Digital Media Distribution : Portals, Platforms, Pipelines

A deep dive into the new era of digital content production and distribution

In the twenty-first century, the platforms that both create and host content have become nearly as important as media itself. Companies such as Netflix, Spotify, and YouTube have attained a massive hold on the public imagination and have become an almost ineluctable part of people’s everyday lives. While the workings of media distribution had until very recently remained inconsequential to the average consumer, the recent popularization of various online platforms has made the question of distribution immediate to everyone.

Digital Media Distribution: Portals, Platforms, Pipelines provides a timely examination of the multifaceted distribution landscape in a moment of transformation and conceptualizes media distribution as a complex site of power, privilege, and gatekeeping. These tensions have local, national, and global consequences on the autonomy of creative workers, as well as on how we gain access to, engage with, and understand cultural products. Drawing on original research into distribution practices in industries as diverse as television, film, videogames, literature, and adult entertainment, each chapter explores how digitization has changed media distribution and its broader economic, industrial, social, and cultural implications.

Bringing together experts from around the world and across the media industries, Digital Media Distribution: Portals, Platforms, Pipelines presents a vast array of critical approaches and illustrative case studies for understanding the factors that have an impact on the way media travels and moves throughout our digital lives.

Paul McDonald is Professor of Media Industries at King’s College London. He is the author of Video and DVD Industries and Hollywood Stardom, and the co-editor of The Contemporary Hollywood Film Industry and Hollywood and the Law.

Courtney Brannon Donoghue is Assistant Professor of Media Industry Studies in the Department of Media Arts at the University of North Texas. She is the author of Localising Hollywood.

Timothy Havens is Professor of Communication Studies, African Americans Studies, and International Studies at the University of Iowa. His books include Black Television Travels, Global Television Marketplace, and, with Amanda D. Lotz, Understanding Media Industries.