As Hollywood shifts towards the digital era, the role of the media franchise has become more prominent. Over a series of essays by a range of international scholars, this edited collection 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. In particular, the essays analyze the complex industrial practice of managing franchises across interconnected online platforms with a global scope, presenting a network of scholarly texts that critical ... More

As Hollywood shifts towards the digital era, the role of the media franchise has become more prominent. Over a series of essays by a range of international scholars, this edited collection 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. In particular, the essays analyze the complex industrial practice of managing franchises across interconnected online platforms with a global scope, presenting a network of scholarly texts that critically look at the collision of new and old industrial logics against an ever more fragmented and consolidated mediascape. The authors address how traditional incumbents like film studios and television networks have responded to the rise of big data, Silicon Valley companies like Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google; the ways in which legacy franchises are adapting to new media platforms and technologies; the significant historical continuities and deviations in franchise-making and how they shape the representation of on-screen texts across digital displays; and, finally, how emerging media formats are expanding the possibility for transmedia experiences. In this regard, The Franchise Era: Managing Media in the Digital Economy offers an in-depth analysis of the tectonic shifts that have disrupted entertainment companies in the twenty-first century, demonstrating that the media franchise stands front and center in this high-stakes environment.