Description
Book SynopsisEmpires of Entertainment integrates legal, regulatory, industrial, and political histories to chronicle the dramatic transformation within the media between 1980 and 1996. Through the use of case studies that highlight key moments in this transformation, Holt skillfully expands the conventional models and boundaries of media history.
Trade Review"Incisively argued and elegantly written,
Empires of Entertainment shows the anti-democratic character of huge concentrations of media wealth and the manner in which an ideal of the public good has been sacrificed on behalf of unfettered corporate power." -- Stephen Prince * author of Firestorm: American Film in the Age of Terrorism *
"Jennifer Holt has written a concise, captivating, and much-needed history of industry and regulatory developments in U.S. television since the eighties. It will be required reading for scholars of industry history and anyone interested in contemporary media policy."
-- Michele Hilmes * University of Wisconsin-Madison *
“Holt elegantly details the twists and turns of the political economics of U.S. film and TV industries at the end of the twentieth century. With a keen eye for the subtleties (and sometime ironies) of corporate thinking, she reveals a process that is both very political and very human.
Empires of Entertainment sheds new light on how the media really works.” -- Thomas Streeter * author of The Net Effect: Romanticism, Capitalism, and the Internet *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction: The Foundation of Empires
1. 1980-1983: Film versus Cable
2. 1983-1985: Broadcast and the Blueprints of Empires
3. 1984-1986: Outsiders Moving in--Murdoch and Turner
4. 1986-1988: Golden Era Redux
5. 1989-1992: Big Media without Frontiers
6. 1993-1995: The Last Mile
Conclusion: 1996 and Beyond--The Political Economy of Transformation
Notes
Bibliography
Index
