Media Organization and Production

Book excerpt: Drawing on the work of international contributors Media Organization and Production examines a wide range of global-local media organizations and the production of different mediums and genres. Following the editor′s introduction which sets out the principal differences of approach and defining debates, chapters address: transnational and national, commercial and public service corporations; international film and TV co-productions; children′s television news production, the historical development of ′liveness′ on radio, and music journalism; the politics and organizational forms of alternative media production including radical newspapers, video and the internet; and the changing ′production ecology′ of natural history television. These topics are examined through a variety of theoretical and conceptual frameworks that help to illuminate how cultural production often involves a complex articulation of differing influences and constraints, both material and discursive, intended and unintended, structurally determined and culturally mediated.Together the chapters in this book help to recover this complexity and thereby help us to better understand the nature and output of today′s media.