The primary aim of the course is to introduce students to the study of cultural industries, focusing concretely on the audiovisual media: video, television, videogames, and cinema. Where we tend to conceptualise the products emerging from these areas as autonomous objects or the work of a handful of artists, they are really integrated within a much more dynamic cultural and economic system that shapes their production and our access to them.

Increasingly aware of the complexities of system, the field of audiovisual media industry studies has burgeoned in recent years, with research adopting a variety of different approaches and methodologies. This ranges from the more specific (framing individual creators within broader production cultures) to the more general (understanding entire industries in their global dimension). A secondary objective of the course is therefore to teach students the various methods and tools for this variety of levels. In class, these will be applied to numerous figures, organizations and (inter)national industries, ranging from showrunners and casting directors to Silicon Valley enterprises and the cases of Hollywood, Bollywood and Nollywood. Therefore, the third objective is to illustrate the methods and provide students with a useful variety of case studies that they can expand independently in the course assessment.

The course is taught in English. 

Following an introduction to the field of audiovisual media industry studies, focusing in particular on the history of this area and on the concepts of “media” and “cultural” industries, the course programme adopts the structure of the main textbook used, therefore shifting from micro to macro fields of study. The core of the lessons will therefore be devoted to:

• Individuals and groups of people and their roles in industries;
• The structures of companies and organizations and their impact at an industrial level;
• Broader “cultures” of production, between people, companies and industries;
• Entire industries, within the (changing) limits of single media and nations;
• Globalized audiovisual media industries, beyond these boundaries.

Each of these areas will be discussed and studied in class in relation to a variety of industries, and students will be encouraged to contribute their own examples. We will consider them using different theoretical and practical approaches, from cultural to economic and organizational analyses.

N/a

1. Knowledge and understanding: students will obtain a foundation of theoretical and practical comprehension of the cultural industries and the field of media industry studies.

1.1. Students will gain this understanding through lesson participation and through discussion of the course's themes, guided by the lecturer.

2. Applying knowledge and understanding: the knowledge obtained during this course will be applied to a variety of examples of audiovisual media industries, enabling students to contextualize media products in their source industries at specific and general levels, from individuals to international scenarios.

2.1. Students will gain this ability in class, in the guided analysis of industries at these levels, through collective discussions and preparing small group presentations for assessment.

3. Making judgements: students will learn to express informed, autonomous judgments on single media products in relation to their industry, on the contexts of audiovisual media industries, and on the evolution of this field of study.

3.1. Students will gain the ability to make critical judgments through participation in discussions in class and debates with the lecturer and with their colleagues, through the theoretical trajectory of the course as well as through personal study.

4. Communication: students will learn to express themselves in English on the course's themes, including applying the appropriate specialist vocabulary of media industry studies.

4.1. They can develop this ability through class discussions and exchanges with colleagues, as well as the lecturer, as well as in the realization of group presentations on single examples of industries or figures/organizations within them.

5. Lifelong learning skills: students will learn to engage and interact with cultural, economic and organization studies of media industries and to analyse single products, connecting these elements in an independent reflection on the negotiation between art/culture and industrial/economic backgrounds. 

5.1. These abilities will be enabled through the use of various learning tools, allowing students, at the end of the course, to navigate autonomously around more than one media industry. In addition, discussion and debate with classmates and the lecturer will play a key role, as well as class exercises and personal study.

The teaching material prepared by the lecturer in addition to recommended textbooks (such as for instance slides, lecture notes, exercises, bibliography) and communications from the lecturer specific to the course can be found inside the Moodle platform › blended.uniurb.it

As well as lectures and discussions, the classes will work with a variety of different cross-media texts, including academic analyses, histories, specific media products and industry reports.

Teaching

Blended learning, lectures and seminars, analysis of case studies, group discussions and presentations.

Innovative teaching methods

• Content and Language Integrated Learning, to connect the concepts of media industry studies with English language studies
• Wooclap, for moments of summary and feedback on the course content and (where needed) language questions
• Problem-based learning of issues related to the context of audiovisual media industries

Attendance

Attendance at the course is mandatory (at least 50% of the lesson hours) except for part-time students, for whom attendance is optional although recommended. 

Course books

Daniel Herbert, Amanda D. Lotz e Aswin Punathambekar, Media Industry Studies (Cambridge: Polity, 2020)

And ONE selected article/chapter from the following list: 

• Miranda J. Banks, “Gender Below-the-Line: Defining Feminist Production Studies”, in Mayer, Banks and Caldwell (ed. by), Production Studies. Cultural Studies of Media Industries (London: Routledge, 2009), pp. 87-98.
• Tejaswini Ganti, “Ch. 5: The Structure, Organization, and Social Relations of the Hindi Film Industry”, in Producing Bollywood. Inside the Contemporary Hindi Film Industry (Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2012), pp. 175-213.
• Jonathan Gray and Derek Johnson, “Ch. 4: Television Producers Go to the Movies: Transforming Professional Identities”, in Television Goes to the Movies (London: Routledge, 2021), pp. 101-130.
• Daniel Herbert, Amanda D. Lotz and Lee Marshall, “Approaching media industries comparatively: A case study of streaming”, International Journal of Cultural Studies, 22(3), 2018, pp. 349-366.
• Jade Miller, “Global Nollywood: The Nigerian movie industry and alternative global networks in production and distribution”, in Global Media and Communication, 8(2), 2012, pp. 117-133.
• James Newman, “Ch. 2: Industries” in Videogames, 2nd edition (London: Routledge, 2012), pp. 27-48.
• Eva Novrup Redvall, “A European Take on the Showrunner? Danish Television Drama Production”, in Szczepanik and Vonderau (ed. by), Behind the Screen: Inside European Production Cultures, (London: Palgrave, 2013), pp. 153-170.
• Alisa Perren, "Chapter 7. Who Says Life is Beautiful?", in Indie, Inc. Miramax and the Transformation of Hollywood in the 1990s (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2021), pp. 176-207.

Assessment

Assessment for this course will consist in:

i. group presentations, in English, at the end of the course. The presentations will focus on a specific theme relating during the course (a figure, an organization, a production culture or a national/international industry).

ii. an oral exam (in English). The oral exam will evaluate how well the student has learned the course contents as well as their ability to express themselves, to argue, and to apply acquired knowledge. It will refer to the course materials and the content of the lessons.

To pass the course, students must demonstrate their critical capacity and their ability to expand on the course’s themes; they must offer in-depth analyses of the audiovisual media industries; and they must use an appropriate language/vocabulary that relates to the discipline.

The absence of these skills will lead to students not passing the course.

Disability and Specific Learning Disorders (SLD)

Students who have registered their disability certification or SLD certification with the Inclusion and Right to Study Office can request to use conceptual maps (for keywords) during exams.

To this end, it is necessary to send the maps, two weeks before the exam date, to the course instructor, who will verify their compliance with the university guidelines and may request modifications.

Teaching

Individual study: analysis of the teaching materials and of cast studies.

Attendance

Attendance at the course is mandatory (at least 50% of the lesson hours). The only exception is for part-time students, for whom attendance is optional although recommended. 

Course books

The set texts for part-time students – who are able to take the exam as non-attending students – are:

Daniel Herbert, Amanda D. Lotz e Aswin Punathambekar, Media Industry Studies (Cambridge: Polity, 2020)

And THREE selected articles/chapters from the following list

• Miranda J. Banks, “Gender Below-the-Line: Defining Feminist Production Studies”, in Mayer, Banks and Caldwell (ed. by), Production Studies. Cultural Studies of Media Industries (London: Routledge, 2009), pp. 87-98.
• Tejaswini Ganti, “Ch. 5: The Structure, Organization, and Social Relations of the Hindi Film Industry”, in Producing Bollywood. Inside the Contemporary Hindi Film Industry (Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2012), pp. 175-213.
• Jonathan Gray and Derek Johnson, “Ch. 4: Television Producers Go to the Movies: Transforming Professional Identities”, in Television Goes to the Movies (London: Routledge, 2021), pp. 101-130.
• Daniel Herbert, Amanda D. Lotz and Lee Marshall, “Approaching media industries comparatively: A case study of streaming”, International Journal of Cultural Studies, 22(3), 2018, pp. 349-366.
• Jade Miller, “Global Nollywood: The Nigerian movie industry and alternative global networks in production and distribution”, in Global Media and Communication, 8(2), 2012, pp. 117-133.
• James Newman, “Ch. 2: Industries” in Videogames, 2nd edition (London: Routledge, 2012), pp. 27-48.
• Eva Novrup Redvall, “A European Take on the Showrunner? Danish Television Drama Production”, in Szczepanik and Vonderau (ed. by), Behind the Screen: Inside European Production Cultures, (London: Palgrave, 2013), pp. 153-170.
• Alisa Perren, "Chapter 7. Who Says Life is Beautiful?", in Indie, Inc. Miramax and the Transformation of Hollywood in the 1990s (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2021), pp. 176-207.

Assessment

Assessment for this course will consist in an oral exam (in English). The oral exam will evaluate how well the student has learned the course contents as well as their ability to express themselves, to argue, and to apply acquired knowledge. It will refer to the course materials and the content of the lessons.

To pass the course, students must demonstrate their critical capacity and their ability to expand on the course’s themes; they must offer in-depth analyses of the audiovisual media industries; and they must use an appropriate language/vocabulary that relates to the discipline.

The absence of these skills will lead to students not passing the course.

Disability and Specific Learning Disorders (SLD)

Students who have registered their disability certification or SLD certification with the Inclusion and Right to Study Office can request to use conceptual maps (for keywords) during exams.

To this end, it is necessary to send the maps, two weeks before the exam date, to the course instructor, who will verify their compliance with the university guidelines and may request modifications.

Attendance is obligatory for a minimum of 50% of the lessons. It is not possible to take the exam as a non-attending student, with the only exception of those students who are studying part-time.