Jonathan Hardy

Mapping commercial intertextuality: HBO’s True Blood

Corporate synergy, cross-media promotion and transmedia storytelling are increasingly prevalent features of media production today, yet they generate highly divergent readings. Criticism of synergistic corporate control and commercialism in some political economic accounts contrasts with celebrations of fan/prosumer agency, active audiences and resistant readings in others. This debate reviews the different approaches taken by political economists and culturalists in their analyses of commercial intertextuality. Tracing influential studies, it considers the tensions and affinities between divergent readings, and grounds for synthesis. Here, the article addresses the ordering of (inter)textual space, outlining the main forms of textual production along an axis from corporate to autonomous texts. Contemporary forms of cross-media/cross-platform intertextuality and online promotional strategies are examined through a case study of HBO’s True Blood. The article also assesses the implications of work on commercial intertextuality for (re)engagements between critical political economy and culturalist approaches.

Money, (Co)Production and Power: The contribution of critical political economy to digital journalism studies

This article discusses the contribution of critical political economy approaches to digital journalism studies and argues that these offer important correctives to celebratory perspectives. The first part offers a review and critique of influential claims arising from self-styled new studies of convergence culture, media and creative industries. The second part discusses the contribution of critical political economy in examining digital journalism and responding to celebrant claims. The final part reflects on problems of restrictive normativity and other limitations within media political economy perspectives and considers ways in which challenges might be addressed by more synthesising approaches. The paper proposes developing radical pluralist, media systems and comparative analysis, and advocates drawing on strengths in both political economy and culturalist traditions to map and evaluate practices across all sectors of digital journalism.

Money, (Co)Production and Power

This article discusses the contribution of critical political economy approaches to digital journalism studies and argues that these offer important correctives to celebratory perspectives. The first part offers a review and critique of influential claims arising from self-styled new studies of convergence culture, media and creative industries. The second part discusses the contribution of critical political economy in examining digital journalism and responding to celebrant claims. The final part reflects on problems of restrictive normativity and other limitations within media political economy perspectives and considers ways in which challenges might be addressed by more synthesising approaches. The paper proposes developing radical pluralist, media systems and comparative analysis, and advocates drawing on strengths in both political economy and culturalist traditions to map and evaluate practices across all sectors of digital journalism.

Book review: Ib Bondebjerg and Peter Madsen (eds), Media, Democracy and European Culture, Intellect: Bristol, 2008; 360 pp.: £19.95

audience would be confused by the hubbub, when not clearly pushed to distance itself from politics. Scholars who take issue with TV’s sensationalism do not offer an elitist, or purely nostalgic, view of the political process: they raise doubts about the possibility of gathering information through the prevalent TV formats. Information, of course, that would make the voter able to understand and defend his or her interests and the collective wellbeing of the polis. For example, in 2010 the Pew Research Center asked people to identify the current chief justice of the United States from among four names: John Roberts, Thurgood Marshall, John Paul Stevens and Harry Reid. Only 28 percent correctly picked Chief Justice Roberts. The late Thurgood Marshall came in second, with 8 percent. Fiftythree percent could not make a selection, answering ‘don’t know’. As all important issues come, sooner or later, to the desk of the Supreme Court, this lack of knowledge certainly isn’t in the interest of the average citizen. The focus on ‘personality issues’ like physical appearance, rhetorical ability and family life simply obscures substantive issues, much more relevant to the future of the voter. Taxes, war and peace, the attitudes of a candidate regarding the environment or financial regulations are not themes that can be seen through the lens of gossip. The conventional defence of many scholars is that citizens use the bits of information they gather in their intermittent and cursory relationship as clues to more fundamental issues: a politician’s ‘character’ would be politically relevant information because citizens could decide on this basis whether to trust the politician or not. Unfortunately, there is no way to reconcile a democratic theory based on rational deliberation with this thesis. If pop politics is a ‘resource’, why has political participation continuously declined in all OECD countries? Why do people show abysmal levels of political ignorance, not only in Italy but in Europe and America, such as believing that President Obama is a Muslim, as is the case for a third of voters there? Mazzoleni and Sfardini do not remain on the surface of things, and make a good job of describing the mechanisms of ‘politainment’. Their merits would be even greater if they tackled the difficult questions that pop politics create for our fragile post-democracies.