The popularity and economic strength of professional football is unsurpassed among other sports in the U.S. due in part to the ascendency of television as the most popular form of mass media. Though aided by the popularity of that medium, the National Football League's success is also tied to governmental favors, monopolistic practices, nonprofit tax status, complicated subsidiary structure and other factors forming a beneficial economic context. The structure of the league and its business ventures reflect the nature of these arrangements, all of which are borne out of the commodification of the game. This study examines the nature and structure of the political economy of the NFL. In particular, it focuses on the relationships among the NFL (including individual teams and subsidiary businesses), the government, and the media. Employing a political economic analysis of the policy and business agreements among these agents will further elaborate the structural dimensions of the NFL as well as the implications for other sports and media in the culture industries. / 10000-01-01

Research into mainstream (AAA) video games reveals a popularized form of militarized masculine entertainment that is synonymous with violence toward other men and sexualized violence toward women. The means of successful AAA game production are limited to those who have access to sophisticated game engines, advanced programming skills, and substantial financial backing. Consequently, a robust independent “indie” game industry has emerged to promote a greater range of game creation excluded from the AAA model. Drawing on political economic, feminist, and cultural studies approaches, this study seeks to trace the emergent trends and dynamics in the indie industry and analyzes common practices, strategies, and discursive themes of the Independent Games Festival (IGF), their hosting event, GDC, and their parent company UBM. This thesis contributes to media industry studies, game studies, and critical theory and highlights how economic logics shape social relations and influences processes of cultural change.

This research intends to address potential factors concerning Sweden’s poor distribution of e-books (electronic books) by using theories such as digitization, media economy, and the theoretical framework of the production of culture perspective. To examine what these factors are and how they affect the development of the e-book in Sweden, we will answer the following research questions: 1. What potential factors could have influenced the e-book development? and 2. How may these factors affect the development of e-books in Sweden? The chosen method was the case study approach, with the contribution of qualitative interviews and multiple data sources. The research conducted five interviews with actors within the Swedish book industry that were recruited by e-mail and through snowball sampling. The interviewees provided the research with qualitative answers, as well as additional data sources, such as reports, sales statistics, and legal documents. The secondary data enlarged the knowledge concerning the phenomenon of e-books, thus made it more manageable to examine. The result of the case study identified four potential factors that actors believe could be the reason concerning the e-books' lack of success in Sweden: cultural values, technological development, the libraries' role, the lack of commercial actors, and sales tax. In conclusion, the study show that several factors may have affected the development of e-books in Sweden. However, the research cannot distinguish one sole factor that explains its poor distribution.

Avec la montée en puissance de la Chine sur la scène internationale depuis une dizaine d’années, l’image du pays dans les médias français oscille constamment d’un pôle à l’autre, entre tradition et modernité, menace et opportunité, partenariat et rivalité. Les représentations médiatiques de la Chine en France résultent d’une combinaison de facteurs d’ordre politique, économique, culturel et communicationnel. Dans le travail de recherche que nous proposons, ces représentations sont envisagées comme processus de co-construction impliquant de multiples acteurs sociaux, français comme chinois, et soumis à des contraintes avant tout socio-économiques des médias en tant qu’industries culturelles. La recherche tente ainsi de saisir les logiques présidant au fonctionnement des industries du contenu, sur fond de profondes mutations, et de comprendre dans quelle mesure la structuration des entreprises médiatiques est de nature à peser sur la production de l’information internationale ayant trait à la Chine. Cette étude s’appuie sur l’analyse des mécanismes de construction de l’image de la Chine dans trois titres de presse d’information générale et politique française, chacun représentatif d’un type de journal, distinctif par sa fréquence, sa zone de diffusion et ses modalités organisationnelles. Il s’agit d’examiner les transformations économiques, technologiques, gestionnaires et éditoriales de ces médias ainsi que leurs conséquences sur les conditions et leur mode de production et de faire ressortir les convergences et les divergences de modalités de traitement de la Chine entre les différentes familles de presse. Par ailleurs, comme les représentations médiatiques de la Chine en France dépassent largement les enjeux internes liés au seul champ des médias et embrassent des intérêts géopolitiques et, de plus en plus, économiques, nous prenons également en considération l’ensemble de ces paramètres afin d’appréhender l’image de la Chine dans toute sa complexité. / With the rise of China on the global stage over the past decade, the image of the country in the French media is constantly oscillating between tradition and modernity, threat and opportunity, partnership and rivalry. Media representations of China in France result from a combination of political, economic, cultural and communication factors. In this research, these representations are considered as a process of co-construction that involves multiple social actors, French as well as Chinese, and subject to socioeconomic constraints of the media as cultural industries. This study attempts to understand the operational logics of the content industries, against a backdrop of profound changes, and to apprehend how the functioning of media organizations is likely to affect the production of international news related to China. This research is based on the analysis of the construction of China's image in three French newspapers of the general and political information press, each representative of a type of newspaper, distinctive in terms of frequency, dissemination area and organization. The goal is to examine the economic, technological, managerial and editorial transformations of these media and their consequences on the conditions and their mode of production and to point out the convergences and divergences of media coverage of China between the different categories of press. Furthermore, as media representations of China in France extend far beyond the stakes related to the only media field and embrace geopolitical and, increasingly, economic interests, we also take into consideration all these parameters in order to understand the image of China in all its complexity.

I slutet av 2019 utbröt covid-19 pandemin vilket ledde till en ökad mängd distansarbete för företag och dess medarbetare samtidigt som användningen av digitala kommunikationsverktyg ökade. Distansarbetet har lett till att företag och organisationer har behövt utforma nya arbetssätt och strategier för att verksamheterna skall kunna fortlöpa utan att medarbetarnas motivation blir lidande. Denna studie innehåller motivationsteorier, distansarbetets påverkan på medarbetarnas motivation samt vilka följder detta kommer att ha på den framtida arbetssituationen inom mediebranschen. Genom kvalitativa intervjuer och en surveyundersökning riktad till medarbetare inom mediebranschen har ett bredare perspektiv framkommit inom ämnet. Studiens slutsats visar på att det finns utmaningar gällande implementeringen av distansarbete och användandet av digitala kommunikationsverktyg men att det kan leda till fördelar om vissa aspekter tas hänsyn till på olika sätt. Slutligen har studien även påvisat att distansarbetet lett till en förändrad arbetssituation i form av en hybridvariant av arbete på plats och distansarbete. / At the end of 2019, the covid-19 pandemic broke out, which led to an increased amount of teleworking for companies and their employees at the same time as the use of digital communication tools increased. Teleworking has led companies and organizations to design new working methods and strategies so that the operations can continue without the employees' motivation suffering. This study contains motivation theories, what impact teleworking has on employees' motivation and what consequences this will have on the future work situation in the media industry. Through qualitative interviews and a survey aimed at employees in the media industry, a broader perspective has emerged in the subject. The study's conclusion shows that there are challenges regarding the implementation of telework and the use of digital communication tools, but that it can lead to advantages in certain aspects due to different ways. Finally, the study has also shown that teleworking has led to a changed work situation in the form of a hybrid variant of on-site work and teleworking.

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The video game industry has in three decades gone from a garage hobby to a global multi-billion euro media industry that challenges the significantly older and established cultural industries. After decades of explosive growth the industry surprisingly finds itself in a crisis – in terms of sales, future trajectories and creative paradigms. The global gaming culture receives substantial attention from society, media and academia – but the industry itself appears in comparison as an enigmatic terra incognita with astonishingly little dedicated research. This thesis aims to amend this situation by presenting a study at the cross-section of the video game industry, game studies, literary theory, cultural industries and business studies. It deals with the following question: how does the global game industry relate to its own product, in terms of communication and media dimensions, and what are the (business) consequences, in terms of production, strategy and commercial/creative innovation, of this relationship? This study’s departure point is constituted by a comprehensive description of the industry’s structure, dynamics and processes, based on extensive interviews with industry professionals. It is followed by an examination and comparison of the game industry with other media/cultural industries in relation to their economy and business dynamics. With inconclusive answers regarding the medium-industry relation, this study proceeds by exploring literary theories from the field of game studies, in order to gain insights into the dynamics of medium and industry. Literary theories from ludology and narratology provide rewarding perspectives on this inquiry, since it is found that the ontological dichotomy of simulation vs. respresentation present in the interpretational realm of the game medium is also reflected in the industry and its dynamics. This has pivotal consequences for the analysis of the game industry. This study concludes by positing the current critical condition of the industry as an extremely decisive moment in its history: will it become a truly universal mass-medium, or will it continue down its subcultural path? Subcultural “interactive cinema” meets mass-cultural media of simulation – how will the industry evolve? / QC20100708

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