Introduction

What does it mean to make media professionally? To be a journalist, a marketing communicator, advertising creative, or public relations practitioner? What is it like to work in film or television, to develop games, to be a musician, or manage a record label for a living? It is safe to say that the answers to these questions vary greatly. Whereas the various fields of cultural work used to be considered in terms of their specifics, contemporary scholarship acknowledges the great diversity and hybridization of practices and careers that make up formerly distinct professions in the media industries. Profound transformations are afoot in the areas of technology and digitalization, management and economics, culture and audience preferences, as well as in the role politics and policymaking plays in both enabling and constraining the ways in which media industries and professionals can do their work and earn a living.

This book aims to investigate, illustrate, and critically analyse how the various technological, political, economic, and social transformations are affecting the media industries as well as the people professionally making media. The goal is to provide those interested in studying media industries and production, and those considering a career in the media a clear grasp of the relevant topics and themes, as well as an understanding of what shapes media work. The authors gathered in this volume provide a comprehensive review of the scholarly research on making media, delving specifically into emerging themes such as the emotional quality of media work, the radical changes affecting the business operations of media firms, and ways in which precarity determines the lived experience of media professionals across a variety of media industries. In doing so, we endeavour to bring into conversation different domains of theory and practice in media industries: political economy and cultural studies; the sociology of work and psychology of professional decision-making; production and management studies.

In order to grasp the many developments shaping the creative work media professionals do, we have structured this book in three sections: production, practices, and professions. Media production considers issues at play within, across, and around the institutions and forces that create our media, our information, and our culture: management and economics, media policy, markets, consumers (Hesmondhalgh, 2006; Paterson, Lee, Saha, & Zoellner, 2015).