Paul McDonald – författare

A deep dive into the new era of digital content production and distributionIn 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.

Bringing together 49 chapters from leading experts in media industries research, this major collection offers an authoritative overview of the current state of scholarship while setting out proposals for expanding, re-thinking and innovating the field.Media industries occupy a central place in modern societies, producing, circulating, and presenting the multitude of cultural forms and experiences we encounter in our daily lives. The chapters in this volume begin by outlining key conceptual and critical perspectives while also presenting original interventions to prompt new lines of inquiry. Other chapters then examine the impact of digitalization on the media industries, intersections formed between industries or across geographic territories, and the practices of doing media industries research and teaching. General ideas and arguments are illustrated through specific examples and case studies drawn from a range of media sectors, including advertising, publishing, comics, news, music, film, television, branded entertainment, live cinema experiences, social media, and music video.Making a vital and significant contribution to media research, this volume is essential reading for students and academics seeking to understand and evaluate the work of the media industries.Chapter 10 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com

Global Film Policies challenges conventional analyses of film policy as a stand-alone public policy confined within national boundaries and usually focused on supports for film production. The book argues for a more multi-faceted approach, extending beyond national boundaries and broadening its scope to recognise how other forms of policy pertain to film, including tax, labour, language and education.A team of experts in various areas of film and media studies critically analyse specific areas of film policy and engage with other public policy programmes, related concepts and/or phenomena. Each chapter brings together a general discussion of the conceptual and critical issues at stake, with specific references to particular territorial or historical contexts, institutions and policy initiatives that illuminate the more general issues. Case studies from different continents illustrate how film-related policies work with other public policies to maintain their influence not just on the film sector but also society more generally.This book will be an important resource for scholars and students studying global film policy in the areas of film, media or creative industries and business.

When Channel 4 was launched in 1982 its policy of commissioning new feature films for television broadcast and selective cinema release marked a shift in British film culture. Widely credited with revitalising a moribund UK film industry, the initiative represented a new intervention on the part of a public service broadcaster and, in turn, redefined the place of film on television with landmark strands from Film on Four to The Eleventh Hour. Channel 4 withstood early criticism from some industry voices and controversy aroused by its broadcast film provision; in 1987 its contribution to European cinema was recognised in the accolade of the Roberto Rosselini award at the Cannes film festival. Since then the international box office successes of many Film4 titles (from My Beautiful Laundrette and The Crying Game to Four Weddings and Funeral and Slumdog Millionaire), have made Film4 synonymous with a rejuvenated national cinema and established television as a vital cornerstone of government film policy. This special issue will investigate aspects of that legacy, casting a critical eye upon received wisdom, and drawing on new archival and interview material to offer a revisionist history of the broadcaster’s rich and diverse contributions to British film culture. Indispensible to anyone with an interest in British film over the past thirty years.

Through the intensive examination of films, magazines, advertising and critical texts, Dyer analyses the historical, ideological and aesthetic significance of stars, changing the way we understand screen icons. Paying particular attention to icons including Marlon Brando, Bette Davis, Marlene Dietrich, Marilyn Monroe and John Wayne.

Bringing together 49 chapters from leading experts in media industries research, this major collection offers an authoritative overview of the current state of scholarship while setting out proposals for expanding, re-thinking and innovating the field.Media industries occupy a central place in modern societies, producing, circulating, and presenting the multitude of cultural forms and experiences we encounter in our daily lives. The chapters in this volume begin by outlining key conceptual and critical perspectives while also presenting original interventions to prompt new lines of inquiry. Other chapters then examine the impact of digitalization on the media industries, intersections formed between industries or across geographic territories, and the practices of doing media industries research and teaching. General ideas and arguments are illustrated through specific examples and case studies drawn from a range of media sectors, including advertising, publishing, comics, news, music, film, television, branded entertainment, live cinema experiences, social media, and music video.Making a vital and significant contribution to media research, this volume is essential reading for students and academics seeking to understand and evaluate the work of the media industries.Chapter 10 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com

This collection investigates how cities have become centres for media industries, examining how local operations are shaped by global flows of finance, technology and creative labour, and how media industries contribute to urban identity and cultural life.Written by field experts and based on extensive primary research, this book provides readers with comprehensive analysis of the complex relationship between media industries and cities across diverse global contexts. The twelve chapters examine examples from Asia, Europe and North America, covering film, television, music, games and journalism to demonstrate how media–city relationships take distinctive forms in specific locations. Readers will gain in-depth understanding of how global media flows interact with local urban contexts, and how these interactions produce cultural, economic, political and social consequences. The collection combines broad theoretical analysis with detailed case studies, advancing debates in the field of Media Industry Studies through analysing the media’s multifaceted relationship to cities in a highly accessible way.This book is essential reading for undergraduates, postgraduates and academic researchers in Communications, Cultural Studies, Media Studies and Film and Television Studies, particularly those studying or researching media industries, global media flows, media economics, cultural production and the intersection of media and place.

This collection investigates how cities have become centres for media industries, examining how local operations are shaped by global flows of finance, technology and creative labour, and how media industries contribute to urban identity and cultural life.Written by field experts and based on extensive primary research, this book provides readers with comprehensive analysis of the complex relationship between media industries and cities across diverse global contexts. The twelve chapters examine examples from Asia, Europe and North America, covering film, television, music, games and journalism to demonstrate how media–city relationships take distinctive forms in specific locations. Readers will gain in-depth understanding of how global media flows interact with local urban contexts, and how these interactions produce cultural, economic, political and social consequences. The collection combines broad theoretical analysis with detailed case studies, advancing debates in the field of Media Industry Studies through analysing the media’s multifaceted relationship to cities in a highly accessible way.This book is essential reading for undergraduates, postgraduates and academic researchers in Communications, Cultural Studies, Media Studies and Film and Television Studies, particularly those studying or researching media industries, global media flows, media economics, cultural production and the intersection of media and place.

Examining how media industries actively shape, and are shaped by, attachments to place and movements across geographical spaces, Locating Media Industries illuminates the many spatial dimensions of ‘globalised’ media.In an era where music, video and games can be streamed instantly around the world on numerous digital devices, and films and television series are produced across numerous countries, often featuring globetrotting characters in an array of exotic settings, it is easy to forget that media industries retain any attachments to space or place. While globalised production, distribution and consumption systems structure contemporary media industries, this collection seeks to document and analyse the many ways in which questions of space and place still matter to those industries.Written by leading scholars in the field, this international collection explores how media industries both occupy and generate spaces and places. Here, spatial dynamics are represented by the formation of global production networks, the impacts of virtual production technologies, media engagements with local communities, questions of accessible participation in film festivals, and the franchising of space at media-themed leisure attractions. Several of the book’s chapters reflect the increasing dominance of streaming media, which also have complex relationships to place and space, even as they actively seek to obscure and even erase these aspects of the media they distribute and, in some cases, produce.This volume is essential reading for students and scholars of film, media and/or creative industries.

Examining how media industries actively shape, and are shaped by, attachments to place and movements across geographical spaces, Locating Media Industries illuminates the many spatial dimensions of ‘globalised’ media.In an era where music, video and games can be streamed instantly around the world on numerous digital devices, and films and television series are produced across numerous countries, often featuring globetrotting characters in an array of exotic settings, it is easy to forget that media industries retain any attachments to space or place. While globalised production, distribution and consumption systems structure contemporary media industries, this collection seeks to document and analyse the many ways in which questions of space and place still matter to those industries.Written by leading scholars in the field, this international collection explores how media industries both occupy and generate spaces and places. Here, spatial dynamics are represented by the formation of global production networks, the impacts of virtual production technologies, media engagements with local communities, questions of accessible participation in film festivals, and the franchising of space at media-themed leisure attractions. Several of the book’s chapters reflect the increasing dominance of streaming media, which also have complex relationships to place and space, even as they actively seek to obscure and even erase these aspects of the media they distribute and, in some cases, produce.This volume is essential reading for students and scholars of film, media and/or creative industries.

The Contemporary Hollywood Film Industry is a collection of essays by leading scholars that examines the state of the U.S. film industry, from the l980s to present day. Includes important discussions of the industry’s labour and star systems, as well as intellectual property and state relationsConsiders the role of independent producers, the global marketplace for Hollywood product, corporate changes, and various new media windows, including video, DVD to cable, satellite, and online channels of deliveryBrings together an international team of leading film scholarsOffers a balanced and fresh approach to this important contemporary period in Hollywood

The Contemporary Hollywood Film Industry is a collection of essays by leading scholars that examines the state of the U.S. film industry, from the l980s to present day. Includes important discussions of the industry’s labour and star systems, as well as intellectual property and state relationsConsiders the role of independent producers, the global marketplace for Hollywood product, corporate changes, and various new media windows, including video, DVD to cable, satellite, and online channels of deliveryBrings together an international team of leading film scholarsOffers a balanced and fresh approach to this important contemporary period in Hollywood

This is a true historical account of war in the air, at sea and on land in the battle for Malta's survival in the Second World War. It was a battle which decided the outcome of the war in North Africa and the Mediterranean. Adrian Warburton, the airman described in the subtitle by Marshal of the Royal Air Force Lord Tedder, went missing in 1944 in a single-seat American aircraft. He had flown at least 395 operational missions mostly from Malta. Unusually for a reconnaissance pilot, 'Warby' as he was known was credited with nine aircraft shot down. He lay undiscovered for sixty years. He is the RAF's most highly decorated photo-recce pilot.In Malta, Adrian met Christina, a stranded dancer turned aircraft plotter in the secret world deep beneath Valletta's fortress walls. She too was decorated for heroism. Together, they became part of the island's folklore. How important was Malta and the girl from Cheshire to the man behind the medals? This tale takes the form of a quest opening in a cemetery in Bavaria and closing in another in Malta.In between, the reader is immersed within the tension and drama surrounding Malta's Greater Siege retracing the steps of the main characters over the forever changed face of the island following its heroic victory.

A deep dive into the new era of digital content production and distributionIn 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.

When the videocassette recorder was launched on the consumer market in the mid-1970s, it transformed home entertainment. Bringing together complementary but also competing interests from the consumer electronics industry and the film, television and other copyright industries, video created a new sector of media business. Two decades later, DVD reinvented video media for the digital age. DVD provided consumers with an innovative form of entertainment technology and almost instantaneously became the catalyst for a huge boom in the video market. Although the VCR and DVD created major markets for video hardware and software, the video business has been continually shaped by industry conflicts and tensions. Repeatedly the video market has become divided when faced with the introduction of competing formats. Easy reproduction of films and other works on cassette or disc made video software a lucrative market for the copyright industries but also intensified struggles to combat the effects of commercial piracy. 'Video and DVD Industries' examines the business of video entertainment and provides the first study looking at DVD from an industrial perspective. Detailing divisions in the video business, the book outlines industry battles over incompatible formats, from the Betamax/VHS war, to competing laserdisc systems, alternatives such as video compact disc or Digital Video Express, and the introduction of HDDVD and Blu-ray high-definition systems. Chapters also look at the formation of international markets in the globalization of video media, the contradictory responses of the Hollywood studios to video and DVD, and the legal and technological measures taken to control industrialized video piracy.

Since the earliest days of cinema the law has influenced the conditions in which Hollywood films are made, sold, circulated or presented – from the talent contracts that enable a film to go into production, to the copyright laws that govern its distribution and the censorship laws that may block exhibition. Equally, Hollywood has left its own impression on the American legal system by lobbying to expand the duration of copyright, providing a highly visible stage for contract disputes and representing the legal system on screen. In this comprehensive collection, international experts offer chapters on key topics, including copyright, trademark, piracy, antitrust, censorship, international exhibition, contracts, labour and tax. Drawing on historical and contemporary case studies, Hollywood and the Law provides readers with a wide range of perspectives on how legal frameworks shape the culture and commerce of popular film.

Since the earliest days of cinema the law has influenced the conditions in which Hollywood films are made, sold, circulated or presented – from the talent contracts that enable a film to go into production, to the copyright laws that govern its distribution and the censorship laws that may block exhibition. Equally, Hollywood has left its own impression on the American legal system by lobbying to expand the duration of copyright, providing a highly visible stage for contract disputes and representing the legal system on screen. In this comprehensive collection, international experts offer chapters on key topics, including copyright, trademark, piracy, antitrust, censorship, international exhibition, contracts, labour and tax. Drawing on historical and contemporary case studies, Hollywood and the Law provides readers with a wide range of perspectives on how legal frameworks shape the culture and commerce of popular film.