Media Studies Colloquium

Sponsored by the Center for Entertainment & Media Industries.

Kate Fortmueller is Associate Professor of Film and Media History
School of Film, Media & Theater, Georgia State University

"From Shutdown to 'Shut it down': How Hollywood Manages Risk and Handles Disruption"

In Hollywood, writers, directors, and actors like to take creative risks, but as an industry it has often been said that Hollywood is “risk averse.” From the uncertainties of financial investments to the safety of on-set workers, media production is inherently risky and within the past three years it has been subject to pauses and changes to the status quo. Using the pandemic and WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes as starting points, this presentation invites us to think about what disruptions to media production can teach us about Hollywood's past and present.

PhD Candidate will present portions of her dissertation.

"Developing the Super IP: The Inter-industrial Development of Webtoons and K-drama"

The production of Korean TV dramas has doubled in numbers and quadrupled in production value in less than a decade (2016 – 2023). This increase in output is fueled mainly by competition among the global streaming video on demand services (SVODs) such as Netflix, Disney+, and Apple TV+ to create and distribute original K-dramas exclusively on their platforms. The procurement of original K-dramas has been one of these services’ strategies for supplying popular Asian programming. These services’ strategies build on the stable viewership base for K-dramas across the world since the 1990s, demonstrating the effectiveness and long-term viability of South Korea as a production site for global SVOD services. This talk adopts a media industries approach to examine how producers and distributors of K-dramas increasingly have turned to webtoons as a source of creative original intellectual property (IP) as demand from global streamers for content has grown. In particular, I focus on the compatibility of the webtoon industry for audiovisual adaptation with the structural needs of K-drama companies. I address how, in recent years, K-drama’s initial reliance on webtoon platforms for content has given way to webtoon companies’ direct efforts to vertically integrate, thereby retaining much more explicit control over their properties. In turn, I show how webtoons, adapted to audiovisual forms and distributed across platforms, have become a valued form that the industry labels “super IP.” Drawing from interviews with industry professionals including local Korean television producers and distribution executives as well as analyzing industry discourses surrounding the production and distribution of webtoon-adapted K-dramas, I illustrate how, since the mid-2010s, K-drama and webtoon companies have variably collaborated and competed to develop this super IP.

PhD Candidate will present portions of his dissertation.

Faculty book talk, followed by reception

Adrien Sebro, Assistant Professor, Department of Radio-Television-Film, The University of Texas at Austin, will give a talk on his new book. Please join us for a reception after the talk.

“Scratchin’ and Survivin’: Hustle Economics and the Black Sitcoms of Tandem Productions”

Book Abstract:
Scratchin’ and Survivin’: Hustle Economics and the Black Sitcoms of Tandem Productions is a production history and study of Black labor in the Black sitcoms of Tandem Productions; Sanford and Son (1972-1977), Good Times (1974-1979), and The Jeffersons (1975-1985). These sitcoms challenged subjective producers’ control of 1970s television. Focusing on these Black sitcoms, Scratchin’ and Survivin’ engages the intersections of performance, production, politics, and reception to consider how this array of Black sitcoms intervened in both the history of television and in a re-articulation of Black identity in the early 1970s. With close attention to race, socioeconomics, gender, and politics, the sitcoms of Tandem had their own distinct style in depicting Black American life on screen. What is rarely discussed in the history Tandem is the Black artists (actors, writers, assistants, etc.) and the “hustle economics” they engaged in while becoming television auteurs within a space that wasn’t built for them. “Hustle economics” exists as a negotiation of Black labor in front of and behind the screen. Indeed, the production of these sitcoms called for various forms of creative agency and labor resilience that transformed the television industry, and Scratchin’ and Survivin’ brings attention to the Black artists who were a part of these transformative acts.

PhD Candidate research presentation.

PhD Candidate research presentation.

PhD Candidate research presentation.