Author Conversations – Global Media Podchat

This podcast series explores how media content circulates through various media channels, infrastructures, and industrial formations around the world. Examining a range of global media flows through the lens of recent work by scholars concerned with how global media industries operate according to distinct (yet frequently overlapping) disciplinary perspectives, this podcast series works to build a comparative understanding of how such industries function in various regions and global contexts. Each episode features a different author of a recent book engaged in questions concerning how texts, technologies, and geopolitics interact in different cultural and industrial settings. We ultimately invite listeners to consider the historical, political, economic, and social construction of media infrastructures, alongside their various regional and global industrial dynamics and influences.

Author Conversations: Courtney Brannon Donaghue: The Value Gap – Global Media Podchat

The Value Gap traces female-driven filmmaking across development, financing, production, film festivals, marketing, and distribution, examining the realities facing women working in the industry during this transformative moment. Drawing from five years of extensive interviews with female producers, writers, and directors at different stages of their careers, Courtney Brannon Donoghue examines how Hollywood business cultures “value" female-driven projects as risky or not bankable. Industry claims that “movies targeting female audiences don't make money" or “women can't direct big-budget blockbusters" have long circulated to rationalize systemic gender inequities and have served to normalize studios prioritizing the white male–driven status quo. Swapnil Rai⁠, Assistant Professor, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Amber Hardiman, Doctoral Candidate, University of Michigan in conversation with Courtney Brannon Donaghue⁠.