How Hollywood Works

By Janet Wasko
December 2003: Sage Publications
ISBN: (hardcover) 076196813X; (paperback) 0761968148

Professor Janet Wasko’s classes on Disney and The Simpsons are legendary in the School of Journalism and Communication, as is her expertise in political economy. In her fourth single-authored title (she has edited or co-edited fourteen others), Wasko, the school’s Knight Chair in Communication Research, explores the policies and practices of Hollywood’s film industry —from the purchasing of a script to the marketing of related merchandise. Sage Publications calls it a “timely and essential analysis of how Hollywood works for all students of film and media.” Wasko says, “Lots of books talk about various aspects of the film industry, but few look critically at the industry as whole and how it works.”

How many books have you written?

This is the fourth book I've written. I've edited or co-edited 14 others.

Why did you write this one?

It was needed. Lots of books talk about various aspects of the film industry, but few look critically at the industry as whole and how it works.

Are you using it as a textbook? Is anyone else that you know of?

I'll be using the book as one of the readings in the US Film Industry course in the Spring (J412/512). It's being used at Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania That's the only place I know of at the moment.

What's your next book about? (or, rather, what are you working on now?)

I'm editing on a major collection about television: A Companion for Television, to be published by Blackwell Publishing. Plus, another collection called: Cultural Capitalism: Media in the Age of Marketization (with Graham Murdock, Loughborough University, UK) will be published by Hampton Press. The next single-authored book will be The Political Economy of Media, to be published by Polity Press. Another collection is still in the planning stages, but is an edited collection that presents an overview of the contemporary US film industry.