Newman Chapter 2: Industry

Question 1

horizontal integration and example

Answer 1

• combines the production of two or more kinds of media within one large company
• ex: By the beginning of the 21st century, all of the major Hollywood studios and national television broadcast networks were part of media conglomerates that included other media in addition to cinema and broadcasting

Question 2

vertical integration and example

Answer 2

• combining production, distribution, and/or exhibition of products or sales
• vertically integrated businesses exercise control over every part of their product’s lifespan
• Ex: Comcast is both the parent companies of movie and television producers as well as internet and television service providers

Question 3

trade publications (studying industry)

Answer 3

• makes industry trade papers, which are dedicated to covering the business for readers who work in that business
• ex: Billboard for the recording industry

Question 4

research interviews (studying industry)

Answer 4

talking to people who work in the media business and hearing from them directly about how their industry works, and about their “cultures of production”

Question 5

archival research (studying industry)

Answer 5

archival data offers researchers a rich source of knowledge about the past (ex: collections of old audio recordings)

Question 6

ethnography (studying industry)

Answer 6

a form of fieldwork where the researcher spends time in a location and among participants, getting to know their values, their forms of knowledge, and their ways of living and working

Question 7

what does “follow the money” mean?

Answer 7

• a researcher must understand where the money goes to truly understand the industry
• ultimately the agenda of any commercial business is profits
• the vast majority of the media in our everyday lives continues to be the product of major commercial industries of enormous power

Question 8

an industry

Answer 8

• an arena of production (that produces media)
• implies large scale production

Question 9

media texts

Answer 9

the output of media industries– often called content

Question 10

revenue

Answer 10

all of the earnings coming into a company

Question 11

profit

Answer 11

revenue minus expenditures

Question 12

media concentration

Answer 12

the shrinking number of owners of media companies

Question 13

media conglomeration

Answer 13

a conglomerate is a big company made up of many other companies in different lines of business (ex: Disney)

Question 14

integration (melting pot of media)

Answer 14

a combination of media formats and channels that businesses use to share content with audiences