class 7 Wall St, inhouse recommendations 

These two reads look at the “Hollywood” apparatus from different angles:  critical media scholar and industry insiders.  

Read both with a critical eye.  Go through the reading questions in advance.  And for both, the reading prompts include an ask for you to select two sequences in each article (for a total of 4) that would be purposeful to follow-up – and possibly include in a “crime board” wall display. 

Read the #2 UCLA report with some healthy skepticism.  It is based on interviews with 21 “leaders’ in the industry who are connected to “successful” DI initiatives.  The stories quoted as rationale for specific practices are for the most part, not backed by substantive research.  This is not to dispute the importance of their findings;  just asking you to be a critical reader.    

  1. Andrew deWaard.  Wall Street’s Content Wars: Financing Media Consolidation, Working Paper.  University of California, San Diego.  2020
  2. UCLA Division of Social Sciences.  By All M.E.A.N.S. Necessary:  Essential Practices for Transforming Hollywood Diversity and Inclusion.  September 2019.

Reading questions – post on your rolling Google doc.  Send link to instructor:  jsaxe@umass.edu.  Include date and name of assignment at the top of your response notes.  Single-space, proof-read.  No more than 1-2 pages.

  1. For both reads, what are some key takeaways?   What are your thoughts?   How do any of the critical readings you’ve done in the first part of the term relate to these articles?
  2. How do they compare and contrast?  How might they talk to each other?  Where might they agree or disagree?  
  3. In their understandings of Hollywood power, what are the implications for systemic change:  how it happens – or not?   Who has agency and what are the consequences?
  4. For each article, find two key sequences – ideas, information, analysis, suggestion – that seem particularly meaningful, that you might want to explore further; for a total of four.  Each should be no more than a sentence or a few.  Copy and paste with page numbers.