Advancing Media Production Research: Shifting Sites, Methods, and Politics

Richly detailed research from the point that our information and culture is manufactured – newsrooms, television studios, and myriad other culture producing institutions – is increasingly rare and difficult. Challenges to such research abound and are escalating, ranging from increasingly secretive corporate cultures which see little value in inviting observation of their work, to pressure on scholars to produce more with less – leading to faster and easier modes of research. The explosion in forms of cultural production and ever broader definitions of journalism make the object of analysis ever harder to identify for media production researchers. Chapter authors explore challenges to production research and offer novel approaches to revealing the hidden nature of media production through engagement with alternative theoretical paradigms and methodological innovation.