Appendix C: Journalism: A Guide to Recent Literature - Section 4. Journalism Business and Process

A. Media Industries

The study of news media as businesses and their economic aspects is a relatively recent focus of academic research, though business schools often used media entities as case studies. But media economics as a topic of focused study dates back less than a generation.

A-1: Media Economics

The growing study of media economics has spawned titles applying the methods of economics to the often confused media industry scene.

Albarran, Alan B. Media Economics: Understanding Markets, Industries and Concepts. Ames: Iowa State Press, 2002 (2nd ed.). Principles of media economics, electronic media, film and recording industries, print industries, and the future of media economics research. This edition added a chapter on the Internet.

Alexander, Alison, et al., eds. Media Economics: Theory and Practice. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2003 (3rd ed.). Thirteen papers by as many academic contributors on techniques of economic and business analysis, overall characteristics of the media environment, and contemporary business practices within specific media industries, including print, electronic, movie, advertising, and online sectors. Added for this edition were chapters on advertising and both book and magazine publishing.

Hoskins, Colin, et al. Media Economics: Applying Economics to New and Traditional Media. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2004. Sets out economic principles needed to understand media industry issues with examples drawn from the United States, Canada, Britain, and Australia. Chapters on demand and supply, markets, consumer behavior, production and cost, revenue and profit and management decisions, market structure and theory of the firm, competition and monopoly, oligopoly, pricing and market segmentation, advertising, labor markets, government intervention, and international trade.

Picard, Robert G. The Economics of Financing of Media Companies. New York: Fordham University Press, 2002. Survey of financial structures of various media companies, including their marketing and distribution systems using both American and European companies as examples. Discusses product life cycles, as well as outside forces such as global and local economies, interest rates, and trade barriers that impact a company's financial health.

Vogel, Harold L. Entertainment Industry Economics: A Guide for Financial Analysis. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007 (7th ed.). About half devoted to film, broadcasting, and cable, but also including sports, performing arts, and theme parks. Regularly updated, this is the only book of its kind and is directed chiefly at potential investors.

A-2: Business of Media

Most of these titles seek to survey the business and management side of one or more media.

Albarran, Alan B., and Angel Arrese, eds. Time and Media Markets. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2003. Eleven papers—some discussing other countries than the United States—on the many ways time is central to media operations; how media view time and make business decisions based on it; time constraints and competition among different media; quantity and quality of time spent in media consumption; audience and readership time valuation/costing/pricing; and emergence of new media businesses around individual time management.

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