Havens, Timothy and Amanda Lotz. Understanding Media Industries.

McAnany, Emile

Havens, Timothy and Amanda Lotz. Understanding Media Industries. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Pp. vii-x 272. ISBN 978-0-19539767-3 (paper) $34.97.

Although it is not the usual practice in this journal to review textbooks, I feel this volume may be the exception for several reasons. There are many textbooks that flood the U.S. market in media communication studies, but as an introduction to the field of media industries and their practices, this book carries special weight because it gives important up-to-date details about the structures and practices of these industries and provides a theoretical framework that is in-depth. For people from other countries, there is a second advantage: it is important to understand the nature of the media industries in the U.S.A. for both policy reasons--if the intent is to promote national industries to compete or to protect those industries from being undermined if that is the concern--and for simple information on how these industries are changing at a rapid pace.

The book takes an Industrialization of Culture approach to the media industries in Chapter 1 so that the emphasis is placed on the mutual influences of such factors as mandates (basic purposes, i.e., public or commercial), conditions (regulation and economics of the industries--including conglomeration and consolidation of ownership) and practices (creative workers' practices as well as industry structures and strategies). This approach includes many elements of the political economy of culture approach to the study of cultural production of media texts but questions what it considers the overly deterministic approach by some more critical researchers who see ownership and economic power as the overriding elements in explaining advanced media industries. Consequently, the authors are careful to argue for agency within these media industries even though accepting some "forces that circumscribe agency" (p. 15). Also in this chapter they identify the commercial media's response to the risk of producing media content with a number of practices that limit that risk and guarantee a return on their investment including intentional overproduction, artificial scarcity, windowing, formatting, economies of scale, and segmentation of audiences.

Chapter 2 on Mandates does not provide much that is new to most readers, but the authors remind us that many countries now have a mixed national mandate with some public/noncommercial media along with some commercial media, especially in broadcast media and cable television. They also remind the readers of their position with the comment: "Even though we begin with mandates, we don't view them as deterministic. Deterministic approaches often try to explain the behavior of media industries through one aspect--typically something like a belief that the commercial mandate...to make profits will lead it to operate only in one particular way" (p. 40). They also provide a brief history of radio broadcasting in the U.S.A. as an explanation of a preamble of what transpired in later decades of concentration and conglomeration of media in the 1980s and 1990s.

The argument in Chapter 3 on Technological Conditions makes the case for the Industrialization of Culture model and makes another argument for the model: technology itself does not influence media practice but only through a complex process of interaction within the stated model in Chapter 1. Thus the authors argue by exploring the adoption of the Sony Walkman that the technology went through a process of cultural representation, identity, and cultural processes of production and of consumption (p. 52). In short, the approach mitigates the inclination to call technology itself as a determining factor, but rather only a mutually determining one, thus avoiding the issue of overdetermining the cause of change and reducing it to one simple influence. They further clarify the new practices that the new technologies like the Internet and cable channels foster. "The points to keep in mind, however, are: first, technology doesn't change media texts, but it does open up opportunities for new textual practices that certain entrepreneurs pursue; second, these practices are also shaped by--but not determined by (italic in original)--economic and regulatory conditions as well as technological ones" (p. 58).

Chapter 4 on regulation does not contribute much that other good textbooks have not dealt with, but it does so within the Industrialization of Culture framework. Their list of regulatory practices, however, is perhaps more inclusive than most. They point out that in broadcast and cable media there is often regulation of content, structure, ownership, copyright, scheduling, distribution, rate control, license renewal, and anti-trust that all enter the picture as to the role of government in these media. They end with the story of how the FCC mandated the introduction of HDTV which for many other countries would be seen as not unusual but for the cultural experience of the U.S.A. could be seen as "massive government regulatory involvement" (emphasis added p. 91).

The next chapter, Economic Conditions, is the most complex and most difficult to explain to readers. The authors begin with the issue of ownership with the usual review of the Paramount Decree of 1948 and the history of the conglomeration and consolidation, but their main point is to distinguish between their position and the "conglomeration equals homogenization" model of McChesney and Bagdikian, which they argue is logical but has problems because "we do not know enough to make decisive statements about the internal operations of these conglomerates..." (p. 101). In short the industries are too complex to come to simple cause-effect models of influence of making texts, much less of influencing audiences. Their review and summary of costs seems both useful and clear: overhead costs, market and distribution costs, and the "freelance" labor costs of certain media industries (i.e., short contracts on different projects vs. regular long term wages). Funding mechanisms for production and distribution of different media industries is also a useful addition to the usual discussion (with two brief cases on the economics of gaming and television). Finally discussion in some current detail about advertising-supported media and subscription and direct pay media might be of special use for readers living outside the heavily commercialized U.S.A. media landscape (though that is changing in many countries).

The chapter on Creative Practices and Roles offers a complicated and somewhat superficial treatment of workers at all levels of the media industries. The authors end the chapter somewhat questioning their framework of worker agency at these different levels as opposed to the more common critical argument for the heavy influence of owners and money sources. "[o]ne consequence of allowing agency of individuals [in production] is that attempting to explain operation of media industry gets very messy. The Industrialization of Culture framework allow for this 'mess'--and, as we hope the examples throughout this chapter illustrate, even workers responsible for day-today decisions play an important role in media industry operation" (p. 143).

The two chapters on distribution and exhibition and the auxiliary practices are useful but contain less important lessons for communication scholars. Still they do highlight the changes that are taking place because of technologies of distribution through digital means like the Internet and the increasingly useful role of research into audiences that both companies like Nielsen and others play as well as some of the newer social media.

The final three chapters of the book deal with the larger topics of the Growth of the Symbolic Economy (9), Digitization (10), and Globalization (11). In many ways these are central to the changes in media industries over the past 15 years or so. They have been mentioned in previous chapters but are brought together in these summary chapters more explicitly. In defining the growth of the symbolic economy, the authors depend on the Fordist and Post-Fordist distinctions made by media political economists and have more to do with media practices than directly with the growth of the various media economies. The authors summarize the changes in the past three decades: "While today's media environment is characterized by tailored media products, global media conglomerates, deregulation, flexible work arrangements, casualization of the labor force, and increased consumer surveillance, these changes are extensions of earlier historical processes ... are fundamentally tied to economic change, not to technological changes" (p. 199). But then they take back the seeming definitive statement by saying that globalization and digitization are hard to distinguish from the economic aspects of Post-Fordism because all are mutually influential. This leaves readers with some confusion.

On digitization the presentation adds little that has not already been said in the last decade of discussion of the Internet and the variety of changes that the translation of digital media into mainstream media has made. But they conclude that even with the seeming shift in power in the hands of consumers by the expansion of choice, the top down models of older media will retain their power over production of content and capture of media audiences. The final chapter on globalization adds some specific examples of media distribution like simultaneous releases of film and music and even some television, but there is no in-depth discussion of consequences.

The book has a very detailed glossary that explains highlighted terms throughout the text (16 pages of terms, in fact) that should be of help to beginning readers in this field. Also there is a brief but useful index.

--Emile McAnany

Santa Clara University