This book examines the creative impact of licensing on the entertainment industry, how licensing practitioners’ occupational disposition is formed, and the role licensing professionals play in managing the circulation of intellectual property.Offering a study of the spatial logics and fantasies employed by the licensing field via its annual trade show, the Licensing Expo, this volume investigates how space and place are instrumental in both fortifying and exposing the political-eco...

Originating as a radio series in 1933, the Lone Ranger is a cross-media star who has appeared in comic strips, comic books, adult and juvenile novels, feature films and serials, clothing, games, toys, home furnishings, and many other consumer products. In his prime, he rivaled Mickey Mouse as one of the most successfully licensed and merchandised children’s properties in the United States, while in more recent decades, the Lone Ranger has struggled to resonate with consumers, leading to ef...

In popular culture, management in the media industry is frequently understood as the work of network executives, studio developers, and market researchers—“the suits”—who oppose the more productive forces of creative talent and subject that labor to the inefficiencies and risk aversion of bureaucratic hierarchies. However, such portrayals belie the reality of how media management operates as a culture of shifting discourses, dispositions, and tactics that create meaning, generate value, an...

Point of Sale offers the first significant attempt to center media retail as a vital component in the study of popular culture. It brings together fifteen essays by top media scholars with their fingers on the pulse of both the changes that foreground retail in a digital age and the history that has made retail a fundamental part of the culture industries. The book reveals why retail matters as a site of transactional significance to industries as well as a crucial locus of meanin...

The management and labor culture of the entertainment industry.In popular culture, management in the media industry isfrequently understood as the work of network executives, studio developers, andmarket researchers—“the suits”—who oppose the more productive forces ofcreative talent and subject that labor to the inefficiencies and risk aversionof bureaucratic hierarchies. However, such portrayals belie the realityof how media manag...