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 CONTENTS

PREFACE xiii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xvi

Chapter 1 Understanding Media Industries 1

Understanding Media Industries 2
Why Study Media Industries 4
Defining Media Industries 5
Media Industries in Society 6
All Media Matter in the Public Sphere 7
Agency and Ideology in Media Industries 10
Agency in Media Organizations 11
Organizational Cultures and Norms 12
The Ideological Uncertainty of Media Content 13
Cultures of Production 13
Understanding Media Industries in the Twenty-First Century 15
The Rise of Information Economy 16
The Emergence of Mass Customization 17
Long Downturn 18
Media Industries and Mass Customization 19
Questions 21

Chapter 2 The Industrialization of Culture Framework

and Key Economic Concepts 23
The Industrialization of Culture Framework 23
Mandates 25
Conditions 26
Practices 27

vii
viii CONTENTS

How Does This Framework Work? 28

Key Economic Aspects of the Media Industries 30
Fundamentals of Media Commodities 30
Media Industry Responses to Risk 32
Ownership and Conglomeration Strategies 33
Formatting 40
Conclusion 43
Questions 44
Further Reading 44

Chapter 3 Media Industry Mandates 47

What Are Common Mandates? 51
Commercial Media 51
Noncommercial Media 53
Public Mandate Media 53
Community, Alternative/DrY Mandate Media 56
Governmental Mandate Media 58
Mandates in Action 60
Establishing the Mandate of US Broadcasting 61
Limits of Mandates 63
Questions 64
Further Reading 64

Chapter 4 Regulation of the Media Industries 67

Why Is Broadcasting Different? 70
Who Regulates? 73
Governmental Bodies 73
International Regulations 76
Self-Regulation 78
What Is Regulated? 80
Content Regulations 80
Copyright 82
Structural and Operational Regulations 85
Ownership Regulations 85
Economic Regulations: Rate Control and Subsidies 88
Licenses and License Renewal 89
Monopoly and Antitrust Restrictions 90
Other Regulatory Conditions 91
Regulations Governing Distribution 91
 Contents ix

An Emerging Area: Broadband Policy 92

Prosocial Regulation 92
Technological Standards: The Case of the Digital Television
Transition 93
Conclusion 94
Questions 95
Further Reading 95

Chapters Economic Conditions In Media Production 97

The Creative and Cultural Implications of Cost Structures
and Financing Mechanisms 99
The Costs of Making Media 100
Development Costs 100
Production Costs 101
Marketing and Distribution Costs 101
Overhead Costs 102
How Are the Costs of Creating Media Funded? 103
Independent Funding of a Single Good 103
Financing a Single Media Good Through Publisher
Funding 106
Financing a Continuous Medium 108
The Economics of Audiences: Ways of Paying
for Media Products 113
Characteristics ofAdvertiser-Supported Media 113
Characteristics of Media Not Supported by Advertising 116
Direct Pay 117
Subscription 117
Emerging Payment Models 118
Characteristics of Media With Dual Revenue Streams 119
Emerging Business Strategies for Media Industries 121
Conclusion 122
Questions 124
Further Reading 125

Chapter 6 Technological Conditions of the Media Industries 129

Theories of Technological Change 132
The Circuit of Cultural Production 134
Technology and Other Conditions 136
Technology and Industry Structure 137
Technology and Prevalent Business Models 138
x CONTENTS

Technological Conditions and Media Industry Practices 141

Industrial Restraints on Technological Innovation 143
Conclusion 145
Questions 146
Further Reading 146

Chapter 7 Creative Practices and Media Work 149

Creative Visions: Approaches to Making Media 151
Creative Roles Above and Below the Line 154
Industry Executives: Enabling and Limiting Creativity 155
Commercial Influences: Audience Research 158
Commercial Influences: Industry Norms, Organizational Cultures,
and Circumscribed Agency 161
Creativity in an Era of Change 165
Creativity and Labor Practices in Digital Media Industries 166
Conclusion 168
Questions 169
Further Reading 169

Chapter 8 Media Distribution and Aggregation Practices 171

Distinguishing Distribution and Aggregation Practices 172
Distribution and Aggregation Industry Roles 177
The Roles of Distributors 177
The Roles ofAggregators 180
Distribution and Aggregation Strategies 181
Windowing: A Changing Strategy of Media Distribution 183
Conclusion 186
Questions 187
Further Reading 187

Chapter 9 Digitization 189

Understanding Digitization 190
Digitization and Shifts in Production 193
Print 194
Audio 197
Video 198
Digitization and Shifts in Aggregation and Distribution 201
Digital Distribution in the Newspaper Industry 203
Digitization and Changes in Use 207
Choice 208
 Contents xi

Fragmentation 209
Convenience 211
Coming Change 212
Conclusion 214
Questions 215
Further Reading 216

Chapter 10 Media Globalization 219

The History of Media Globalization and American Dominance 221
Drivers of Media Globalization 222
Film 223
Television 223
Gaming 223
Music 224
Magazines 224
Newspapers 224
Advertising 225
Barriers to Media Globalization 226
Cultural Barriers 226
Technological and Regulatory Barriers 227
Overcoming Barriers to Globalization 229
Global Promotions and Buzz 230
International Co-Production 231
Dubbing and Subtitling 233
Localization 235
Outsourcing 236
Media Globalization in the Global South 237
The Commercial and Social Consequences
of Media Globalization 238
Expanded Markets and Innovation 238
Cultural Imperialism Versus Hybridity 240
Connecting Dispersed Communities 241
Conclusion 241
Questions 242
Further Reading 243

GLOSSARY 245
CREDITS 263
INDEX 265
 PREFACE

U nderstanding Media Industries guides students through an introductory explora-

tion of the complex and rapidly evolving media industries in the United States. The
origins of this book are in the classroom. It grew out of our introductory media indus-
tries courses, which we've taught at various universities, in classrooms large and small,
each of us for nearly two decades. In these courses, we found that existing textbooks
tend to have either thematic and conceptual consistency or a thorough and nuanced
understanding of the complexities of media industry operations, but none achieve both.
Rather than simply cobble together an array of material from media economics, political
economy, and more concrete explanations of actual industry practices (usually in col-
lections with a chapter focused on various industries), we wanted to provide this mate-
rial with a center-a core conceptual framework particularly crucial in an introductory
class. Research and perspectives on media industry operation have grown tremendously
in recent years, yet we have also found that frameworks of study or distinctive theoreti-
cal approaches often remain lacking.

The Unique Approach of This Book: Industrialization of Culture

Among the key challenges of designing a media industry class are the variation among
industries and national contexts and the impermanence of information as industry
practices and structures change constantly. Consequently, we felt a conceptual frame-
work would be the most valuable contribution we could make to the existing literature,
with the idea that such a framework would provide a map for students becoming aware
of media industries for the first time. In designing it, we interrogated many of the previ-
ously unexamined assumptions that have driven our own scholarship and findings.
Rather than the prescriptive form we associate more with the creation of "models," we
believe our "framework" brings a looser, yet productive, order to the variation charac-
teristic of media industry operation and a language for speaking about media industries
in a manner that has wide application.
Thus, after many long discussions about vocabulary and the relationships among
media industries and their practices, we developed the Industrialization of Culture
framework that provides the core organization of this book. The framework is a synthesis

xiii
xiv PREFACE

of many ideas that are now well established in media studies; its innovation is primarily
its articulation and explanation of these ideas. Our primary goal was to allow for the
complexity of media industry operation while nevertheless making these operations
understandable at a conceptual level. For example, we sought to explain different pay-
ment schemes and how they can affect media content, while not providing a detailed
listing of every variation of advertising or direct payment that can be found in contem-
porary media industries. We hope to offer a starting point that introduces novice stu-
dents to the basic processes and components of media-making while setting forth a
vocabulary and set of relationships (the framework) that more advanced students can
use to begin to make applications.
The book introduces and explains the Industrialization of Culture framework,
which identifies the key areas and aspects of media industries that must be considered
when analyzing how media industries function and why they do the things they do. The
last two chapters of the book examine two dynamics-digitization and globalization-
that are causing significant changes in media industry operation and explore how prior
norms of operation are changing in every level of the framework.
We openly acknowledge it is impossible to write a concise text that explains all
media industries everywhere. Thus we try to be succinct and provide only enough ex-
amples to make the point-allowing instructors to introduce further applications in
their teaching or through assignments. We rely heavily on the framework as an organiz-
ing force in the hope that it provides a malleable tool for instructors that can be applied
to a variety of teaching and media contexts. Certainly, valuable intellectual insights will
come from identifying limitations of the framework and contexts in which its compo-
nents have less explanatory value.
Scholars in a range of fields study media and their industries, and as a result there
is considerable variation in the assumptions, methods, and goals of different types of
research. The approach we take might be best described as that of "media studies." As
media studies scholars, we believe that media and media industries are important be-
cause of their central role in the production and circulation of culture. We are interested
in understanding the interaction between commercial industry realities (regulations,
profit-maximization strategies, pricing, and so on) and the products of media industries
(films, TV shows, music, video games, magazines). 1 We seek to develop understandings of
the media industries that make it clear they are "complex, ambivalent, and contested"; 2
we find that claims and theories about "the media" that suggest uniformity and consis-
tency in their operation are simply not realistic.
Certain conditions may encourage media companies to perform in certain ways,
but situations are often far more complicated than most grand theories about the media
industries imagine. We are much more intrigued with exploring the situations that lead
media companies to react or behave in unique or unexpected ways that force us to reex-
amine our basic assumptions. This is not to say that we would describe our approach as
noncritical; rather, we acknowledge the considerable capital and power of global media
industries but believe it productive to consider how their complexities and inconsisten-
cies create opportunities for critical intervention. We are generally wary of the influence
of commercial media culture on society, though we are by no means willing to dismiss
 Preface xv

commercial media outright. Unlike analysts we would characterize as "free marke-

teers," who believe that commercialization inevitably leads to a vibrant "marketplace of
ideas" that best serves democratic societies, we begin with the assumption that capitalist
societies are inherently unequal, as certain groups have more money and power than
others. Commercial media systems consequently tend to suffer from the same kinds of
inequities that permeate capitalist democracies.

Features of This Book

• Ongoing Support Material. Instructors can access the Instructor's Guide by visiting
Understanding Media Industries' Ancillary Resource Center, at http://oup-arc.com/
havens-lotz/register/, which includes applications of material discussed in the text, as-
signment and class activity ideas, and additional readings and media. Because some-
thing is always changing in the media industries, we'll add new applications on the
ARC. If you'd like to be notified of new material, follow the book at @HavensLotzUMI or
be added to our announcement list by emailing us at understandingmediaindustries
@gmail.com.
• Discussion Questions. At the end of each chapter we include some application and
discussion questions. We offer questions that are less about rote recall of information
and instead provide the basis for group discussions. Many ask the students to begin
from their own interests and experiences in such a way as to be useful as writing exer-
cises as well. Whether your course is a large lecture with smaller discussion sections or
a smaller, discussion-driven class, we hope you will find these useful.
• Application Materials. Application materials are noted in footnotes. These are gener-
ally short videos, audio stories, or print illustrations of the concepts being discussed, as
well as a question that indicates how we see this as an application of the book's material.
Look to the online portal for newer applications as the media industries evolve, and we
welcome suggestions you find helpful as well.
• Suggestions for Further Reading. Each chapter also includes suggestions for further
reading. For the most part, our suggestions are established books that provide greater
depth on the topics necessarily skimmed in this book. These are designed to be useful
as a starting point for student research for assignments. Any of these books would also
provide an excellent source for a book report. We also include a longer list of readings at
the conclusion of Chapter 2. Here we list a number of publications that offer overviews
of specific industries, sorted by industry. These sources will be helpful for students who
want to learn more about a particular industry.

New in the Second Edition

Those familiar with the first edition will find the core features remain, with some reor-
ganization and update throughout. The most significant changes include
• A substantively revised introductory chapter (Chapter 1) that introduces media
industries and why they should be studied. Some material that explains the changing
economic and societal conditions that contribute to the current state of the media
industries, which was previously included in a later chapter, now appears here.
xvi PREFACE

• The first chapter from the first edition (Key Concepts in Media Industry
Studies) has been moved to Chapter 2. This chapter now includes a discussion of
the Industrialization of Culture Framework, as well as updated examples and
material relocated from later chapters.
• Chapter 8 (Auxiliary Practices) has been eliminated and major sections and con-
cepts from that chapter have been moved to other chapters, especially Chapter 7
(Creative Practices) and Chapter 10 (Globalization) in the new edition.
• Chapter 9 (The Growth of the Symbolic Economy) has been removed. Elements
of this chapter, which dealt with larger changes in postindustrial economies, have
been integrated throughout the book, in particular Chapter 1 (Understanding
Media Industries), Chapter 5 (Economics Conditions of Media Production), and
Chapter 9 (Digitization).
• All chapters received a thorough revision and updating. We continually scour
changes in legacy and emerging media and have endeavored to include these
developments in our revisions for this new edition. However, because these de-
velopments often introduce as many questions as answers, we have prioritized
the more conceptual elements of emerging technologies, practices, and industries.
The state of any industry can never quite be captured in a textbook, so we encour-
age students to keep abreast of reportage about the media industries for the most
current developments.

Acknowledgments
We'd like to thank many colleagues who have shared ideas with us throughout the
drafting process, particularly Alisa Perren, Aswin Punathambekar, Douglas Schules,
Serra Tinic, Courtney Brannon Donoghue, Patrick Burkart, Daniel Faltesek, and Joe
Turow. Also, sincere thanks to our anonymous reviewers as well as Jennifer Holt, Uni-
versity of California, Santa Barbara; Vicki Mayer, Tulane University; Paul Mihailidis,
Hofstra University; Susan Moeller, University of Maryland; Kimberly Ann Owczarski,
University of Arizona; Ann Savage, Butler University; and Sharon Sharp, California
State University, Dominguez Hills, for their many thoughts and helpful suggestions.
Also, we owe considerable debt to our outstanding editorial assistants, Jimmy Draper,
Kitior Ngu, and Annemarie Navar-Gill. Our thanks as well to Paul Longo for far ex-
ceeding the duties of an editorial assistant. We hope you enjoy this book! We welcome
suggestions and comments.
We'd also like to thank the reviewers whose comments helped make this edition
better:
Charlene Simmons University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Karen Petruska University of California, Santa Barbara
Sharon Sharp California State University-Dominguez Hills
Andrew 0 Baoill Cazenovia College
Melody Sands Shawnee State University
Cheryl D. Jenkins University of Southern Mississippi
Max Utsler University of Kansas
 Preface xvii

Stephen Rendahl University of North Dakota

Megan Mullen University of Wisconsin-Parkside
Tim Anderson Old Dominion University
Randy Nichols Bentley University
Ann M. Savage Butler University
AmySindik Central Michigan University
Daniel M. Shafer Baylor University
Mara Einstein CUNY-Queens College
Janet Johnson The University of Texas at Dallas
Kyle Conway University of North Dakota
Ethan Tussey Georgia State University
Erin Copple Smith Austin College
Max Hohner Arizona State University
Dorothy Kidd University of San Francisco
Nicholas Boston Lehman College of the City University of New York
Jillian Baez CUNY-College of Staten Island
Stuart Moulthrop University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Timothy Havens

Amanda D. Lotz
Twitter: @DrTVLotz

Notes
1. See also Timothy Havens, Amanda D. Lotz, and Serra Tinic, "Critical Media Indus-
try Studies: A Research Approach," Communication, Culture and Critique 2 (2009):
234-253.
2. David Hesmondhalgh, The Cultural Industries, 2nd ed. (Thousand Oaks, Calif.:
SAGE, 2007), 4.
 CHAPTER 1

Understanding Media Industries

Key Takeaways:
Understand the factors that differentiate the "product" of media industries from other
industries and their importance for society
Understand the roles of individual agency and ideology within the media industries and
how these forces produce diverse and varied products
Understand how the rise of the information economy and transitions from mass production
to mass customization have changed norms of the media industries

I n an episode of the animated series South Park titled "Gnomes," we meet an entrepre-
neurial group of gnomes who steal underwear for profit. They explain their business
plan with the slide shown in Photo 1.1. None of the gnomes is sure what "Phase 2" is, but
they are certain that others know and, more important, that profit can be generated
from stolen underpants.
The wisdom, or folly, of the Underpants Gnomes-their belief that they can some-
how turn stolen underpants into hard cash-is similar in some ways to the commercial
media industry's efforts to generate profits from cultural endeavors. The process of

PHASE2
lie
q, nr.
t
?• Pro fir

Photo 1.1 A gnome on South Park explains their business model.

2 UNDERSTANDING MEDIA INDUSTRIES

building and maintaining an industry on the commercial exploitation of cultural ex-

pression is a challenge; and the uncertainty of "Phase 2" seems particularly relevant in
the present era, when the integration of social media and traditional media industries
makes amazing things possible, but business models remain elusive. Unlike other in-
dustries that produce goods and services, such as the food industry, tax preparation
services, or the automotive industry, none of us needs the kind of popular entertainment
that the media industries largely provide. And for generations, cultural activities, espe-
cially the kinds of domestic amusements that characterize the majority of our media
consumption today, were nonprofessional, spontaneous, and free of charge. Today's
media industries, in contrast, are multibillion-dollar global enterprises that are crucial
as economic drivers and cultural arbiters to the societies that consume their goods even
though media consumers are left with little but their memories afterward.
The fact that media do not fulfill essential human needs is often called the "nonutili-
tarian" feature of media. Yet, while we may not need media in the sense that we need food,
many people nevertheless see media as central to their lives. In addition, many philoso-
phers and politicians see the media as crucial to the proper functioning of a democratic
society because democracies require public forums for discussion as well as the availabil-
ity of news and information, which media commonly provide. Media are widely available
to the public in industrialized societies, and people choose to spend significant amounts
of their leisure time and money on media, again underscoring their importance.
To begin our investigation of media industries, this chapter first explains how
media industries play important social roles by reviewing some of the events and situa-
tions that have led to close scrutiny of media industries. We then move into developing
concepts and vocabulary that will be used throughout the book, including the concept
of agency. Finally, the chapter identifies key issues affecting the media industries in the
twenty-first century.

UNDERSTANDING MEDIA INDUSTRIES

Despite the fact that most of us have spent many hours of our lives consuming media-
perhaps as much as half of our waking hours-we probably know very little about how
and why media are made. We are most familiar with the media texts-the shows, songs,
films, magazines, and games that we watch, listen to, read, or play. We also may be quite
savvy users of media. We know where to look for the content we want and have estab-
lished elaborate rituals of media use, such as reading news headlines between meetings
or classes, listening to music on the go, or relaxing with favorite television shows in the
evening.
The one aspect of media that most people know the least about, however, is how
they are organized into and operate as industries. Most of the media consumed world-
wide are created by businesses aimed at making money, and media industries have been
very profitable indeed. In 2012, for example, Advertising Age reported that the top
100 media companies in the United States brought in more than $340 billion in net
revenue.1 As a reference point, $340 billion is roughly the gross domestic product of
countries such as Thailand, Denmark, or Malaysia. A comparison of revenue (income)
 CHAPTER 1 • Understanding Media Industries 3

and profit (income minus costs) of major US media industries in Table 1.1 further em-
phasizes the relative economic power of media industries.
Media economist Gillian Doyle provides a valuable explanation of the activities
of media industries: "The general aim is to make intellectual property, package it and
maximize revenues by selling it as many times as is feasible to the widest possible
audience and at the highest possible price."2 We may tend to think of the creative as-
pects first, but Doyle's observations about making "intellectual property" and maxi-
mizing profits are crucial to understanding media industries. Though the normal
functioning of the media industries may be outside of our general awareness, under-
standing them is an important component of being an educated citizen and consumer
in today's world.
The focus on studying industries that produce intellectual property is a way of dis-
tinguishing between media industries and what are often called telecommunications or
technology companies. These industries, including companies such as Cox Cable,
Google, and Apple, are often confused with the media industries, but they are distinct
because they primarily provide the technological infrastructures and interfaces through
which we access media content. But they generally do not create media content them-
selves. Of course in an age of technological convergence and consolidation of media
ownership, the distinction between companies that produce content and those that pro-
vide the means to access it is blurring. When Comcast acquired NBC Universal in 2011,

Table 1.1 US Media Industry Revenue

INDUSTRY 2014 REVENUE 2014 PROFIT MAJOR COMPANIES

Content
Major label music $7.68 $450M Universal, Sony, Warner
Newspaper $31.6 $1.38 Gannett, News Corp., Tribune
Magazine $38.28 $1.58 Advance, Time Inc.
Broadcast networks $38.28 $2.68 Disney, NBCUniversal, Fox
Film production $33.88 $2.68 Fox, Disney, NBCUniversal
Cable networks $568 $5.78 Disney, Time Warner, NBCUniversal

Social networking $8.68 $533M Facebook, Linkedln, Twitter

Internet search $22.48 $3.48 Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft
Internet publishing/ $27.38 $6.58 Google, Facebook, Apple
broadcasting

Distribution and Aggregation

Film theaters $14.98 $641M Regal, AMC, Cine mark
Film distribution $2.18 $97.5M RLJ Entertainment
Wired telecomm $129.98 $7.48 AT&T, Verizon, Centurylink
Cable providers $84.98 $15.58 Com cast, Time Warner, Cox
Wireless $2348 $198 Verizon, AT&T, Sprint

Source: 20141BISWorld Market Industry Reports (December 19, 2014).

4 UNDERSTANDING MEDIA INDUSTRIES

for example, it simultaneously became both one of the major providers of media content
and the major cable delivery company in the United States.
Why then do we maintain a distinction between companies that provide content
and those that provide access? The answer is because companies that produce media
content share some basic features and face some basic challenges that companies in-
volved in other industries do not-even those that provide very similar kinds of ser-
vices, like home cable service. So even though Comcast generates revenue from multiple
industry sectors, only those sectors that produce and distribute media content are rele-
vant for our study here. In the same way that we don't closely attend to Disney's theme
park industry even though it is a major revenue source for the media giant, we do not
attend too much to industries and organizations that provide the nuts and bolts of the
technological infrastructure over which to day's media content travels.
Similarly, companies based on broadcasting interpersonal communication such as
Twitter and Facebook are related but distinct from companies primarily structured
around creating intellectual property. Even though Facebook is over a decade old, we
remain in the early days of social media, and its relationship to traditional media and
business models continues to evolve. By the time you read this, some new company will
likely have come along that will test the distinction we feel we can draw based on exist-
ing companies. Although many social media companies rely on advertising in a manner
similar to the business models used by intellectual-property creating media companies,
much of this book deals with the complicated nature of creating intellectual property
that is different from the user-generated tweets and updates common on social media-
though, of course, much of social media is related to sharing and discussing the in-
tellectual property of the media industries we discuss. Consequently, we incorporate
discussion of social media intermittently as it is relevant to discussing industries based
on intellectual property. These distinctions are certainly difficult to draw resolutely;
indeed, an entity such as YouTube arguably is a platform for industrially created intel-
lectual property, amateur-created intellectual property, and the more interpersonal
communication of broadcasting "yourself."

Why Study Media Industries?

By analyzing how media industries operate, we can better appreciate how and why the
content we interact with comes to be created. Perhaps in other classes you have studied
how the media can have social and cultural consequences. Studying media industries
also intersects with these questions, but we begin looking at media goods earlier in the
process, before they reach audiences, often before they are even created. Two key ques-
tions in the study of media industries are how and why media goods are created in the
first place.
In most of the world and in most media industries, media today are created primar-
ily for profit, and, for some observers, this is all we need to know. Commercial media,
some argue, operate like any other commercial industry. Though it is true that most
media industries are rooted in such profit motives, we argue that this is only part of the
story. In the process of making money, the media industries create goods that also con-
tribute to dialogues and discussions about important issues in society, to the enabling or
 CHAPTER 1 • Understanding Media Industries 5

disabling of democracy, and to helping us formulate key ideas about the world around
us that we take to be natural and inherent.
Think about other industries: packaged food, automotive, furniture. These busi-
nesses contribute to what might be termed "material culture"-the objects of culture
that surround us in our daily lives-and may have meaning for us. Goods such as our
clothes, cars, or our portable devices do communicate something about us and the cul-
tures we live in, but this is not their primary function. Media industries also produce
meaningful cultural products, but there is something different about the role media
play. In the process of conducting their business, the media industries circulate ideas,
attitudes, and information in society, whether they mean to or not. Their products are
important in framing civic discourse and perceptions of different cultures in ways that
can affect public policy, elections, and our everyday lives-things like how we measure
"success," what we think a family looks like, and attitudes about gender roles. Even
though many media industries operate with the goal of making money, they are simul-
taneously significant cultural and political institutions. Balancing these two realities is
necessary, and it is probably the most difficult aspect of engaging in serious and fair
examination of the media industries.
Media industries warrant understanding for several reasons: first, they are increas-
ingly important sectors of the American and world economies; second, they contribute
to political discussions, debate, and our views of the world; and third, they contribute to
our everyday lives in ways that are sometimes obvious and sometimes subtle.

Defining Media Industries

The following pages offer you many ways to classify media based on various industry
characteristics. When people say "the media," they often mean something far more spe-
cific, such as news outlets, television news outlets, or the local television news station in
their community. A crucial part of understanding media industries requires that we
identify precisely what media or medium we are talking about when examining a spe-
cific issue. One of our key tasks here is to illustrate the great variety of conditions and
practices that lead media outlets to behave in certain ways.
That said, this book would be far too long and heavy if we took an encyclopedic ap-
proach to explaining each aspect of every relevant media industry. Instead, throughout
the book we discuss the economic, regulatory, industrial, organizational, and creative
practices that shape many media industries. Our main examples of media industries
include television, radio, film, magazines, music, video games, and newspapers. These
industries have been experiencing pronounced change since the mid-1980s as a result of
changes in the overall economy and the effects of digitization and globalization.
Whereas we might have distinguished these "old" media from "new" media just a few
years ago, it is increasingly the case that such distinctions are nebulous. As we discuss
throughout the book, new technologies and the possibility of digital media distribution
may be changing how we receive media, but the media themselves-print, video, and
audio entertainment and information-continue to thrive. Rather than suggest blogs
are some sort of "new" media form, for instance, we explore how the print media indus-
try worked both before and after the possibility of digital distribution.
6 UNDERSTANDING MEDIA INDUSTRIES

Significant discrepancies also exist within any one industry. The economic norms
of the magazine industry vary considerably among magazines that are entirely adver-
tiser supported, those paid for exclusively through reader subscriptions, and others that
blend advertiser and subscriber financing. Similar variation can be found in the televi-
sion industry among broadcast television (advertiser-supported networks such as NBC,
ABC, and CBS), "basic cable" (channels such as ESPN, TNT, or USA, which receive
subscription fees and advertiser-support), and "premium cable" (channels such as HBO
and Showtime supported through subscription alone); and an entity such as Netflix may
not be a "channel" at all but closely resembles premium cable from an industrial per-
spective. In addition, in the case of the economics of financing production costs, inde-
pendent films secure financing differently than films produced by the Hollywood
studios, and this too has implications for the films' creative storytelling. To deal with
this complexity, we provide a framework (introduced in the next chapter) that identifies
key operating conditions and business practices that influence the functioning of media
industries even though there is considerable variation in media industry practices
across industries and national contexts.

Media Industries in Society

Communication technologies have fascinated politicians, business people, philoso-
phers, and poets since their earliest incarnations in the late nineteenth century. These
observers tend to veer between utopian hopes about the capacity of media to enhance
democracy and cultural understanding to fearful condemnations that media are brain-
washing the masses and destroying individuality. Such extremes may seem normal to us
in an era of instantaneous, global communication, but it is important to remember that
the hopes and fears that communications technologies engender have a much longer
history. We can see traces of these fears as far back as the nineteenth century, when
Rudyard Kipling wrote of deep-sea cable technology that connected the United States
with Great Britain in 1897:
They have wakened the timeless Things;
they have killed their father Time;
Joining hands in the gloom, a league from the last of the sun.
Hush! Men talk to-day o'er the waste of the ultimate slime,
And a new Word runs between: whispering, "Let us be one!" 3

Here we see effusive praise and hope for a technology-the deep-sea cable that al-
lowed telegraph communication between Britain and the United States-that most of us
today would consider pretty mundane. Yet this sentiment is quite similar to modern anxi-
eties about how mobile phones and social media may be altering communication patterns
and social norms. The point in either context is that communication technologies stir
deep human passions, and, for this reason, the organizations that operate them and the
cultural products that they circulate have long been objects of concerns for society.
The utopian versions of communication technologies received a significant boost
with the introduction of radio broadcasting in the early decades of the twentieth cen-
tury. Broadcasting permitted a single transmission to reach hundreds, even thousands,
 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
appearances. Abraham had been instructed, through divine visions
and audiences, about this coming history of Israel in Egypt; Joseph
only used what Abraham had received. We have no visits of the Lord
to Joseph, as we have to Abraham. Joseph, if you please, was not in
Abraham's elevation. But we have in him what is morally the
chiefest, the light and certainty of a believing mind, the
apprehensions and decisions of faith. He remembered what Abraham
had heard, and he acted on what he remembered. What he wanted
in personal elevation, as an oracle of God, he had, in moral power,
as a believer in God. And if I must needs choose between them, I
would rather believe than be inspired. And Joseph believed, when,
as we read, "he made mention of the departing of the children of
Israel, and gave commandment concerning his bones." Heb. xi. 22.
This was faith's political knowledge, as I may speak--faith's
acquaintance with the things which were coming on the earth. And
this is that which made a Noah or a Joseph wiser than all the
senators of the kingdoms. We know well how Joseph's words were
vindicated, and how very unlooked for brick-kilns defiled the goodly
lands of Goshen, and task-masters drove Israel to their work. Just as
before, in Noah's day, waters covered the very tops of the
mountains, and a ship, apparently in all folly built for dry land, was
soon the only ark of safety in a watery world.
And I do ask, Is it not to be thus with faith still? Have we not
warrant, by faith in the word of God, to know the course which this
world, with all its growing refinement and varied progress, is taking
every hour? Have we not reason to know that it is on its way to
judgment? Indeed we have. The Lord Jesus has been rejected in this
world. That is the fact which gives the world its character with God.
No advance in civil order and cultivation, no spread of even His own
truth among the nations, can avail to relieve the world of the
judgment that awaits it because of this deed. Let the day be as
bright as was the day of the Egyptian Joseph to Israel, faith knows
that "the polished surface" is soon to be broken up. Circumstances
never give faith its object. It is the word of God that does that; and
circumstances and appearances are not to be allowed to take the
eye of faith off its object. The house, swept and garnished as it is at
present, promises much. So did the land of Rameses and the
friendship of Pharaoh, in the days of Gen. 50. But such promises are
idle words in the ear of faith; it regards them not. As Jeremiah said
to the king of Judah, when the allied army had arrived, and the
hostile army had broken up and gone away, "Deceive not
yourselves;" so faith says, in this hour, to the generation that is
boasting in progress, "Deceive not yourselves." Faith says this with
boldness; for well it knows, that the last state of the swept and
garnished house is worse than the first.
Joseph then gave proof that he believed what he testified. Like
Jacob, his heart was in Canaan, the land of the covenant, the land of
his father's sepulchres. And, like Jacob, he took an oath of his
brethren, saying, "God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my
bones from hence." The unseen world was the real thing with him,
as it had been with his fathers. The call of God had linked them all
with that which lay beyond death, and their thoughts and their
hearts were there before themselves. It was as natural for them to
die as to live.
"Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old."
 His brethren, the children of Israel, were true to him, as he had
been to his father Jacob. They embalmed his body at once.
Afterwards, Moses carried it with him out of Egypt; and, at the last,
Joshua buried it in Shechem in the land of Canaan. See Gen. 50. 26;
Ex. xiii. 19; Josh. xxiv. 32.

We thus close the story of Joseph, and with it the Book of Genesis,
the book of the creation and of the first ways of God, the book also
of the patriarchs, the earliest families of the children of men, and the
infant age of the elect of God.
We are sensible, I think, when we leave this book, that in some
sense we are getting on lower ground. I think this will be generally
felt.
In Genesis, the Lord is rather manifesting Himself; afterwards
He is exposing man. Man was not under law, as we have said,
during the times of this book. He was set to learn God under many
and different expressions and revelations of Himself. But as soon as
law enters, and that is very quickly after we leave this book, man is
necessarily brought forward, and we have to see him, not simply as
under the call of God, but in his own place and character. And surely
this is enough to make us sensible of being, in some sense, on lower
ground. Of course, in the unfolding of counsels, in the bringing forth
of God's resources upon man's failures, and in the further
manifestations of God Himself upon the exposure of man, we are
advancing all through the volume from beginning to end.
But, all-various and wondrous as these counsels are, which get
their disclosure as we proceed through Scripture, let the wisdom of
God be never so manifold, as we know it is, yet we may say, every
part of it gets some notice or foreshadowing in this Book of Genesis.
These are faint and obscure; but the rudiments of the whole
language are found in this introductory and infant lesson.
Atonement, faith, judgment, glory, government, calling, the
kingdom, the Church, Israel, the nations, covenants, promises,
prophecies, with the blessed God Himself in His holiness, love, and
truth, the doings of His hand, and the workmanship and fruits of His
Spirit, all these and the like appear in this book. Creation was
displayed at the beginning. Soiled and ruined under the hand of
man, redemption was published. The heavens and the earth are
then shown to be the scenes of redemption (as they had been at the
first of creation) in the histories of Enoch and Noah. And then in
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph we get man (the leading subject
of redemption, as of course he is) in his election, adoption,
discipline, and inheritance. These mysteries have been looked at in
this series, and they lie under the eye, and for the observation of our
souls, as we pass on from one of these histories to another.
And let us learn to say, beloved, to His praise who has spread
out such living creations before us, that if the heavens declare the
glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork, so with no
less clearness and certainty do the pages of Scripture bespeak the
breathings of His Spirit.

THE BOOK OF JOB.

JAMES v. 11.
 "Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face"

May surely be said, upon the reading of this deeply affecting story.
Said, too, with peculiar fitness and fulness of truth, as though the
thought of the Christian poet had been suggested by the tale of the
inspired historian. The frown was specially dark and lowering, the
smile behind it brilliantly beaming and happy. The veil was very
thick, but the glory within very bright. The boastings of the Lord in
His servant were above the noise of all the water-floods.

"The bud may have a bitter taste,

But sweet will be the flower"

may as surely be the motto for the story also. For let us wait only for
a little, and the fruit of the travail will be precious beyond all
expectation. Very bitter indeed was the bud, but very sweet indeed
was the flower. It had to ripen under the pruning of the sprigs and
the taking away of the branches (Isaiah xviii. 5), but it tells, in the
end, the skill and patience of its divine husbandman. I would,
however, rather trace some of the principles of this beautiful Book,
than thus at the beginning more largely anticipate the moral of it.
Resurrection, called by the Lord "the power of God," or, at least,
one of the ways of that power (Matthew xxii. 29), has been made
known, through different witnesses, and in divers manners, from the
very beginning. And connected as it is with redemption, the great
principle of God's way and the secret of His purposes, it must have
been so.
It was intimated in the creation of the beautiful scene around
us, for the world itself was called forth from the grave of the deep.
The material was without form, and darkness was upon the face of
it, but light was commanded to shine out of darkness, and beauty
and order were caused to arise. See Hebrews xi. 3.
It declared itself in the formation of Eve. Then again in the
earliest promise about the bruised Seed of the woman. It was kept
in memory in Seth given in the place of Abel whom Cain slew; and
then again in the line of the fathers before the flood. But still more
illustriously was it published in Noah. "Every thing in the earth shall
die," says the Lord to him, "but with thee will I establish my
covenant;" thus disclosing the secret, that the earth was to be
established according to the purpose of God, as in resurrection,
stability, and beauty.
So, after these earlier fathers, Abraham was to have both a
family and an inheritance on the same principle. He and his
generations after him were taught resurrection in the mystery of the
barren woman keeping house. The covenant blessing was linked
with the risen family. Ishmael may get possessions, and promises
too, but the covenant was with Isaac.
And more marvellously still, not to pause longer over other
witnesses of it, we see resurrection in the blessed history of "the
Word made flesh." We might indeed have forejudged that it would
have been otherwise. For in Christ, flesh was without taint. Here was
"a holy thing." But even of such we have now to say, "Yea, though
we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we
Him no more." Christ known by us now is Christ in resurrection. And
this is enough to let us know assuredly, that resurrection is the
principle of all the divine action, and the secret of the covenant.26
But resurrection has also been, from the beginning, an article of
the faith of God's people; and, being such, it was also the lesson
they had to learn and to practise, the principle of their life; because
the principle of a divine dispensation is ever the rule and character
of the saints' conduct. The purchase and occupation of the burying
field at Machpelah, tell us that the Genesis-fathers had learnt the
lesson. Moses learnt and practised it, when he chose affliction with
the people of God, having respect to the recompense of the reward.
David was in the power of it, when he made the covenant, or
resurrection-promise, all his salvation and all his desire, though his
house, his present house, was not to grow. 2 Sam. xxiii. The whole
nation of Israel were taught it, again and again, by their prophets,
and by-and-by they will learn it, and then witness it to the whole
world, the dry bones living again, the winter-beaten teil tree
flourishing again; for "what shall the receiving of them be, but life
from the dead?" The Lord Jesus, "the Author and Finisher of faith,"
in His day, I need not say, practised this lesson to all perfection. And
each of us, His saints and people, is set down to it every day, that
we "may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the
fellowship of His sufferings."
By the life of faith the elders obtained a good report. And so the
saints in every age. For "without faith it is impossible to please Him;"
that faith which trusts Him as a rewarder of them that diligently seek
Him, which respects the unseen and the future. They, of whom the
world was not worthy, practised the life of faith, the life of dead and
risen people. Hebrews xi. Stephen before the council tells us the
same. Abraham, Joseph, and Moses, in his account, were great
witnesses of this same life; and he himself, at that moment, after
the pattern of his master, Jesus, was exhibiting the strength and
virtues of it, through the power of the Holy Ghost, and
apprehending, through the same Spirit, the brightest joys and
glories of it. Acts vii.

Now, I believe that the leading purpose of the Book of Job is to

exhibit this. It is the story of an elect one, in early patriarchal days, a
child of resurrection, set down to learn the lesson of resurrection.
His celebrated confession tells us that resurrection was understood
by him as a doctrine, while the whole story tells us, that he had still
to know the power of it in his soul. It was an article of his faith, but
not the principle of his life.
And a sore lesson it was to him, hard indeed to learn and
digest. He did not like (and which of us does like?) to take the
sentence of death into himself, that he might not trust in himself, or
in his circumstances in life, or his condition by nature, but in God
who raises the dead. "I shall die in my nest," was his thought and
his hope. But he was to see his nest rifled of all with which nature
had filled it, and with which circumstances had adorned it.
Such is, I believe, the leading purpose of the Spirit of God in
this Book. This honoured and cherished saint had to learn the power
of the calling of all the elect, practically and personally, the life of
faith, or the lesson of resurrection. And it may be a consolation for
us, beloved, who know ourselves to be little among them, to read, in
the records which we have of them, that all have not been equally
apt and bright scholars in that school, and that all, in different
measures, have failed in it, as well as made attainments in it.
How unworthily of it, for instance, did Abraham behave, how
little like a dead and risen man, a man of faith, when he denied his
wife to the Egyptian, and yet how beautifully did he carry himself, as
such, when he surrendered the choice of the land to his younger
kinsman. And even our own Apostle, the aptest scholar in the
school, the constant witness of this calling to others, and the
energetic disciple of the power of it in his own soul, in a moment
when the fear of man brought with it a snare, makes this very
doctrine the covert of a guileful thought. Acts xxiii. 6.
Encouragements and consolations visit the soul from all this.
Happy is it to know, that our present lesson, as those who are dead,
and whose life is hid with Christ in God, has been the lesson of the
elect from the beginning--that on many a bright and hallowed
occasion they practised that lesson to the glory of their Lord, that at
times they found it hard, and at times failed in it. This tale of the
soul is well understood by us. Only we, living in New Testament
times, are set down to learn the same lesson in the still ampler
page, and after the clearer method, in which it is now taught us in
the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
There is some difference, let me observe, nay, I would say,
distance, between a righteous and a devoted man. No saint is a
devoted one, who has not been practising this lesson of which I
have been speaking. The measure of his devotedness may be said to
be according to his attainment in it, according to the energy he is
exercising as a man dead and risen with Christ. At the beginning of
this history, Job was a righteous man. He was spoken well of again
and again, in the very face of his accuser. But he was not a devoted
man. The whisper of his heart, as I noticed before, was this, "I shall
die in my nest." Accepted he was, as a sinner who knew his living
and triumphant Redeemer, godly and upright beyond his fellows, but
withal, as to the power that wrought in his soul, he was not a dead
and risen man.
Such also, I might add, was Agur in the Book of Proverbs. He
was godly, and of a lowly, self-judging spirit. He makes a good
confession of human blindness and pravity, of the unsearchable
glories of God, the purity and preciousness of His word, and of the
security of all who trust in Him. Prov. xxx. 1-9. He was a man of
God, and walked in a good spirit. But he was not a devoted man. He
did not know how to abound and how to suffer need. He dreaded
poverty lest he should steal, and riches lest he should deny God. He
was not prepared for changes. Neither was Job. But Paul was. He
had surrendered himself to Christ, as they had not. According to the
power that wrought in his soul, Paul was a dead and risen man. He
was ready to be "emptied from vessel to vessel." He was instructed
both to be full and to be hungry. He could do all things through
Christ strengthening him. See that devoted man, that dead and risen
man, in the closing chapters of Acts. xx.-xxviii. He is in the midst of a
weeping company of brethren at Miletus, and in the bosom of a
loving Christian household at Tyre. But were those, the greenest
spots on earth to a saint, where, if any where, the foot of the mystic
ladder is felt to rest, and the fond heart lingers and says, Let us
make tabernacles here, able to detain him? No. Even there, the dear,
devoted Apostle carried a heart thoroughly surrendered to Christ.
"What mean ye," says he, "to weep and to break mine heart? for I
am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the
name of the Lord Jesus." He would not be kept. And on from thence
he goes, along the coast of Syria up to Jerusalem, and then for two
long years, apart from brethren, in perils by sea and land, under
insults and wrongs, a single heart and devoted affection bearing him
through all.
A good conscience alone is not up to all this. Mere
righteousness will not take such a journey. There must be that
singleness of eye to Christ, that principle of devotedness, which
reckons upon death and resurrection with Jesus. Job was righteous,
but he was not prepared for such shifting scenery as this. He loved
the green spot and the feathered nest. Changes come, and changes
are too much for him. But God, in the love wherewith He loved him,
as his heavenly Father, puts him to school, to learn the lesson of a
child of resurrection, to be a partaker of "His holiness," the holiness
not merely of a right or pure-minded man, but the holiness that suits
the call of God, the holiness of a dead and risen man, one of the
pilgrim family, one of God's strangers in the world. Heb. xii. 9, 10.
Job was chastened to be partaker of such a holiness as this. Not
that trials and troubles, like his, are essential to the learning of this
lesson. A very common method it is, indeed, with our heavenly
Father, in His wisdom. But Paul set himself daily to practise that
lesson, without the instructions of griefs and losses in either body or
estate. Phil. iii. In the fervent labourings of the spirit within, he
exercised himself in it every day. And so should we. We are to dread
the Laodicean state, satisfaction with present condition or
attainment. The Laodicean was not a Pharisee, or a self-righteous
man of religion. He was a professor, it may be, of very correct
notions and judgments, but in a spirit of self-complacency, he did
not cherish increasing freshness and vigour in the ways of the Lord.
Arise, depart; for this is not your rest, says the Spirit by the
Prophet. And why? Why is it not to be our rest? "It is polluted," he
adds. He does not say it is sorrowful, it is disappointing, it is
unsatisfying, but it is polluted. The quickened soul is to gather from
the moral and not from the circumstances of the scene here, its
reasons for cherishing within it the power of Christ's resurrection.
The dove outside the ark did not fear the snare of the fowler, but
found no rest for the sole of her foot on the unpurged ground.
It is humbling to sit down and delineate what has been so
poorly reached in personal power. But "a beauteous light" may be
seen "from far," and as such, some of us descry and hail the virtues
of the risen life.
A dead and risen man will have neither his springs nor his
objects here. His principles of action will be found in Christ, and his
expectations in the coming kingdom. He is taken out of all the
advantages and adornings of the flesh into the righteousness of
God, and then, livingly and practically, is struggling up the hill,
having, in spirit, left the low level of the world, abating the force of
nature, and the fascination of nature's circumstances, and taking the
affections from things on earth to give them to those which are with
Christ above. He has lost himself, but he has won Christ. He has
taken leave of the course of the world which goes its rounds on the
plain beneath, and is ascending after Jesus.
He lets the world know that it could never provide him with his
object. In the midst of its kingdoms and delights he is a stranger
still. And virtues and qualities of heart he practises that are of like
divine excellence. He can, like his Master, hide the glory to which
God has appointed him, and be nothing in the present scene.
Abraham did not tell every Canaanite whom he chanced to meet,
that he was the heir of the country. In the ears of the children of
Heth he said, "I am a stranger and a sojourner with you." He was
content to be, and (what is still harder) to be thought to be, a
homeless, houseless man. So David, another of the dead and risen
family, when hunted and driven by the evil thing then in power,
though the oil of Samuel was upon him, God's own consecration to
the throne, he did not publish it. That was the secret and the joy of
faith. But he did not publish it. He did not traffic with it among men-
-he did not talk of himself in connection with that which the world
could value. He was rather, in his own reckoning before men, no
better than "a dead dog" or "a flea."
Oh, precious faith! Oh, holy and triumphant faith! But this was
an elevation which Job had to reach. He was not, according to the
power which wrought in his soul, of this generation. Not that his
condition in life made him proud, or self-indulgent, or indifferent to
others. But he valued his condition. With what eloquence does he
describe it. Chapter xxix. The minuteness with which he remembers
it tells us with what fondness he had embraced it. The eloquence
with which he describes it (and nothing can exceed that) betrays
with what fervour of heart he had lingered over it, in the day of its
bloom and beauty. He loved his condition and circumstances in life,
his place, his character, his estimation, his dignities and praise
among men. Godly he was, truly and admirably so. There was none
like him in the earth. But his place in the earth was important to
him. He was largely ready to communicate and to serve, but he
communicated and served as a patron or a benefactor. And he
desired continuance. "I shall multiply my days as the sand," was his
calculation. Hence the great end of his trial, and the purpose of
recording it. For this Book gives us the story of a saint in patriarchal
days, or rather, the story of his trials, trials through which he was to
learn the common lesson, according to the common calling, that we
are a dead and risen people. Job came, I believe, before Abraham,
but he did not come before this lesson; for it had been taught, as we
have seen, from the beginning; Adam and Abel, and the line of Seth
through Enoch and Noah, had already practised it. And Job, after
them, is set down to the same lesson, only engraven in somewhat
deeper and darker lines.
Such, generally, I believe, was Job, and such his history. A
solitary saint he was; at least, not linked with dispensational
arrangements, or with the peculiar covenanted family, and before
the call of God was manifested in the person of Abraham. This,
however, adds exceeding value to the Book. For it is, thus, a witness
of the religion of God's people in the most detached and
independent condition. Time and place do not connect him with the
ecclesiastical order or course of things at all. But still, the faith of the
elect of God was his faith, their truths his truths, their calling his
calling, their hopes his hopes. We have Adam, and Seth, and Noah,
and Shem, and Job, and Abraham, Moses, Prophets, Apostles, and
ourselves, till the number of the elect be accomplished, learning the
joy and the song of redemption. As we sometimes sing together--

"Then shall countless myriads, wearing

 Robes made white in Jesu's blood,
Palms (like rested pilgrims) bearing,
Stand around the throne of God.

"These, redeemed from every nation,

Shall in triumph bless His name;
Every voice shall cry, 'Salvation
To our God and to the Lamb.'"

Not only, however, the substance or materials, but the very style of
the Book is in the analogy of the whole inspired volume. It does not
teach doctrines formally, after the method of a science; it rather
assumes them, or lets them publish themselves incidentally. Even in
the Epistles this is the common way. The great revelation of
doctrines made there comes out, more commonly, in the way of
either enforcing results, or in answer to inquiries, or in defence of
truth against gainsayers or corrupters. So in this Book, doctrines are
assumed, or delivered incidentally; the more direct object, as I have
suggested, being this--to exhibit a soul set to learn, through trials
and sorrows, the common lesson, the power of our calling, that our
hopes are neither in the world, nor from the flesh, but in living
scenes, with Jesus, beyond all that is here.
And deeply affecting as a narrative of trying and sorrowing
events it surely is, for the events themselves are deeply touching.
But they are all ordinary, or such as are "common to man." Robbers
carry off his oxen and asses. Lightning destroys his flocks. A high
wind blows down his house, and kills his children. And, at last, a
sore disease breaks out on his body from head to foot.
Each of these might have happened to his ungodly neighbour,
as well as to him. In the mere matter of these afflictions, there was
nothing that distinguished him as a child of God. They were not the
sufferings of righteousness from the hand of man, the sufferings of a
martyr. They were such as were "common to man." But still they
were all under the exactest inspection and admeasurement of his
heavenly Father, all in the way of appointment and of discipline
flowing from heavenly interests, and divine relationships. And all,
too, the result of great transactions in heaven. For Satan had been
there, accusing Job, and the Lord had been boasting of him; and the
Lord had licensed Satan to go against Job, with a quiver full of
arrows, but had appointed him his measure and rule.
And this is very comforting. For many a child of God is troubled,
in the day of affliction, with the thought that his trial is
commonplace, and no witness at all that he is not "as other men."
But such trouble is mistaken. In the shape or material of the
affliction, the believer may be just in company with other men, it is
true. The same storm on the distant sea, or the same disease at
home, may have bereaved them alike; but faith takes account of the
relationship with God, and of the interest which all that concerns a
poor saint awakens in heaven.
In the wisdom of God, in the construction of this beautiful story
(true as I know it to be in every incident that it records), it is made
to introduce all the great actors in the divine mystery, and to reveal
the great truths which form the common faith of the elect.
 This is much to be prized; for this declares the perfect harmony
of all, even the most distant and independent, portions of the
oracles of God. Accordingly, we see engaged in the action of this
Book the angels who minister to the divine pleasure; Satan the great
adversary; the elect sinner whose faith is cast into the furnace; his
brethren in the faith; the minister of God in the energy of the Holy
Ghost; and the Lord God Himself.
These are the actors in the wondrous scenery of this Book; so
that while the action itself is simply the trial of a saint, it is so
constructed as to bring forth all these great agents and energies, the
very same with which our souls are conversant to this hour,
occupied, also, in the ways and places which the whole of Scripture
assigns to them. And it is a matter of the richest interest to our souls
to trace this.
Thus the angels or "sons of God" are here seen for a moment or
two, but exactly in the place and action which the general consent of
all Scripture gives them. They are in attendance on the Lord in
heaven, as those who had been forth, and were ready again to go
forth, in the service of His good pleasure. For the whole Word thus
bears witness to them. They are "ministering spirits," "ministers of
His that do His pleasure." They are His hosts on high, and the Lord
Himself is among them. Gabriel stands in His presence. The
Seraphim attend His throne, and they are winged, either to veil their
faces and their feet before the divine majesty, or to fly, like the wind,
to execute the divine commands. All this is told of the angels
throughout Scripture, and here the heavens are opened for a
moment, and all this is seen and heard.
 So as to Satan. This Book is in strictest analogy with the whole
volume. "Messengers of Satan" go forth from the presence of God,
as well as Gabriel and the hosts. "Lying spirits" as well as
"ministering spirits" take their journey and their commission from
thence. He goes about, says an apostle, seeking whom he may
devour; as here, he says of himself, that he had been up and down,
and to and fro, in the earth. Another apostle tells us, that he, with
his principalities and powers, is in heavenly places; and here we find
him among the sons of God, in the presence of God. And again; he
desired to have all the apostles, that he might sift them as wheat,
put them to the proof of what they were; and so here as to Job.
Satan is elsewhere called "the accuser of the brethren," and here he
is heard as such. He is the tormentor of this servant of God, as
Scripture generally presents him; but, as Scripture also testifies, his
action is under the limitations and sovereignty of God. Jesus, God
manifest in the flesh, as He walked in the land of Israel, gave him
his measure (Mark v.); and so Elohim from the throne does here,
and the eye of the Seer and the voice of the Prophet assign him also
exactly this place and action. 1 Kings xxii.; Zech. iii.27
These analogies are as strict and literal as they can be. And
further--for it is edifying to trace this still--we find the patriarch in
one school with the distant apostle of the Gentiles--so richly does
one Spirit breathe through the whole volume. We are in the last
chapters of 2 Corinthians, when reading the first chapters of the
Book of Job! We have the "thorn in the flesh," "the messenger of
Satan," in both Job and Paul.
Then, as to Job and his friends, or the elect one whose faith is
cast into the furnace, and his brethren in the faith. A very principal
part of this patriarchal story is made up, as we commonly know, of
the controversies that arose between them. Bitter and heated they
were, in something more than the ordinary measure. But such things
are still, and have been in every age.
Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar were friends and brethren indeed,
though they proved to be but "miserable comforters." They came to
Job when all had deserted him, children mocking him, young men
pushing away his feet, his kinsfolk failing him, his inward friends
forgetting him, his servants giving him no answer, and his wife
refusing him, though he entreated for their children's sake. They
were true-hearted friends, who said that they would go and comfort
their afflicted brother. And they did go; and they sat with him in his
place of ashes and potsherds for seven days.
But they fell out by the way. Sad to tell it, but so it was; not
strange to tell it, for so has it ever been, and so is it still. So early as
the times of Abraham's herdmen and Lot's herdmen, this stands on
record. Joseph had to say to his brethren, "See that ye fall not out
by the way." Moses knew the trial of the camp even beyond that of
the wilderness, as he went from Egypt to the Jordan. It was of His
own that Jesus in His day had to say, How long shall I be with you
and suffer you? And Paul counted "the care of all the churches" the
heaviest thing that came upon him.
Variety of temper, different measures of attainment, the quality
of the light and the form of the kingdom in us, if I may so express it,
will occasion collision and trial, even where there is nothing morally
wrong. But from whatever cause it be, so is it still, and so has it
been from the days of Job and his friends, that we form a great part
of each other's trial. The Lord sits over it all, refining His silver and
purifying His gold, but still so it is, that we help to heat each other's
furnace for the trial of faith.
Nothing, perhaps, has been a more common source of this
falling out by the way, than the holding of favourite religious
opinions, or an undue, disproportioned estimation of certain
doctrines or points of truth. And this was the case here. Job prized
certain points of truth, and his friends had their favourites also. But
each "knew but in part," and darkened the perfect counsels of God.
And by reason of this, they fell out by the way. Job, sorely afflicted
by stroke upon stroke, insisted on it, that God acted arbitrarily; and
having a right to do as He pleased, did so. His friends would have it,
that God dealt retributively, and that therefore His way with Job
convicted Job of some unconfessed iniquity. Their doctrines also very
much savoured of human thoughts; they were not refined from the
lees of man's religiousness. They drew much from the traditions of
the elders, and from their own experiences and observations. They
accredited that false though favourite axiom in the morals of the
world, that "honesty is the best policy." "Who ever perished, being
innocent? or where were the righteous cut off?" is the challenge
which their religion published. "I have esteemed the words of His
mouth more than my necessary food. But He is of one mind, and
who can turn Him?" is the counsel of his heart. They insinuate that if
all were told, nothing would be too bad for him; and he reproaches
them, in the contempt and bitterness of a wounded spirit, and an
insulted character. "No doubt ye are the people, and wisdom shall
die with you."
Such was the strife of words, the bickering and debate, among
them; as sad a sample of falling out by the way as has ever been
known, I may say, among brethren.
Elihu, in whom was a "manifestation of the Spirit," at length
enters the scene, bringing the light of God to make manifest these
forms of darkness. He had listened to the discourses and
controversies of these brethren, but, in modesty and reserve, as
became his years, in the presence of ancient men, he had hitherto
held his peace. He waited till multitude of days, which should know
wisdom, and speak of understanding, had delivered sentence of
truth. But now he speaks. The stirrings of the Spirit constrain him.
He is silent while it is a question between himself and them, but he
durst not surrender the rights of the Spirit in him. He cannot respect
any man's person now. In Job's day, God chose the weak thing, as
He has done ever since. Elihu was but a youth. Timothy was the
same. But the ancient men had failed. The stone of help lies in
another stripling of Bethlehem. For, from beginning to end it must be
known, that the good that is done upon the earth, He doeth Himself.
"Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord."
Eliphaz and his companions shall not have it to say, "We have found
out wisdom;" for "God thrusteth him down, not man," said Elihu of
Job.
Job was to be rebuked. He had argued the arbitrariness of the
divine hand in dealing with man, and, accounting for his present
sufferings in that way, he was so far "righteous in his own eyes."
Elihu shows that this was not so; that all was the holy discipline of
One who, knowing the end from the beginning, ever counsels the
best for His people. Nor will he, like the others, draw either from
himself, or from the elders or fathers. He will not, in the way of
human religiousness, bow to any names or traditions, however
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