Critical Media Industry Studies: A Research Approach

Abstract

This article identifies the primary features of what we term “critical media industry studies,” emphasizing midlevel fieldwork in examining media industries and delimiting new ways of understanding, conceiving, and studying media industries from a critical perspective. We provide a general framework for the nascent yet growing body of work that locates industry researh on particular organizations, agents, and practices within vast media conglomerates operating at a global level. We mark out the most general boundaries of such an endeavor by synthesizing the extant research in critical media industry studies, the ways in which concepts and methods of cultural studies have been adapted to the study of industry practices, and address the main gaps and trajectories of such research.