21L.015 INTRODUCTION TO MEDIA STUDIES: LAB 13
The National Entertainment State
7 may 1997
 
INSTRUCTIONS
 
In this lab you are asked to reflect on the current state of the Culture Industries. The lab consists of three parts:
 
1) Read the article in the reader entitled "Holy Commodity Fetish, Batman! The economics of a commercial intertext," by Ellen Mehan.
 
2) In section, you will be divided into groups of 3-4 people and each group will be assigned a major production from the list below. Sometime before the lab you must get together for around one and a half hours to come up with as much information as possible about your assigned production. Suggestions, starting points and questions are listed below.
 
3) Come to lab on Wednesday, as usual, and present your findings to the group in a 10-15 minute presentation.
 
The purpose of this lab is to get you thinking about ownership and authorship in the current merger-happy world of the entertainment industry. Given your assigned production, head to an Athena cluster or equivalent and start searching. See what you can find. In the example of Batman, the film is really only the smallest part, there are toys, amusement park rides, TV interviews and adverts, clothing, posters and paraphenalia, videos, soundtracks (more than one!), games, and on and on. Write down anything that you remember about the film and its tie-ins, marketing strategies, and product placements. Consider ownership and authorship: in some cases, the `content' appeared in one media before it did in the others (Romeo and Juliet); in some the `content' is new, and can be completely owned by one corporation (Toy Story). Also consider notions such as `artistic integrity,' `adaptation,' and the organization of directors, writers, producers, actors, and marketers: who is the "author"? Who is the "owner"? Who benefits in each case?
You will be given a partial list of the major companies and their web of ownership (copied from The Nation), use this to discover who owns your film or TV show, and what other products and industries they own, and how these might be integrated together. Imagine other creative ways that these firms can reap the most magnificent profits!!!!! Other resources for finding out about news, market share, viewership, revenue and profits are listed below.
There is no correct answer to this excercise, it is supposed to be an enjoyable excercise in understanding massive media concentration, monopolitsic behavior, and total vertical and horizontal integration. You are expected, however, to reflect on the importance and meaning of this phenomena.
 
Websites
 
News Corporation
Warner Bros.
Time Warner Corporation
GE
Disney
Westinghouse
Microsoft
Viacom
Paramount
MCA/Universal
MGM/UA
Sony
New Line
Miramax
20th Century Fox
Columbia Pictures
PolygramPictures
Hollywood Film
Touchstone Pictures
Tristar Pictures
 
References
 
Pathfinder Time Warner Magazines On-Line (Includes Fortune Magazine)
Use this site to browse a variety of magazines (all owned by Time Warner) for information, see if you can find disparaging information about Time Warner :).
TVPlex
Use this site for infor about TV. Owned by Touchstone, which is owned by Disney.
CNN
Ted Turner. Need I say more?
Forbes magazine
Use Forbes for crucial information about the richest people and corporations in the US and the World. People are sorted by worth or name.
Nation (The Media Nation)
An adddendum to the handout in class, this site shows ownership and worth in the Publishing industry.
Ultimate TV- Neilson
Neilson ratings-- the ratings TV Networks use to determine audience share and to set advertising prices-- are available here, as well as stats on global TV and all sorts of other good info
IMdB
The best resourse for information about films, find out who produced and directed your film here.
Hoover's Corporate Web Registry
A great resource for finding out about the CEO's, net worth, and other stats of major corporations, only available in 'capsule' form without a subscription.
 
 
 
Products
 Jurrassic Park  Star Wars
 Lion King  Clueless
 Independence Day  Mission Impossible
 Nutty Professor  Flintstones
 Twister  Xena-Warrior Princess
 Beavis and Butthead do America  Trainspotting
 Private Parts The Crow
 Romeo and Juliet (1996)  Friends
 Aladdin  Selena
 Star Trek--First Contact

Toy Story

 

ckelty@mit.edu