ABSTRACT
Throughout the last decade, an earlier bias of media studies toward textual or audience analysis has been righted somewhat by rapid expansion in research focused on the structures that affect, and the institutions that create, media and their content. Such studies are commonly classied as ‘production studies’ or ‘media industry studies.’ This chapter focuses on methods for examining the production of entertainment media in particular. Whether addressing a particular show, the negotiations between a studio and a distributor, an industrial practice such as dubbing, or a sector of a national media industry, studies of entertainment industries and production practices explore the ways in which various creative personnel work within determined and structured systems that, nevertheless, allow for variations within routines. The points of tension between standardization and differentiation are of equal signicance and equally instructive in exploring the signicance of media entertainment. It is necessary, then, to provide a more thorough and detailed analysis of production practices than the usual generalizations about ‘media
factories’ that are presumed to churn out endless reiterations of mindless fare.
