The rise of global media industries have been a significant driving force shaping values, attitudes, expectations, beliefs, and imaginations across the world. The importance of “industries” also points to how profit-seeking institutions produce commodities, manage creativity, distribute products, and control access to cultural resources—as well as profound transformations to those logics in recent years. What were once emerging and peripheral media industries have in recent years challenged the dominance of Western media. We will therefore not just look at the flows and contra-flows of global media production and distribution but also the often uneven, contested and hybridized ways by which media artifacts are taken up in different national contexts. Likewise, the increasing adoption of digital technologies also continues to complicate the mechanisms of control and distribution of media in ways that require critical understanding of its transformative roles in the global media economy. In looking at global media industries through the lens of critical theory, cultural studies and media industry studies, this course explores the global development of television, film, the Internet, gaming, music, and other industries directing much of our mediatized social life. By the end of the course, you will be able to explain how global media industries operate in relation to the issues of culture, identity, power, and changing logics of capital.

Course Requirements:

Assignments for this class include two short written reports (2-3 pgs) dealing with the production, distribution and reception of one media artifact across the globe. There will also be a choice of either a final essay or digital media production project.

Intended Audience:

This class is open to students of all levels and across all departments. It is of particular interest to students wanting to have both a practical and theoretical perspective of how the media industry operates globally.