Daniel Herbert - Media Industry Studies

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Daniel Herbert, Amanda D. Lotz, and Aswin Punathambekar

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Copyright Daniel Herbert, Amanda D. Lotz, and Aswin Punathambekar 2020

The right of Daniel Herbert, Amanda D. Lotz, and Aswin Punathambekar to be identified as Authors of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2020 by Polity Press

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All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-3777-8 (hardback)

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-3778-5 (paperback)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Herbert, Daniel, 1974- author. | Lotz, Amanda D., 1974- author. | Punathambekar, Aswin, author.

Title: Media industry studies / Daniel Herbert, Amanda D. Lotz and Aswin Punathambekar.

Description: Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA : Polity, 2020. | Series: Short introductions | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: This text provides the roadmap to the vibrant area of Media Industry studies-- Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019036734 (print) | LCCN 2019036735 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509537778 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509537785 (paperback) | ISBN 9781509537792 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Mass media--Study and teaching.

Classification: LCC P91.3 .H46 2020 (print) | LCC P91.3 (ebook) | DDC 384--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019036734

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019036735

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For our mentors, peers, and students

This book grew out of many conversations, both among the three of us and many shared with others. They were often conversations in which we tried to pin down what it is we do and how we do it. While these pages formalize the deeper and systematic conversation weve shared, we intend it as the continuation of a conversation. We thank those of you who have engaged with us in this conversation, formally and informally, often as our mentors and students, but many also as collaborators and peers.

This precise book developed on the 5th and half floor of North Quad over the past few years. Our conversations were deeply influenced by colleagues Paddy Scannell, Megan Ankerson, Katherine Sender, Sarah Murray, and Yeidy Rivero. Much was also worked out in conversations with students including Jimmy Draper, Annemarie Navar-Gill, Kitior Ngu, and in the space of the Media Studies Research Workshop as well as the multiple iterations of the Analyzing Media Industries seminar.

Our uncertainties sent us asking questions of others. Many thanks to Janet Staiger, Joseph Turow, Graham Murdock, Eileen Meehan, Michele Hilmes, and Philip Schlesinger for their assistance in tracing the history of the field. The list of peers and collaborators who helped us to shape our sense of the field is too long to recount, but thanks to C. W. Anderson, Nitin Govil, David Hesmondhalgh, Lee Marshall, Jeremy Morris, John Thompson, and Nikki Usher for assistance with areas outside our central expertise.

Our sincere appreciation to Ramon Lobato for reading an early draft and offering feedback that challenged us to do better. Thanks as well for feedback from Sriram Mohan, Anna Sampson, Michael Wayne, and our most excellent research assistant, Rae Moors. We are also thankful for the considerable support of Politys reviewers, and Mary Savigar, Ellen MacDonald-Kramer, and the Polity editorial and production team.

And finally, our thanks to our families for cheerfully putting up with phone calls and Skype conversations at odd hours and other absences required to bring this to completion.

I want to study YouTube as a media industry, announces a new student. OK, what kind of study? There are numerous potential research projects one could design with a focus on YouTube as a major site of media production and circulation. Or, YouTube could serve as a case from which to make broader claims about various sectors and practices of digital media industries and their intricate links with established screen industries in an era of seemingly unfettered global connectivity.

One potential study would focus on the people who make YouTube videos; not just the creators and influencers with millions of followers worldwide, but also the many millions of people who create and circulate videos across an astonishing range of genres. There are many questions that we could pose about their practice. It would also be possible to study the content moderators whose daily, routine work involves scanning hundreds, if not thousands, of videos that have been flagged by automated systems for content review for potential violation of YouTube standards of acceptability. Or, delving a bit deeper, you could focus attention on the engineers who design the content moderation algorithms. You could do interviews, observe them in their roles for a period of time, attend industry events designed for professionals in the digital technology and media industries, and try to understand the broader work culture within which a range of people go about their routines. There are many ways to study any of these groups of media workers and many sound reasons to do so.

While a focus on specific individuals and their roles within YouTube and its specific production culture is valuable, you could also examine YouTube as an organization and explore questions related to its particular strategies as a social media company that circulates videos. Such a study would aim to build knowledge of the broader forces that shape the behavior of social media companies, such as their interactions with advertisers and their policies for dealing with the people who create the content on their services. A study of YouTube as an organization might build knowledge about how social media companies operate generally, but would do so by constructing a detailed understanding of how YouTubes strategies, practices, and aims lead it to create particular social media capabilities and limit others. It might address how the strategies for YouTube relate to broader activities of parent company Google.