Introduction: The "Bad Romance" of Media Industry Studies

Abstract

Gaga neatly sums up my relationship with industry studies. I guess that I've always had a bad romance with media industry studies, betraying my original discipline of Economics to pursue Media Studies and, in turn, cheating on academia by leaving to work in the industry. Still, I've always felt that industry studies existed in a bold liminal space of Media Studies, never fully embraced by those engaged in narrative /textual work, and more or less openly dismissed by those in traditional economics (I once overheard two microeconomists at UCLA shriek with gales of laughter over the possibility of film theory intersecting with economic theory). As a result, when teaching or writing in the area of media economics, I always felt that a certain freedom was possible: the parameters of the field were still being set, and the open terrain was vast. Since leaving academia ten years ago, I've kept track of industry studies through editing a book series (Commerce and Mass Culture, University of Minnesota Press), reviewing manuscripts and articles, and occasionally writing articles and giving guest lectures. On the occasion of Cinema Journal reviewing five industry studies texts, the editors have asked me to consider the state of industry studies today. Using my lost decade as a starting and ending point, I want to suggest some tendencies for industry studies during the decade.