Derek Johnson
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814743478
- eISBN:
- 9780814743492
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814743478.003.0004
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
This chapter addresses the perceived ingenuity of contemporary branding strategy in order to expose other trajectories, particularly the global forces that networked production over time, along which ...
More
This chapter addresses the perceived ingenuity of contemporary branding strategy in order to expose other trajectories, particularly the global forces that networked production over time, along which franchising like Transformers has developed. Instead of conceptualizing franchising in terms of its most successful moments, one can assess it in terms of a constant production cycle that constitutes reorganization, management and experimentation, as well as decline across multiple global contexts. The chapter uses the Transformers property in exploring the cultural tensions that emerge when national frames persist in making sense of franchised production. It draws upon samples of press articles and reviews in which critics sought to make sense of this vast system of toys, television, film, comics, and video games in relation to the national cultures of the United States, Japan, United Kingdom, Singapore, Malaysia, China, and Australia.Less
This chapter addresses the perceived ingenuity of contemporary branding strategy in order to expose other trajectories, particularly the global forces that networked production over time, along which franchising like Transformers has developed. Instead of conceptualizing franchising in terms of its most successful moments, one can assess it in terms of a constant production cycle that constitutes reorganization, management and experimentation, as well as decline across multiple global contexts. The chapter uses the Transformers property in exploring the cultural tensions that emerge when national frames persist in making sense of franchised production. It draws upon samples of press articles and reviews in which critics sought to make sense of this vast system of toys, television, film, comics, and video games in relation to the national cultures of the United States, Japan, United Kingdom, Singapore, Malaysia, China, and Australia.
Derek Johnson, Derek Kompare, and Avi Santo
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814764695
- eISBN:
- 9780814724989
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814764695.003.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
This introductory chapter asserts that management must be understood as a much wider network of cultural power, negotiated by participants at all levels in institutional hierarchies. Management, in ...
More
This introductory chapter asserts that management must be understood as a much wider network of cultural power, negotiated by participants at all levels in institutional hierarchies. Management, in this sense, is a culture of shifting discourses and dispositions that create meaning, generate value, and shape media work throughout each moment of production and consumption. For this understanding, the chapter draws from organizational sociology and critical theory in examining how historically situated ideas about management operate as modes of managerial identity formation. Though management has become an important practice in the contemporary era of branding, IP licensing, and convergence, management as a discursive category has existed for a long time. Its functions, representations, and dispositions have changed in accordance with both industrial and cultural shifts.Less
This introductory chapter asserts that management must be understood as a much wider network of cultural power, negotiated by participants at all levels in institutional hierarchies. Management, in this sense, is a culture of shifting discourses and dispositions that create meaning, generate value, and shape media work throughout each moment of production and consumption. For this understanding, the chapter draws from organizational sociology and critical theory in examining how historically situated ideas about management operate as modes of managerial identity formation. Though management has become an important practice in the contemporary era of branding, IP licensing, and convergence, management as a discursive category has existed for a long time. Its functions, representations, and dispositions have changed in accordance with both industrial and cultural shifts.
