John Thornton Caldwell's landmark Specworld demonstrates how
twenty-first-century media industries monetize and industrialize
creative labor at all levels of production. Through illuminating case
studies and rich ethnography of colliding social-media and filmmaking
practices, Caldwell takes readers into the world of production
workshopping and trade mentoring to show media production as an untidy
social construct rather than a unified, stable practice. This messy
complex system, he argues, is full of discrete yet interconnected parts
that include legacy production companies, marketers and influencers,
aspirant online producers, data miners, financiers, talent agencies, and
more. Caldwell peels away the layers of these embedded production
systems to examine the folds, fault lines, and fractures that underlie a
risky, high-pressure, and often exploitative industry. With insights on
the ethical and human predicament faced by industry hopefuls and
crossover creators seeking professional careers, Caldwell offers new
interpretive frames and research methods that allow readers to better
see the hidden and multifaceted financial logics and forms of labor
embedded in contemporary media production industries.