Political Economy of Entertainment Industries by Jennifer Proffitt
Asian Journal of Communication, Jan 1, 2011
This paper interrogates the interrelationships between sports and popular culture to facilitate a... more This paper interrogates the interrelationships between sports and popular culture to facilitate an understanding of the converging areas between political and economic forces and cultural practices operative in the global marketplace. Using a critical political economy approach, it examines the innovatively formatted and media-friendly Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket tournament and the Bollywood stars who are involved as owners and promoters of the league. The profitgenerating capacity of cricket has increased the interest of the corporate sector and the entertainment industries, resulting in the spectaclization, commercialization, and corporatization of the popular sport.
Papers by Jennifer Proffitt
The Political Economy of Communication, Oct 18, 2021
Labor Studies Journal, 2013
This paper examines media coverage of sports labor issues from a political economic perspective b... more This paper examines media coverage of sports labor issues from a political economic perspective by analyzing New York Times coverage of the 2011 National Football League lockout. We find that sports labor issues are framed in a manner consistent with findings by scholars such as Martin (2004), Schmidt (1993), and McChesney (2008). In particular, the media cover labor from a consumer-based perspective, simplify the conflict between players and owners as being disagreements between “millionaires and billionaires,” and focus more on offers made by owners to players than on owner demands. Other expected findings, such as media denigration of player labor and a general focus on player finances rather than owner finances, were not evident.
Communication, Culture and Critique
This essay highlights the portrayals of three “new underdogs” in the hit television show, Squid G... more This essay highlights the portrayals of three “new underdogs” in the hit television show, Squid Game: Sang-woo, Gi-hun, and the Front Man. We argue that these characters personify a new type of underdog, one that has internalized the ideologies inherent in neoliberal capitalism in Korea. The “winner takes all” system accelerated the polarization of wealth and inequality, which is in part the result of what scholars called “neo-poverty,” or the collapse of the middle class caused by the 1997 financial crisis. Neoliberalism was adopted to address neo-poverty, but rather than cure the crisis, it has ushered in a second phase of neo-poverty that is manifest in the underdogs’ narratives in Squid Game.
Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 2012
In the wake of the Penn State child sex tragedy, media coverage tended to focus on the individual... more In the wake of the Penn State child sex tragedy, media coverage tended to focus on the individuals involved rather than the corporatized university’s economic motivations and the institutional structure under which officials’ (in)actions occurred. This article interrogates and critiques that institutional structure, arguing that the “brand logic” of big-time intercollegiate athletics programs places image and profits ahead of people. In conjunction with on-field success, image and branding play prominently in an athletics program’s ability to maximize new revenue streams (e.g., licensing and merchandising). Further, administrators argue that athletics function as a university’s “front porch,” returning (symbolic) value to the institution (e.g., community, visibility, branding, alumni giving, and student applications). Thus, university and athletics administrators constantly take brand logic into their decision-making. The fallout from the Penn State tragedy offers insights into the ...
Atlantic Journal of Communication, 2009
This study examines the relationship between news media and bloggers from the perspective of poli... more This study examines the relationship between news media and bloggers from the perspective of political bloggers. Working from the theoretical frameworks of media accountability systems (Bertrand, 2000) and Brosius and Weimann's (1996) models of agenda-setting and two-step flow, the article proposes a new model that includes political bloggers. Via an online questionnaire, the study examines the demographics of political bloggers, how they view the blogosphere, and how they perceive their relationships with ...
Communication & Sport
This critical qualitative case study interrogates the roles Barstool Sports and its founder, Dave... more This critical qualitative case study interrogates the roles Barstool Sports and its founder, Dave Portnoy, serve in reaffirming the narrative power of conservative cultural ideology in mainstream US sports media. Portnoy’s targeted harassment of female journalists is analyzed as examples of how the outlet alienates critics of heteronormative, hypermasculine discourse within relevant cultural arenas in digital sports media. To examine how the company deflects criticisms of misogyny, we explore Barstool Chicks—an alternative version of the company’s website targeting female audiences. Resultantly, Barstool and Portnoy undermine the potential for feminist-driven narratives in sports media and contribute to the normalization of repressive conditions within cultural industries that perpetuates the continued dominance of conservative ideology.
Journalism
This article examines the struggles, actions, and challenges of the journalist organizers at two ... more This article examines the struggles, actions, and challenges of the journalist organizers at two Florida legacy newspapers – the Lakeland Ledger and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune – who unionized in 2016 with the NewsGuild – Communication Workers of America. In-depth interviews with journalists from both papers suggest that unionizing can help to counter the effects of media concentration, corporate practices, and the resulting changes in organizational structure and their impact on the working conditions of reporters.
Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media
International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics
The Political Economy of Communication, May 20, 2013
The Journal of Negro Education, Jun 22, 2004
... Education Anita Fleming-Rife University of Pennsylvania Jennifer M. Proffitt The Pennsylvania... more ... Education Anita Fleming-Rife University of Pennsylvania Jennifer M. Proffitt The Pennsylvania State University Three salient frames emerged from the study of two Topeka newspapers, one mainstream newspaper and one Black newspaper. ...
Mass Communication Society, Nov 17, 2009
ABSTRACT
Review of Education Pedagogy and Cultural Studies, Jan 16, 2007
Communication, Culture & Critique, 2015
In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association overturned a Cali... more In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association overturned a California law that sought to keep violent video games away from minors. Entertainment Soware Association (ESA), the video game industry's trade organization, for years fought legislation aimed at providing parents with more information about extremely violent games. is article analyzes campaign nance records, lobbying reports, trade publications , and court documents to illustrate how ESA uses its power to inuence the U.S. regulatory, legislative, and judicial process. By documenting this political economic inu-ence, this article charts interrelated developments regarding the consolidation of ownership and growth of the corporate video game lobby and assesses how ESA political contributions marginalize the public's access to information about violent games.
Communication, Culture & Critique, 2014
ABSTRACT This article investigates the paradoxes of communicative liberalization. We explore the ... more ABSTRACT This article investigates the paradoxes of communicative liberalization. We explore the ways in which something as seemingly banal as backyard basketball—by being incorporated into the realm of Internet communication—is at once “opened up” to the media consuming public and yet invariably constrained by the corporate and spectacularizing technologies that have come to define the era of free market communication. Drawing upon an extensive case analysis of the “trick shot” enterprise known as Dude Perfect, we illustrate how even the most homespun forms of mediation are thrust into the imperatives of neoliberal accumulation whereby the “homemade” cyber-spatial media-sport production becomes aligned with, if not overdetermined by, the processes of corporatization, spectacularization, and marketization.
Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 2007
Popular Communication, 2007
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Political Economy of Entertainment Industries by Jennifer Proffitt
Papers by Jennifer Proffitt