Global Entertainment Media: Between Cultural Imperialism and Cultural Globalization

A critical introduction to the study of global entertainment media. In Global Entertainment Media, Tanner Mirrlees undertakes an analysis of the ownership, production, distribution, marketing and consumption of global entertainment, with an eye to critical political economy and cultural studies. Among other topics, Mirrlees examines: theories of global entertainment such as media imperialism and media globalization; the vertically and horizontally integrated national and trans-national media corporations that own entertainment; the state and inter-state media and cultural policies and regulations that govern the production and consumption of entertainment and enable and limit cross-border entertainment flows; the production of entertainment by media capitals within a new international division of cultural labor (NICL); the transnational distribution, marketing and exhibition of entertainment; the textual features of locally and globally popular entertainment forms (TV formats, blockbuster event films, and synergistic transmedia franchises) and the cross-cultural reception of entertainment by viewers. Mirrlees clarifies and evaluates key concepts in the field of global media research with reference to contemporary examples and case studies of corporate, state and audience practices. This book provides a conceptually rich, empirically sound, up-to-date, comprehensive and accessible survey of the global entertainment industry and leading scholarship surrounding it.