Envisioning Media Power: On Capital and Geographies of Television. Brett Christophers. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield/Lexington Books, 2009. 467 pp.
In a sometimes quite complex book, Brett Christophers develops an original geographical perspective on the nature and exercise of power in the international television economy, essentially a study of programming trade.
He applies theories of political economy as the basis for a comparative empirical examination of the television markets in both Britain and New Zealand, while considering those markets’ respective relationships with the far larger American market and its globally influential media corporations. That power is often expressed in terms of money accumulation is made clear. Sharing a common (well, largely common) language across the three nations makes for ready comparisons.
The book’s eleven chapters are divided into three main sections: knowing the television economy, capitalizing and circulating power, and from space to place. To these, the author adds an introduction, section conclusions, and an overall coda or epilogue.
In presenting his geographical perspective, Christophers, a research fellow in social and economic geography at Uppsala University in Sweden, critically addresses the power to produce, reproduce, and (always important) extract profit from territorially based (e.g., national) media markets. To explain these different powers, he examines the sometimes varied processes in each country of creation and dissemination of industry knowledge, their often quite different structures of industry governance, and the locational characteristics of television’s operational economy.
Through its combination of conceptual insights with empirical substance, Envisioning Media Power helps to make clear the fabric of television’s increasingly international economy, and ultimately offers a new theoretical argument—suggesting that power, knowledge, and geography are inseparable not only from one another, but from the process of accumulation of media capital.
Along the way, many program examples help to clarify the arguments. Several charts and a map illustrate key points.
Christophers’ book is based on his doctoral dissertation at the University of Auckland. What he has accomplished is to help readers discern how the increasingly global television market operates and some of the implications of that growing trade.
CHRISTOPHER H. STERLING
George Washington University