Commerce
The money context: who pays, what they expect back, and how both shape the text — in production and in reception.
- reference
- context-force
The economic forces on a media product, through both lenses
Production: budgets, financing, star bankability, schedules, what a studio thinks will sell. Reception: ticket prices, marketing, platforms, subscription and ad models — the economics of how audiences get access.
What to ask
Who paid, and what did they believe they were buying? What did money forbid, and what did scarcity invent? How was the audience's attention purchased?
Canonical cases
Psycho (1960) end to end: Paramount's refusal, Hitchcock's deferred fee, the TV crew and $800k budget — then Selling Psycho: the no-late-admission policy on the reception side. Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974): Ellen Burstyn's post-Exorcist bankability buying a first-time-at-a-studio director creative room, and one day of that budget buying The $85,000 backdrop.
Sources
In the books
[…] from production to publicity to distribution to exhibition, they created a model system–the 'studio system'–which other countries had to imitate in order to compete.
The Oxford History of World Cinema, Douglas Gomery on Hollywood, ohwc 43.
Media & Society carries stardom as an economic instrument at mas 375 and globalisation at mas 415.