Digital Media Distribution: Portals, Platforms, Pipelines (Critical Cultural Communication)

Review
"A collection of cutting-edge scholarship defining one of the most vital areas in media studies today. As distribution practices, logics, and markets continue to transform, this book provides the conceptual tools that make it all meaningful. A critical resource for all students and scholars of media industries." ― Jennifer Holt, University of California, Santa Barbara
"A rich and varied collection on a crucial issue for the thriving field of media industry studies." ― David Hesmondhalgh, University of Leeds
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.