Explores the cultural role of screen storytelling in society

With significant evolutions in digital technologies and media distribution in the past two decades, the business of storytelling through screens has shifted dramatically. In the past, blockbuster movies and TV shows like Friends aimed first for domestic mass audiences, although the biggest hits circulated globally. Now, transnational distribution plays a primary role and imagined audiences are global. At the same time, the once-mass audience has significantly fragmented to enable an expansion in the range of commercially viable stories, as evident in series as varied as Atlanta, Better Things, and dozens of others that are not widely known, but deeply loved by their microaudiences.

Delving into the changing landscape of commercial screen storytelling, After Mass Media explores how industrial shifts and technological advancements have remade the narrative landscape over the past two decades. Television and movies have long shaped society, whether by telling us about the worlds around us or far away. By examining the internationalization of screen businesses, the rise of streaming services with multi-territory reach, and the stories made for this environment, this book sheds light on the profound transformations in television and film production and circulation. With a keen focus on major changes in the types of screen stories being told, Amanda D. Lotz unravels the industrial roots that made these transformations possible, challenges some conventional distinctions of screen storytelling, and provides new conceptual tools to make sense of the abundance and range of screen stories on offer.

Through its comprehensive analysis, After Mass Media exposes how contemporary industrial dynamics, particularly the erosion of traditional distribution models based on geography and mass audience reach, have far-reaching implications for our understanding of national video cultures.

An international team of experts explores how streaming services are disrupting traditional storytelling.

The rise of streaming has dramatically transformed how audiences consume media. Over the last decade, subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services, including Netflix, Prime Video, and Disney+, have begun commissioning and financing their own original movies and TV shows, changing the way and the rate at which content is produced across the globe, from Mexico City to Mumbai.

Streaming Video maps this international production boom and what it means for producers, audiences, and storytellers. Through eighteen richly textured case studies, ranging from original Korean dramas on Netflix to BluTV's experimental Turkish series, the book investigates how streaming services both disrupt and maintain storytelling traditions in specific national contexts. To what extent, and how, are streamers expanding norms of television and film storytelling in different parts of the world? Are streamers enabling the creation of content that would not otherwise exist? What are the implications for different viewers, in different countries, with different tastes? Together, the chapters critically assess the impacts of streaming on twenty-first century audiovisual storytelling and rethink established understandings of transnational screen flows.

The digital communication technologies that emerged at the turn of the century have profoundly disrupted long-practiced norms of nearly every media industry. In particular, internet distribution has fundamentally changed the foundation of the media industry to enable the emergence of new sectors while posing a challenge for others.

Media Industries in the Digital Age reframes our understanding of media businesses in the light of these substantial changes. To develop an integrated understanding of media industries today, the book foregrounds the different funding sources that are now common. It begins by mapping the foundations and developments of media industry operation, and exploring all forms of advertiser-funded and consumer-funded media to identify connections across sectors, including digital and legacy media. The final section grounds the book's conceptual work in examples of media making to explore how some old media have successfully adapted to internet disruption, and the differences and similarities of media making outside of corporations. Looking to the future, the book anticipates implications for the emerging metaverse media experiences and the key issues generative AI poses to the sector. Ultimately, the book argues that the contemporary differences in media industry operation vary by sector, but meaningful patterns can be identified by considering how advertiser, consumer, or government funding sets different priorities.

Offering a new and original way of understanding the media industries today, this book is enlightening reading for students and scholars of media studies and media industries, as well as global industry professionals

Explores the cultural role of screen storytelling in society

With significant evolutions in digital technologies and media distribution in the past two decades, the business of storytelling through screens has shifted dramatically. In the past, blockbuster movies and TV shows like Friends aimed first for domestic mass audiences, although the biggest hits circulated globally. Now, transnational distribution plays a primary role and imagined audiences are global. At the same time, the once-mass audience has significantly fragmented to enable an expansion in the range of commercially viable stories, as evident in series as varied as Atlanta, Better Things, and dozens of others that are not widely known, but deeply loved by their microaudiences.

Delving into the changing landscape of commercial screen storytelling, After Mass Media explores how industrial shifts and technological advancements have remade the narrative landscape over the past two decades. Television and movies have long shaped society, whether by telling us about the worlds around us or far away. By examining the internationalization of screen businesses, the rise of streaming services with multi-territory reach, and the stories made for this environment, this book sheds light on the profound transformations in television and film production and circulation. With a keen focus on major changes in the types of screen stories being told, Amanda D. Lotz unravels the industrial roots that made these transformations possible, challenges some conventional distinctions of screen storytelling, and provides new conceptual tools to make sense of the abundance and range of screen stories on offer.

Through its comprehensive analysis, After Mass Media exposes how contemporary industrial dynamics, particularly the erosion of traditional distribution models based on geography and mass audience reach, have far-reaching implications for our understanding of national video cultures.

The digital communication technologies that emerged at the turn of the century have profoundly disrupted long-practiced norms of nearly every media industry. In particular, internet distribution has fundamentally changed the foundation of the media industry to enable the emergence of new sectors while posing a challenge for others.

Media Industries in the Digital Age reframes our understanding of media businesses in the light of these substantial changes. To develop an integrated understanding of media industries today, the book foregrounds the different funding sources that are now common. It begins by mapping the foundations and developments of media industry operation, and exploring all forms of advertiser-funded and consumer-funded media to identify connections across sectors, including digital and legacy media. The final section grounds the book's conceptual work in examples of media making to explore how some old media have successfully adapted to internet disruption, and the differences and similarities of media making outside of corporations. Looking to the future, the book anticipates implications for the emerging metaverse media experiences and the key issues generative AI poses to the sector. Ultimately, the book argues that the contemporary differences in media industry operation vary by sector, but meaningful patterns can be identified by considering how advertiser, consumer, or government funding sets different priorities.

Offering a new and original way of understanding the media industries today, this book is enlightening reading for students and scholars of media studies and media industries, as well as global industry professionals

In the 1990s, American televison audiences witnessed an unprecedented rise in programming devoted explicitly to women. Cable networks such as Oxygen Media, Women's Entertainment Network, and Lifetime targeted a female audience, and prime_time dramatic series such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Judging Amy, Gilmore Girls, Sex and the City, and Ally McBeal empowered heroines, single career women, and professionals struggling with family commitments and occupational demands. After establishing this phenomenon's significance, Amanda D. Lotz explores the audience profile, the types of narrative and characters that recur, and changes to the industry landscape in the wake of media consolidation and a profusion of channels. Employing a cultural studies framework, Lotz examines whether the multiplicity of female-centric networks and narratives renders certain gender stereotypes uninhabitable, and how new dramatic portrayals of women have redefined narrative conventions. targeting of a niche segment of the overall audience, and the ways in which the new, sophisticated portrayals of women inspire sympathetic identification while also commodifying viewers into a marketable demographic for advertisers. Amanda D. Lotz is an assistant professor of communication at the University of Michigan. She has contributed to the Encyclopedia of Television, 2nd ed., and other books and journals.

The emergence of male-centered serials such as The Shield, Rescue Me, and Sons Of Anarchy and the challenges these characters face in negotiating modern masculinities. From
the meth-dealing but devoted family man Walter White of AMC's Breaking Bad,
to the part-time basketball coach, part-time gigolo Ray Drecker of HBO's Hung,
depictions of male characters perplexed by societal expectations of men and
anxious about changing American masculinity have become standard across the
television landscape. Engaging with a wide variety of shows, including The
League, Dexter, and Nip/Tuck, among many others, Amanda D. Lotz
identifies the gradual incorporation of second-wave feminism into prevailing
gender norms as the catalyst for the contested masculinities on display in
contemporary cable dramas.

Examining
the emergence of male-centered serials such as The Shield, Rescue Me, and Sons of Anarchy and the challenges these characters face in negotiating
modern masculinities, Lotz analyzes how these shows combine feminist approaches
to fatherhood and marriage with more traditional constructions of masculine
identity that emphasize men's role as providers. She explores the dynamics of
close male friendships both in groups, as in Entourage and Men of a
Certain Age, wherein characters test the boundaries between the homosocial
and homosexual in their relationships with each other, and in the dyadic
intimacy depicted in Boston Legal and Scrubs. Cable Guys provides a
much needed look into the under-considered subject of how constructions of masculinity
continue to evolve on television.

Go behind the TV screen to explore what is changing, why it is changing, and why the changes matters

Many proclaimed the end of television in the early years of the twenty-first century, as capabilities and features of the boxes that occupied a central space in American living rooms for the preceding fifty years were radically remade. In this revised, second edition of her definitive book, Amanda D. Lotz proves that rumors of the death of television were greatly exaggerated and explores how new distribution and viewing technologies have resurrected the medium. Shifts in the basic practices of making and distributing television have not been hastening its demise, but are redefining what we can do with television, what we expect from it, how we use it--in short, revolutionizing it.

Television, as both a technology and a tool for cultural storytelling, remains as important today as ever, but it has changed in fundamental ways. The Television Will Be Revolutionized provides a sophisticated history of the present, examining television in what Lotz terms the post-network era while providing frameworks for understanding the continued change in the medium. The second edition addresses adjustments throughout the industry wrought by broadband delivered television such as Netflix, YouTube, and cross-platform initiatives like TV Everywhere, as well as how technologies such as tablets and smartphones have changed how and where we view. Lotz begins to deconstruct the future of different kinds of television--exploring how prized content, live television sports and contests, and linear viewing may all be television, but very different types of television for both viewers and producers.

Through interviews with those working in the industry, surveys of trade publications, and consideration of an extensive array of popular shows, Lotz takes us behind the screen to explore what is changing, why it is changing, and why the changes matter.

How the internet disrupted the recorded music, newspaper, film, and television industries and what this tells us about surviving technological disruption.

Much of what we think we know about how the internet disrupted media industries is wrong. Piracy did not wreck the recording industry, Netflix isn't killing Hollywood movies, and information does not want to be free. In Media Disrupted, Amanda Lotz looks at what really happened when the recorded music, newspaper, film, and television industries were the ground zero of digital disruption. It's not that digital technologies introduced new media, Lotz explains; rather, they offered existing media new tools for reaching people.

For example, the MP3 unbundled recorded music; as the internet enabled new ways for people to experience and pay for music, the primary source of revenue for the recorded music industry shifted from selling music to licensing it. Cable television providers, written off as predigital dinosaurs, became the dominant internet service providers. News organizations struggled to remake businesses in the face of steep declines in advertiser spending, while the film industry split its business among movies that compelled people to go to theaters and others that are better suited for streaming. Lotz looks in detail at how and why internet distribution disrupted each industry. The stories of business transformation she tells offer lessons for surviving and even thriving in the face of epoch-making technological change.

Netflix and Streaming Video is the first book to provide a comprehensive foundation for understanding the business of subscriber-funded streaming video and its implications for the role of these services in culture. Drawing on Lotz's two decades of research, it highlights the similarities and differences among streaming video services (Netflix; Amazon) and video distribution technologies (broadcast; satellite; internet).

Making a number of provocative and thought-provoking arguments, the book first reveals how the reliance on subscriber payment and video on demand produces different norms and strategies compared to previous video businesses. It then investigates Netflix and how its particular blend of characteristics distinguishes it from other subscriber-funded video on demand services. The author expertly shows that, by understanding the underlying economic and technological dynamics of these services (and their differences), it is possible to better assess the actions taken by the companies and what the future of video may encompass.

The book is a must-read for students and scholars of Media and Communications Studies, as well as those wishing to learn more about Netflix and streaming video services.

Netflix and Streaming Video is the first book to provide a comprehensive foundation for understanding the business of subscriber-funded streaming video and its implications for the role of these services in culture. Drawing on Lotz's two decades of research, it highlights the similarities and differences among streaming video services (Netflix; Amazon) and video distribution technologies (broadcast; satellite; internet).

Making a number of provocative and thought-provoking arguments, the book first reveals how the reliance on subscriber payment and video on demand produces different norms and strategies compared to previous video businesses. It then investigates Netflix and how its particular blend of characteristics distinguishes it from other subscriber-funded video on demand services. The author expertly shows that, by understanding the underlying economic and technological dynamics of these services (and their differences), it is possible to better assess the actions taken by the companies and what the future of video may encompass.

The book is a must-read for students and scholars of Media and Communications Studies, as well as those wishing to learn more about Netflix and streaming video services.

An international team of experts explores how streaming services are disrupting traditional storytelling.

The rise of streaming has dramatically transformed how audiences consume media. Over the last decade, subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services, including Netflix, Prime Video, and Disney+, have begun commissioning and financing their own original movies and TV shows, changing the way and the rate at which content is produced across the globe, from Mexico City to Mumbai.

Streaming Video maps this international production boom and what it means for producers, audiences, and storytellers. Through eighteen richly textured case studies, ranging from original Korean dramas on Netflix to BluTV's experimental Turkish series, the book investigates how streaming services both disrupt and maintain storytelling traditions in specific national contexts. To what extent, and how, are streamers expanding norms of television and film storytelling in different parts of the world? Are streamers enabling the creation of content that would not otherwise exist? What are the implications for different viewers, in different countries, with different tastes? Together, the chapters critically assess the impacts of streaming on twenty-first century audiovisual storytelling and rethink established understandings of transnational screen flows.

Go behind the TV screen to explore what is changing, why it is changing, and why the changes matters

Many proclaimed the end of television in the early years of the twenty-first century, as capabilities and features of the boxes that occupied a central space in American living rooms for the preceding fifty years were radically remade. In this revised, second edition of her definitive book, Amanda D. Lotz proves that rumors of the death of television were greatly exaggerated and explores how new distribution and viewing technologies have resurrected the medium. Shifts in the basic practices of making and distributing television have not been hastening its demise, but are redefining what we can do with television, what we expect from it, how we use it--in short, revolutionizing it.

Television, as both a technology and a tool for cultural storytelling, remains as important today as ever, but it has changed in fundamental ways. The Television Will Be Revolutionized provides a sophisticated history of the present, examining television in what Lotz terms the post-network era while providing frameworks for understanding the continued change in the medium. The second edition addresses adjustments throughout the industry wrought by broadband delivered television such as Netflix, YouTube, and cross-platform initiatives like TV Everywhere, as well as how technologies such as tablets and smartphones have changed how and where we view. Lotz begins to deconstruct the future of different kinds of television--exploring how prized content, live television sports and contests, and linear viewing may all be television, but very different types of television for both viewers and producers.

Through interviews with those working in the industry, surveys of trade publications, and consideration of an extensive array of popular shows, Lotz takes us behind the screen to explore what is changing, why it is changing, and why the changes matter.

The collision of new technologies, changing business strategies, and innovative storytelling that produced a new golden age of TV.

Cable television channels were once the backwater of American television, programming recent and not-so-recent movies and reruns of network shows. Then came La Femme Nikita, OZ, The Sopranos, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, and The Walking Dead. And then, just as prestige cable became a category, came House of Cards and Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video, and other Internet distributors of television content. What happened? In We Now Disrupt This Broadcast, Amanda Lotz chronicles the collision of new technologies, changing business strategies, and innovative storytelling that produced an era termed peak TV.

Lotz explains that changes in the business of television expanded the creative possibilities of television. She describes the costly infrastructure rebuilding undertaken by cable service providers in the late 1990s and the struggles of cable channels to produce (and pay for) original, scripted programming in order to stand out from the competition. These new programs defied television conventions and made viewers adjust their expectations of what television could be. Le Femme Nikita offered cable's first antihero, Mad Men cost more than advertisers paid, The Walking Dead became the first mass cable hit, and Game of Thrones was the first global television blockbuster. Internet streaming didn't kill cable, Lotz tells us. Rather, it revolutionized how we watch television. Cable and network television quickly established their own streaming portals. Meanwhile, cable service providers had quietly transformed themselves into Internet providers, able to profit from both prestige cable and streaming services. Far from being dead, television continues to transform.

The emergence of male-centered serials such as The Shield, Rescue Me, and Sons Of Anarchy and the challenges these characters face in negotiating modern masculinities. From
the meth-dealing but devoted family man Walter White of AMC's Breaking Bad,
to the part-time basketball coach, part-time gigolo Ray Drecker of HBO's Hung,
depictions of male characters perplexed by societal expectations of men and
anxious about changing American masculinity have become standard across the
television landscape. Engaging with a wide variety of shows, including The
League, Dexter, and Nip/Tuck, among many others, Amanda D. Lotz
identifies the gradual incorporation of second-wave feminism into prevailing
gender norms as the catalyst for the contested masculinities on display in
contemporary cable dramas.

Examining
the emergence of male-centered serials such as The Shield, Rescue Me, and Sons of Anarchy and the challenges these characters face in negotiating
modern masculinities, Lotz analyzes how these shows combine feminist approaches
to fatherhood and marriage with more traditional constructions of masculine
identity that emphasize men's role as providers. She explores the dynamics of
close male friendships both in groups, as in Entourage and Men of a
Certain Age, wherein characters test the boundaries between the homosocial
and homosexual in their relationships with each other, and in the dyadic
intimacy depicted in Boston Legal and Scrubs. Cable Guys provides a
much needed look into the under-considered subject of how constructions of masculinity
continue to evolve on television.

In the 1990s, American televison audiences witnessed anunprecedented rise in programming devoted explicitly to women. Cablenetworks such as Oxygen Media, Women's Entertainment Network, and Lifetime targeted a female audience, and prime_time dramaticseries such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Judging Amy, Gilmore Girls, Sex and the City, and Ally McBeal empowered heroines, single careerwomen, and professionals struggling with family commitments andoccupational demands. After establishing this phenomenon'ssignificance, Amanda D. Lotz explores the audience profile, the types ofnarrative and characters that recur, and changes to the industrylandscape in the wake of media consolidation and a profusion ofchannel