The aim of the collection is a fuller and richer account of everyday life through a spectrum of insights from internationally known scholars of the natural sciences (physical and life sciences), social sciences and the arts. How or should life be defined? If life is a medium, how is it mediated? Viewed as interactions, transactions and contexts of ecosystems, life can be recognized through patterns across the sciences, including metabolisms, habitats and lifeworlds. The book also integrates discussions of embodiment, ecological values, literacies and critiques, with bioinspired, synthetic and historical design approaches to envision what could constitute artful living in an ever-evolving, interdependent world. The volume foregrounds systemic approaches to life, drawing on a wide range of disciplines and fields, including architecture, art, biology, bioengineering, chemistry, cinema studies, communication, computer science, conservation, cultural studies, design, ecology, environmental studies, information science, landscape architecture, geography, journalism, materials science, media archaeology, media studies, philosophy, physics, plant signalling and development, political economy, sociology and system dynamics. This is the second volume in the Media-Life-Universe trilogy. It follows and builds upon the 2021 collection MEDIA: A Transdisciplinary Inquiry.  

Global Media Giants takes an in-depth look at how media corporate power works globally, regionally, and nationally, investigating the ways in which the largest and most powerful media corporations in the world wield power. Case studies examine not only some of the largest media corporations (News Corp., The Microsoft Corporation) in terms of revenues, but also media corporations that hold considerable power within national, regional, or geolinguistic contexts (Televisa, The Bertelsmann Group, Sony Corporation). Each chapter approaches a different corporation through the lens of economy, politics, and culture, giving students and scholars a thoughtful and data-driven guide with which to interrogate contemporary media industry power.

LIFE: A Transdisciplinary Inquiry examines nature, cognition and society as an interwoven tapestry across disciplinary boundaries. This volume explores how information and communication are instrumental in and for living systems, acknowledging an integrative account of media as environments and technologies. The aim of the collection is a fuller and richer account of everyday life through a spectrum of insights from internationally known scholars of the natural sciences (physical and life sciences), social sciences and the arts. How or should life be defined? If life is a medium, how is it mediated? Viewed as interactions, transactions and contexts of ecosystems, life can be recognized through patterns across the sciences, including metabolisms, habitats and lifeworlds. The book also integrates discussions of embodiment, ecological values, literacies and critiques, with bioinspired, synthetic and historical design approaches to envision what could constitute artful living in an ever-evolving, interdependent world. The volume foregrounds systemic approaches to life, drawing on a wide range of disciplines and fields, including architecture, art, biology, bioengineering, chemistry, cinema studies, communication, computer science, conservation, cultural studies, design, ecology, environmental studies, information science, landscape architecture, geography, journalism, materials science, media archaeology, media studies, philosophy, physics, plant signalling and development, political economy, sociology and system dynamics. This is the second volume in the Media-Life-Universe trilogy. It follows and builds upon the 2021 collection MEDIA: A Transdisciplinary Inquiry.  

Global Media Giants takes an in-depth look at how media corporate power works globally, regionally, and nationally, investigating the ways in which the largest and most powerful media corporations in the world wield power. Case studies examine not only some of the largest media corporations (News Corp., The Microsoft Corporation) in terms of revenues, but also media corporations that hold considerable power within national, regional, or geolinguistic contexts (Televisa, The Bertelsmann Group, Sony Corporation). Each chapter approaches a different corporation through the lens of economy, politics, and culture, giving students and scholars a thoughtful and data-driven guide with which to interrogate contemporary media industry power.

This is a book about the US motion picture industry - its structure and policies, its operations and practices. It looks at the processes that are involved in turning raw materials and labor into feature films. It describes the process of film production, distribution, exhibition and retail - a process that involves different markets where materials, labor and products are bought and sold. In other words, this is a book about how Hollywood works - as an industry.

How Hollywood Works:

- offers an up-to-date survey of the policies and structure of the US film industry

- looks at the relationship between the film industry and other media industries

- examines the role of the major studios and the other 'players' - including, law firms, talent agents, and trade unions and guilds

- provides access to hard-to-find statistical information on the industry

While many books describe the film production and marketing process, they usually do so from an industry perspective and few look at Hollywood critically from within a more general economic, political and social context. By offering just such a critique, Janet Wasko's text provides a timely and essential analysis of how Hollywood works for all students of film and media.

The ""information society"" is real. Information - as a marketable commodity - is quickly taking up the powerful role once held by heavy industry and manufactured products. How this revolution is affecting society, and how both society and government are responding to it, is the subject of this book. Every dimension of social life, whether in the home or the workplace, is affected by information and the technologies that shape it into a marketable commodity. Along with the positive aspects of these broad changes, there are inevitable problems: the growing gap between the information rich and poor, the need for widespread access to communication and information technology, the threat to privacy, and the potential of the technology to create global instabilities. The editors have enlisted specialists and scholars in business, communication studies, computing and information science, economics, law, library science, political science, and sociology to examine these changes and problems by looking at information specifically as a commodity. The book begins with chapters on ways of seeing and thinking about information in the light of developments in computer communication technology. The ability of the technology to measure and monitor information transactions and to package and repackage information products leads to fresh views on the nature of industrial society, perhaps leading to the development of what Robins and Webster refer to as ""cybernetic capitalism"". These theoretical chapters are followed by studies that identify and examine specific problems in the political economy of information. These include how business is making information a marketable commodity, how government is responding to this development, the implications for access to information, privacy, social class divisions, and specific impacts on the home and workplace. The concluding chapters consider the global significance of transforming information into a marketable product with specific studies on Europe, Asia, and the efforts of Third World nations to overcome disparities in the information society.

This volume addresses issues revolving around the production of mediated cultural products across borders. More specifically, the authors consider cross-border cultural production in the film and television industries and how it affects and is affected by media centers, and, more recently, established production locations. The film and television industries have long been recognized as playing important economic, political and cultural roles. And while it could be argued that, historically, these forms of cultural production often have been international endeavors, the choice of production sites has become an especially contentious issue during the last few decades as global production has expanded. While some factions, notably from the US film and television industries, refer to this issue as "runaway production," this book looks at this issue in a much broader look at the implications and consequences of this phenomenon. Basically, cross-border production involves the expansion of production away from traditional centers, whether to other countries or to other locations within the same country. Thus, this study covers a wide range of issues involving economic and political considerations, as well as creative and aesthetic decision-making. This is an important book for those in communication, international business, and economics.

This book explores the notion that the push toward marketization is the central force currently restructuring the communications landscape and examines the consequences of this development for the constitution of public culture. The contributors analyze the core institutional processes of marketization and assess their impact on the structure and operations of media and communication systems around the world over the last two decades. The chapters are organized over four key themes - consolidation, incorporation, globalization and resistance.

The first in the Media-Life-Universe trilogy, this volume explores a transdisciplinary notion of media and technology, exploring media as technology, with special attention to its material, historical and ecological ramifications. The authors reconceptualize media from environmental, ecological and systems approaches, drawing not only on media and communication studies, but also philosophy, sociology, political science, biology, art, computer science, information studies and other disciplines. Featuring a group of internationally known scholars, this collection explores evolving definitions of media and how media technologies are transforming theory and practice. As the current media includes a wider and wider range of concepts, products, services and institutions, the definition of media continues to be in a state of flux. What are media today? How is media studies evolving? How have technologies transformed communication and media theory, and informed praxis? What are some of the futures of media? The collection challenges traditional notions of media, as well as concepts such as freedom of expression, audience empowerment and participatory media, and explores emergent media including transmedia, virtual reality, online games, metatechnology, remediation and makerspaces. The book's primary readership will be academics, scholars and students in media and communication studies, including a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses in media studies, communication studies and new media. Suitable for classroom use in the areas of philosophy of communication and media, media theory, media ecology, cultural studies, media archaeology, feminist studies and political economy of communications and media.

The 1980s witnessed a rapid growth of communication technology and an immense expansion of new media around the globe. The development of new information and communication technologies has emphasized again the importance of economic, social, political, and cultural institutions associated with the definitions of new technologies. Many of the traditional conceptions of the relation of the media to democracy were predicated upon a certain perception of communication technology and the major contemporary debates related to democratization have to do, again, with the deployment of technologies. How do all these developments affect society? How is the communications explosion related to democracy? What are the implications for the social functions of communications, people's activities, consciousness and values, media ownership and control, both nationally and internationally? These are some of the questions discussed in this volume.

Dallas W. Smythe has made important contributions to the study of the political economy of communications, as well as to the critical study of communication and information. His work has probed the neglected corners of the academic study of communication research, challenging and inspiring students and researchers for nearly 50 years. Celebrating Dallas Smythe, this volume includes 19 articles that draw on his work and furthur challenge existing communications structures and policies. The contributions examine case studies of the political economy of communication and information from various perspectives as well as exploring international communications issues and media/audience analysis.

The 1980s witnessed a rapid growth of communication technology and an immense expansion of new media around the globe. The development of new information and communication technologies has emphasized again the importance of economic, social, political, and cultural institutions associated with the definitions of new technologies. Many of the traditional conceptions of the relation of the media to democracy were predicated upon a certain perception of communication technology and the major contemporary debates related to democratization have to do, again, with the deployment of technologies. How do all these developments affect society? How is the communications explosion related to democracy? What are the implications for the social functions of communications, people's activities, consciousness and values, media ownership and control, both nationally and internationally? These are some of the questions discussed in this volume.

Dallas W. Smythe has made important contributions to the study of the political economy of communications, as well as to the critical study of communication and information. His work has probed the neglected corners of the academic study of communication research, challenging and inspiring students and researchers for nearly 50 years. Celebrating Dallas Smythe, this volume includes 19 articles that draw on his work and furthur challenge existing communications structures and policies. The contributions examine case studies of the political economy of communication and information from various perspectives as well as exploring international communications issues and media/audience analysis.

This is a book about the US motion picture industry - its structure and policies, its operations and practices. It looks at the processes that are involved in turning raw materials and labor into feature films. It describes the process of film production, distribution, exhibition and retail - a process that involves different markets where materials, labor and products are bought and sold. In other words, this is a book about how Hollywood works - as an industry.

How Hollywood Works:

- offers an up-to-date survey of the policies and structure of the US film industry

- looks at the relationship between the film industry and other media industries

- examines the role of the major studios and the other 'players' - including, law firms, talent agents, and trade unions and guilds

- provides access to hard-to-find statistical information on the industry

While many books describe the film production and marketing process, they usually do so from an industry perspective and few look at Hollywood critically from within a more general economic, political and social context. By offering just such a critique, Janet Wasko's text provides a timely and essential analysis of how Hollywood works for all students of film and media.