1st Edition
Entertainment Industries Entertainment as a Cultural System
Entertainment Industries is the first book to map entertainment as a cultural system. Including work from world-renowned analysts such as Henry Jenkins and Jonathan Gray, this innovative collection explains what entertainment is and how it works.
Entertainment is audience-centred culture. The Entertainment Industries are a uniquely interdisciplinary collection of evolving businesses that openly monitor evolving cultural trends and work within them. The producers of entertainment – central to that practice– are the new artists. They understand audiences and combine creative, business and legal skills in order to produce cultural products that cater to them.
Entertainment Industries describes the characteristics of entertainment, the systems that produce it, and the role of producers and audiences in its development, as well as explaining the importance of this area of study, and how it might be better integrated into Universities.
This book was originally published as a special issue of Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies.
Introduction: Entertainment and Media/Cultural/Communication/Etc Studies Jonathan Gray Part I: What is Entertainment? Chapter 1. The aesthetic system of entertainment: pornography as case study Alan McKee Chapter 2. Crime as entertainment Sue Turnbull Chapter 3. Toying with culture: the rise of the action figure and the changing face of 'children's' entertainment Jason Bainbridge Chapter 4. Towards an understanding of Australian genre cinema and entertainment: beyond the limitations of ‘Ozploitation’ discourse Mark Ryan Part II: The Institutions of Entertainment Chapter 5. The borders that law sets on entertainment Des Butler Chapter 6. Music supervisors in the Australian entertainment film industry Natalie Lewandowski Chapter 7. Explaining Pathe’s global dominance in the pre-Hollywood film industry Jon Silver Part III: Entertainment and Its Audiences Chapter 8. The "good" fans and "bad" consumers of football Ingar Mehus Chapter 9. Loyalty and the ritualistic consumption of entertainment Larry Neal Part IV: Entertainment Education Chapter 10. Teaching entertainment at Universities Christy Collis, Alan McKee and Ben Hamley Chapter 11. Top Gear, Top Journalism: Three lessons for political journalists from the world’s most popular TV show Stephen Harrington Chapter 12. Transmedia storytelling and entertainment: an annotated syllabus Henry Jenkins
Biography
Alan McKee co-designed the Entertainment Industries program at Queensland University of Technology, Australia. His most recent academic book is The Porn Report (2008, with Kath Albury and Catherine Lumby). His most recent entertainment writing was for "Let’s Learn Some Shit", a comedy show with comedian Josh Thomas.
Christy Collis co-designed the Entertainment Industries program at Queensland University of Technology, Australia. She is a cultural geographer and Senior Lecturer in Media and Communication.
Ben Hamley project-managed the introduction of Entertainment Industries at Queensland University of Technology, Australia, and teaches in both the Creative Industries and Business Faculties. His interests are in interdisciplinary education and promoting creativity and entrepreneurship in young people. He is currently the Queensland project manager for a not-for-profit creative agency, Smart Artz.
