Media Franchising

"Johnson astutely reveals that franchises are not Borg-like assimilation machines, but, rather, complicated ecosystems within which creative workers strive to create compelling 'shared worlds.' This finely researched, breakthrough book is a must-read for anyone seeking a sophisticated understanding of the contemporary media industry." —Heather Hendershot, author of What's Fair on the Air?: Cold War Right-Wing Broadcasting and the Public Interest While immediately recognizable throughout the U.S. and many other countries, media mainstays like X-Men, Star Trek, and Transformers achieved such familiarity through constant reincarnation. In each case, the initial success of a single product led to a long-term embrace of media franchising—a dynamic process in which media workers from different industrial positions shared in and reproduced familiar cultureacross television, film, comics, games, and merchandising. In Media Franchising, Derek Johnson examines the corporate culture behind these production practices, as well as the collaborative and creative efforts involved in conceiving, sustaining, and sharing intellectual properties in media work worlds. Challenging connotations of homogeneity, Johnson shows how the cultural and industrial logic of franchising has encouraged media industries to reimagine creativity as an opportunity for exchange among producers, licensees, and evenconsumers. Drawing on case studies and interviews with media producers, he reveals the meaningful identities, cultural hierarchies, and struggles for distinction that accompany collaboration within these production networks. Media Franchising provides a nuanced portrait of the collaborative cultural production embedded in both the media industries and our own daily lives.

"Johnson astutely reveals that franchises are not Borg-like assimilation machines, but, rather, complicated ecosystems within which creative workers strive to create compelling 'shared worlds.' This finely researched, breakthrough book is a must-read for anyone seeking a sophisticated understanding of the contemporary media industry." —Heather Hendershot, author of What's Fair on the Air?: Cold War Right-Wing Broadcasting and the Public Interest While immediately recognizable throughout the U.S. and many other countries, media mainstays like X-Men, Star Trek, and Transformers achieved such familiarity through constant reincarnation. In each case, the initial success of a single product led to a long-term embrace of media franchising—a dynamic process in which media workers from different industrial positions shared in and reproduced familiar cultureacross television, film, comics, games, and merchandising. In Media Franchising, Derek Johnson examines the corporate culture behind these production practices, as well as the collaborative and creative efforts involved in conceiving, sustaining, and sharing intellectual properties in media work worlds. Challenging connotations of homogeneity, Johnson shows how the cultural and industrial logic of franchising has encouraged media industries to reimagine creativity as an opportunity for exchange among producers, licensees, and evenconsumers. Drawing on case studies and interviews with media producers, he reveals the meaningful identities, cultural hierarchies, and struggles for distinction that accompany collaboration within these production networks. Media Franchising provides a nuanced portrait of the collaborative cultural production embedded in both the media industries and our own daily lives.

Untangles the web of commodity, capitalism, and art that is anime

Franchises have become an ever-present feature of American life, both in our landscapes and our economics. Peter M. Birkeland worked for three years in the front-line operations of franchise units for three companies, met with CEOs and executives, and attended countless trade shows, seminars, and expositions. Through this extensive fieldwork Birkeland not only discovered what makes franchisees succeed or fail, he uncovered the difficulties in running a business according to someone else's system and values. Bearing witness to a market flooded with fierce competitors and dependent on the inscrutable whims of consumers, he revealed the numerous challenges that franchisees face in making their businesses succeed. Book jacket.

As Hollywood shifts towards the digital era, the role of the media franchise has become more prominent. This edited collection, from a range of international scholars, argues that the franchise is now an integral element of American media culture. As such, the collection explores the production, distribution and marketing of franchises as a historical form of media-making - analysing the complex industrial practice of managing franchises across interconnected online platforms. Examining how traditional media incumbents like studios and networks have responded to the rise of new entrants from the technology sector (such as Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google), the authors take a critical look at the way new and old industrial logics collide in an increasingly fragmented and consolidated mediascape.

This collection explores how creators extend the commercial life of their creative endeavours, and the impact of these legal developments.

Experienced franchisees and franchisors tell entrepreneurs what they need to know before they buy a franchise. Second edition includes a sample copy of the entire UFOC plus 40% new and updated examples. This straight-shooting franchise guide goes beyond the “how to” to teach potential franchisees what to expect when starting a franchise. Real life stories from the trenches illustrate how to cope with the difficulties a franchise presents. The author reveals the personality types most likely to succeed at franchising, and identifies entrepreneurial traits that may increase risk of failure. Plus, it takes an in-depth look at the research and investigation of a franchise, something glossed over in most franchise books.

As media evolves with technological improvement, communication changes alongside it. In particular, storytelling and narrative structure have adapted to the new digital landscape, allowing creators to weave immersive and enticing experiences that captivate viewers. These experiences have great potential in marketing and advertising, but the medium’s methods are so young that their potential and effectiveness is not yet fully understood. Handbook of Research on Transmedia Storytelling, Audience Engagement, and Business Strategies is a collection of innovative research that explores transmedia storytelling and digital marketing strategies in relation to audience engagement. Highlighting a wide range of topics including promotion strategies, business models, and prosumers and influencers, this book is ideally designed for digital creators, advertisers, marketers, consumer analysts, media professionals, entrepreneurs, managers, executives, researchers, academicians, and students.

"From the inception of cinema to today's franchise era, remaking has always been a motor of ongoing textual production. Hollywood Remaking critically examines the persistent economic and cultural relevance of film remakes, series, sequels, crossovers, spin-offs, and prequels that emerge from the large-scale system of remaking actively shape how the film industry, cinema, and audiences imagine themselves as these movies constantly negotiate past and present, stability and change through a serial dynamic of repetition and variation. The book develops a theory of Hollywood remaking as an inherently dynamic practice situated between the film industry's economic logic and the cultural imaginary and analyzes how remaking has developed as a business practice in the United States, how it has been imagined, discursively constructed, and defined by networked stakeholders from production and reception contexts, how it has shaped cinematic aesthetics and cultural debates, and how it has fostered film-historical knowledge, promoted feelings of generational belonging among audiences, and become deeply enmeshed with constructions of the self"--

As Hollywood shifts towards the digital era, the role of the media franchise has become more prominent. This edited collection, from a range of international scholars, argues that the franchise is now an integral element of American media culture. As such, the collection explores the production, distribution and marketing of franchises as a historical form of media-making - analysing the complex industrial practice of managing franchises across interconnected online platforms. Examining how traditional media incumbents like studios and networks have responded to the rise of new entrants from the technology sector (such as Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google), the authors take a critical look at the way new and old industrial logics collide in an increasingly fragmented and consolidated mediascape.