Looks beyond broadcasting's mainstream, toward cable's alternatives, to critically consider the capacity of commercial media to serve the public interest. This work offers an overview of the industry's history and regulatory trends, case studies of cable newcomers aimed at niche markets, and analyses of programming forms introduced by cable TV.

After broadband access, what next? What role do metrics play in understanding “information societies”? And, more important, in shaping their policies? Beyond counting people with broadband access, how can economic and social metrics inform broadband policies, help evaluate their outcomes, and create useful models for achieving national goals? This timely volume not only examines the traditional questions about broadband, like availability and access, but also explores and evaluates new metrics more applicable to the evolving technologies of information access. Beyond Broadband Access brings together a stellar array of media policy scholars from a wide range of disciplines—economics, law, policy studies, computer science, information science, and communications studies. Importantly, it provides a well-rounded, international perspective on theoretical approaches to databased communications policymaking in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Showcasing a diversity of approaches, this invaluable collection helps to meet myriad challenges to improving the foundations for communications policy development.

From the rise of fully automated factories to the creation of new migrant workforces, the world of work, employment and production is rapidly changing. By reshaping the global distribution of wealth, jobs and opportunities, these processes are unleashing profound social and environmental tensions, as well as new political movements. As a means to address these crucial themes, Global Labour Studies elaborates an innovative interdisciplinary framework that builds upon the concepts of power, networks, space and livelihoods. This approach is deployed to explore core topics including global production networks, labour market dynamics, formal and informal sectors, migration and forced labour, agriculture and environment, corporate social responsibility and new labour organizations. Written in a lively and engaging format that draws upon a diverse range of illustrative case studies, the book provides the reader with an accessible repertoire of analytical tools and offers an essential guide to the field. This makes it a uniquely rich text for undergraduate courses on global labour issues across the fields of geography, politics, sociology, labour studies and international development.

The Broadcast Century and Beyond is a popular history of the most influential and innovative industry of the century. The story of broadcasting is told in a direct and informal style, blending personal insight and authoritative scholarship to fully capture the many facets of this dynamic industry. The book vividly depicts the events, people, programs, and companies that made television and radio dominant forms of communication. The latest edition includes coverage of all the technologies that have emerged over the past decade and discusses the profound impact they have had on the broadcasting industry in political, social, and economic spheres. "Broadcasting as a whole has been completely revolutionized with the advent of YouTube, podcasting, iphones, etc, and the authors show how this closing of world-wide broadcasting channels affects the industry.

The collision of new technologies, changing business strategies, and innovative storytelling that produced a new golden age of TV. Cable television channels were once the backwater of American television, programming recent and not-so-recent movies and reruns of network shows. Then came La Femme Nikita, OZ, The Sopranos, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, and The Walking Dead. And then, just as “prestige cable” became a category, came House of Cards and Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video, and other Internet distributors of television content. What happened? In We Now Disrupt This Broadcast, Amanda Lotz chronicles the collision of new technologies, changing business strategies, and innovative storytelling that produced an era termed “peak TV.” Lotz explains that changes in the business of television expanded the creative possibilities of television. She describes the costly infrastructure rebuilding undertaken by cable service providers in the late 1990s and the struggles of cable channels to produce (and pay for) original, scripted programming in order to stand out from the competition. These new programs defied television conventions and made viewers adjust their expectations of what television could be. Le Femme Nikita offered cable's first antihero, Mad Men cost more than advertisers paid, The Walking Dead became the first mass cable hit, and Game of Thrones was the first global television blockbuster. Internet streaming didn't kill cable, Lotz tells us. Rather, it revolutionized how we watch television. Cable and network television quickly established their own streaming portals. Meanwhile, cable service providers had quietly transformed themselves into Internet providers, able to profit from both prestige cable and streaming services. Far from being dead, television continues to transform.