Point of Sale offers the first significant attempt to center media retail as a vital component in the study of popular culture. It brings together fifteen essays by top media scholars with their fingers on the pulse of both the changes that foreground retail in a digital age and the history that has made retail a fundamental part of the culture industries. The book reveals why retail matters as a site of transactional significance to industries as well as a crucial locus of meaning and interactional participation for consumers. In addition to examining how industries connect books, DVDs, video games, lifestyle products, toys, and more to consumers, it also interrogates the changes in media circulation driven by the collision of digital platforms with existing retail institutions. By grappling with the contexts in which we buy media, Point of Sale uncovers the underlying tensions that define the contemporary culture industries.
Contents
Introduction: Media Studies in the Retail Apocalypse
Derek Johnson and Daniel Herbert
Part I: Retail and New Media Technologies
Chapter 1: Industrial Crossroads or Cross Purposes? Circuit City, DIVX, and the History of Multi-functional Media Retailers
Daniel Herbert
Chapter 2: Amazon, Bookseller: Disruption and Continuity in Digital Capitalism
Emily West
Chapter 3: The First Sale Doctrine and U.S. Media Retail
Gregory Steirer
Chapter 4: Game Retail and Crowdfunding
Heikki Tyni and Olli Sotamaa
Chapter 5: The App Store: Female Consumers, Shopping, and Digital Culture
Elizabeth Affuso
Part II: Media and the Politics of Constructing Retail Space
Chapter 6: Shelf Flow: Spatial Logics, Product Categorizations, and Media Brands at Retail
Avi Santo
Chapter 7: Get Your Cape On: Target’s Invitation to the DC Universe
Ethan Tussey and Meredith Bak
Chapter 8: Shop, Makeover, Love: Transformative Paratexts and Aspirational Fandom for Female-Driven Franchises
Courtney Brannon Donoghue
Chapter 9: Female Treble: Gender, Record Retail, and a Play for Space
Tim J. Anderson
Chapter 10: “It’s Not Just Commerce, It’s Community”: Erotic Media and the Feminist Sex-Toy Store Revolution
Lynn Comella
Part III: Practices and Participation in Media Retail Communities
Chapter 11: Comic Book Stores as Sites of Struggle
Benjamin Woo and Nasreen Rajani
Chapter 12: From Dealer’s Room to Exhibit Hall: Comic Retailing and the San Diego Comic-Con
Erin Hanna
Chapter 13: The Changing Scales of Diasporic Media Retail
Evan Elkins
Chapter 14: Delivering Media: The Convenience Store as Media Mix Hub
Marc Steinberg
Chapter 15: Retail Wizardry: Constructing Media Fantasies from the Point of Sale
Derek Johnson
DANIEL HERBERT is an associate professor in the department of film, television, and media at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is the author of Videoland: Movie Culture at the American Video Store and Film Remakes and Franchises.
DEREK JOHNSON is professor of media and cultural studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of Media Franchising: Creative License and Collaboration in the Culture Industries and Transgenerational Media Industries: Adults, Children, and the Reproduction of Culture.
