Media and Entertainment

Media and entertainment companies create products and provide services for different purposes. They may aim to educate and raise awareness or entertain and give temporary escape from the stresses of daily life. From newspapers, television and radio news shows, educational books, documentaries, and reality shows, to cartoons, animated films, sitcoms, fiction films and books, workers in media and entertainment bring various skills and backgrounds to their jobs.

The film industry is divided into commercial and technological filmmaking companies. These include film production companies, film studios, cinematography, film production, screenwriting, pre-production, post-production, film festivals, and distribution. In general, there are three main phases of filmmaking: pre-production, principal shooting, and post-production. Pre-production is all of the groundwork that needs to be done before the actual shooting of a film can begin. It includes creating budgets and setting up payroll, casting talent, hiring crews, designing costumes, scouting and contracting locations, and building sets. Pre-production workers create schedules and divide the script into scenes based on shoot locations and casting requirements—this also helps to keep expenses down. Artists also create storyboards, which are images or illustrations of the movie’s scenes, broken out in sequence from beginning to end of the film. This helps producers, directors, and creatives pre-visualize the various angles and actions they’ll be capturing throughout the movie.

Pre-production then flows into actual film shooting, known as principal photography or principal shooting. Movies are typically shot in individual scenes, which is the “raw footage.” It’s in post-production when moviemaking “magic” happens, e.g., editors weave the usable raw footage into a story, composers add musical backgrounds, special-effects teams add the special effects, and sound-effects artists, known as foley artists, add sounds such as doors creaking, footsteps, or gunshots. Post-production also involves audience testing before releasing the movie, promotion and publicity, distribution, and the creation of auxiliary products such as DVDs and soundtracks.

Job locations for film workers vary depending on the nature of their work. For instance, pre-production workers such as scouting agents spend a great deal of time traveling to various locations, and this can mean national or international travel, whereas storyboard artists work inside in studios. Producers and directors work in offices and on location at shoots. They may have comfortable days inside on sets or be exposed to a wide variety of elements while on location on city streets, in deserts, jungles, on mountaintops, or at sea. Post-production workers are usually located inside in studios and offices.

Television and radio broadcasters create and broadcast original content and/or acquire the right to distribute and broadcast original content. The industry groups—radio, television, cable, and other subscription programming—differ from each other by their communication methods and the types of services they provide. The radio and TV broadcasting industry includes organizations that operate broadcasting studios and facilities for over-the-air or satellite delivery of radio and TV programs of entertainment, news, talk, etc. These organizations are often involved in the production and purchase of programs and generating revenues from selling air time to advertisers and from donations, subsidies, and/or the sale of programs. Cable stations and other subscription programming groups operate studios and facilities that broadcast programs that have a more specific focus, known as narrowcast. These programs are aimed at specific geographical locations or audiences with special interests and usually require viewers to subscribe or pay a fee. Some examples of narrowcasting include the History channel, ESPN, HGTV (Home and Garden), and the Cooking Channel. Satellite, or subscription, radio is another type of narrowcasting. Radio stations use direct broadcasting satellites to broadcast higher quality sound, more programs, and fewer commercials. Most people use satellite radio such as Sirius in their cars.

There are a wide variety of jobs in radio and television—on camera, at the mic, and behind the scenes—including advertising sales agents, broadcast technicians, producers and directors, on-air personalities such as radio and television announcers, and reporters and correspondents. Broadcast technicians and announcers typically work indoors in radio, TV, or recording studios. Some may work outdoors also to broadcast programs and news, such as sports announcers covering a football game, or announcers covering an event like New Year’s Eve in Times Square. Producers, directors, reporters, and correspondents work in a variety of settings: offices, outdoors, from their homes, and on the road. Producers and directors work in offices as well as outside in all elements or inside studio sets. Reporters and correspondents are usually in offices but also travel to cover stories and get first-hand interviews.

People employed in the publishing industry work for newspapers, magazines, book publishers, journals, periodicals, and other media. They help create and distribute original content, or content they have obtained copyright to, that informs, educates, and entertains readers. They may work for a magazine within a large corporation, such as one of the many magazines that the Hearst Corporation owns, including Car & Driver, Cosmopolitan, Country Living, Elle, Food Network Magazine, Good Housekeeping, O (The Oprah Magazine), Popular Mechanics, and Town & Country. Or, they may be on staff of a small, independently owned book publishing company or a university press.

Newspaper publishers report news on current events such as political events, political personalities, crime, business, entertainment, society, and sports. Many newspapers also include editorial pages that editors write to comment on recent events or topics of discussion and debate, and opinion pieces, or op-eds, that are written by readers who are unaffiliated with the newspaper. In addition to subscription revenue, newspapers rely on advertisements as sources of income. Newspapers come in a variety of sizes. Some are small, local, and weekly, and they might also be free. Others may be published daily, or two or three times a week; readers can buy them at newspaper stands and shops, or subscribe to them through the mail or online. Their geographical scope may be local, covering a city or part of a large city, or national, and some are international. The Wall Street Journal, for example, is a national newspaper that specializes in financial issues, whereas the New York Times International Edition (formerly the International Herald Tribune) is an international newspaper. The departments usually found within newspapers include the news department, where reporters, editors, and photographers work; production department, which includes graphic designers and Web designers; advertising and circulation, which focuses on selling ad space and subscriptions; and administration, including human resources and accounting. Many newspapers have print and online editions, and some are solely Web-based, such as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Britain's The Independent.

The work environment for newspaper employees varies depending on the job they hold. Reporters, editors, and photographers work in the newsroom and out in the field; they travel for meetings and assignments. They may be out of the office for an hour or two to cover a press conference at city hall, or away for a few days or more to gather information and conduct interviews for a story in another state or country. The newspaper’s production, advertising and circulation, and administrative workers are usually located at the newspaper’s headquarters. Newspaper employees and contract workers may also work part of the time from their home offices.

Magazine publishers distribute magazines and other periodicals in print and electronic form. Magazine employees gather content by assigning and writing articles, editing the writing, creating images and artwork to accompany articles, and selling and preparing advertisements. In addition to Hearst, the top magazine publishers include Condé Nast and Dotdash Meredith. In addition to publishing consumer magazines, magazine publishing companies also publish trade publications, Web sites, and many also create and develop business and lifestyle brands online. There are more than 7,400 consumer magazines published in this country, yet only a small percent have circulations above 100,000 copies.

Book publishers produce books that are specific to their target audience. Traditional or trade book publishers acquire, edit, produce, publish, and sell the books that are usually sold in brick-and-mortar bookstores as well as online at stores like Amazon and Powell's, among others. The books they create include mass-market paperbacks, hardcover books, trade books, eBooks, and audio books, and they cover a variety of topics and genres. (A trade book is a book that’s created for distribution to the general public.) Today, many trade book publishers are part of larger media entities that may also own textbook publishers. For instance, Penguin Random House LLC and Pearson are wholly owned subsidiaries of Bertelsmann AG, a media conglomerate. Hachette Book Group, which has imprints such as Little, Brown & Company and Grand Central, is a wholly owned subsidiary of the French media company Lagardère.

Other types of book publishers include promotional or bargain book publishers, book packagers, educational publishers, and self-publishers. Bargain book publishers create bargain books and related products such as calendars and activity kits. Consumers find these types of low-cost books, including souvenir and craft books, in the bargain areas of bookstores. Bargain publishers also combine several novels by well-known authors, such as classic authors Charles Dickens and Jane Austen and contemporary writers like Stephen King and Anne Rice, into one large book. Book packagers develop ideas for books or for series of books and sell their concepts to publishers. Packagers handle the editorial and production work for the publisher, and usually ship the finished books to the publisher’s warehouse, unless the book publisher has agreed to print and bind the book. Educational publishers create books for students in various grades. Some may specialize in creating text books for elementary and high school (“elhi”) classrooms. Major textbook publishers include McGraw-Hill and Pearson. There are also professional publishers, like John Wiley & Sons (also known as Wiley), which publish books for professionals such as architects, doctors, and lawyers. Self-publishing companies like Barnes and Noble Press, Kindle Direct Publishing, Lulu.com, and Scribd are popular platforms for self-publishing and distribution, allowing just about anyone to be a published author. In the early days of self-publishing, authors chose this route when traditional publishing companies rejected their manuscript. Today, authors who prefer to be independent and have more control over their work self-publish without first approaching traditional publishers. They also self-publish when they know their book’s topic is so specific or has such a small audience that there’s little point in going through the traditional pitching process.