Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines how stigma and technology have mutually co-constructed changing structures, strategies, composition, and practices within the pornography industry. Technologies have transformed the pornography industry's structure: increasing market size, lowering barriers to entry, and radically altering the sector's business models, participants, and core capabilities with each technological turn. The idea of pornography is frequently positioned as more than a specific form of sexually explicit media. The book also presents the economic, social, and cultural contexts which the contemporary online adult entertainment industry has developed out of tracing the historical development of the pornography industry and the formation of its identity as an institutional field. By contrast, the business aspects of the pornography industry itself are rarely the subject of mainstream media or specialized business reporting; instead, they are often only covered as a novelty item.