Table Of ContentRevised Pages
Transgenerational Media Industries
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Transgenerational Media Industries
Adults, Children, and the
Reproduction of Culture
Derek Johnson
University of Michigan Press
Ann Arbor
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Copyright © 2019 by Derek Johnson
All rights reserved
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations,
in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the
US Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without
written permission from the publisher.
Published in the United States of America by the
University of Michigan Press
Manufactured in the United States of America
Printed on acid- free paper
A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication data has been applied for.
First published November 2019
ISBN: 978- 0-4 72- 07431- 0 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN: 978- 0-4 72- 05431- 2 (paper : alk. paper)
ISBN: 978- 0- 472- 12613- 2 (ebook)
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction: The Next Generation 1
Chapter 1. Co-V iewing the Future:
Transgenerational Marketing in Post- Network Television 23
Chapter 2. “Share Your Universe”:
Generation, Gender, and the Marvel Dad 53
Chapter 3. Junior Executives:
Producing Adult Professionalism in Children’s Media Industries 91
Chapter 4. “I’ve Got a Golden Ticket!”
Adult Fans of LEGO in the Child- Centric Factory 123
Chapter 5. Child Labor:
Testing the Limits of Transgenerational Media Industries 161
Conclusion: Reproducing the Future 197
Notes 211
Bibliography 217
Index 239
Digital materials related to this title can be found on the Fulcrum platform
via the following citable URL: https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.9894091
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Acknowledgments
I found the second book much harder to write than the first, and it is only
thanks to a long list of very reliable colleagues, friends, and family that this
project could be imagined.
As part of the Media and Cultural Studies program at the University
of Wisconsin, I am lucky to work with the best colleagues in the world. In
the moments that I have felt lost in the direction of this project or unsure
of its value, I could count on each of them to roll their eyes and remain
confident on my behalf. Jonathan Gray continues to be the most generous
friend and collaborator anyone could ask for. Lori Lopez is honest with her
feedback, generous with her enthusiasm, and the best for sharing a laugh.
Undoubtedly, the most hours of support were logged by Jeremy Morris,
who musters wise responses to work and life issues alike, all while maintain-
ing a good biking or running pace. Meanwhile, Jason Lopez plays many
roles— philosopher, bartender, game master, therapist— always teaching me
something in each of them. Eric Hoyt reminds me to be bold and not worry
about the risks of trying something new. Very much missed in her retire-
ment, Michele Hilmes remains my role model for intellectual sophistication
and leadership. Whether it is discussing business over Wednesday lunches,
engaging with our students’ research, or inevitably revealing myself to be a
Cylon, I treasure every moment with this group.
Even with all this support close by, I remain equally in debt to many
colleagues beyond the city of Madison who have encouraged and inspired
me— far more than I can list here. Sarah Banet- Weiser, John Caldwell,
Michael Curtin, Tim Havens, Henry Jenkins, Amanda Lotz, and Serra Tinic
have been invaluable in their brilliant advice and their willingness to help
me find and pursue new opportunities. Just as he did during grad school,
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viii Acknowledgments
Aswin Punathambekar continues to remind me what to focus on, what dis-
tractions to avoid, and how to enjoy life while doing so.
My graduate students have also been a crucial source of inspiration. Ca-
milo Diaz- Pino, Caroline Leader, Wan-J un Lu, Taylor Miller, Jenna Stoe-
ber, Tony Tran, and Drew Zolides all contributed to my initial attempts
to wrap my head around this project during our 2013 seminar on cultural
studies and kids’ media. Since then I have also benefited from rewarding
collaboration with advisees like Nick Benson, Caroline Leader, and Jen-
nifer Smith, who share many of the interests in this book. As research as-
sistants, Caroline and Jennifer deserve special mention for helping to lay
the foundation for much of chapter 2; without them that chapter would
be far less rich in detail.
Research assistance is not free, however— nor are trips to industry events
and international sites of fan tourism. I am therefore extremely grateful for
research support provided by the University of Wisconsin-M adison Office
of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education with funding
from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. I have also been lucky
to be able to rely on the generosity of George and Pamela Hamel, whose
commitment to supporting faculty research in the Department of Commu-
nication Arts made a huge difference to this project. So too have department
chairs Mike Xenos and Kelley Conway been instrumental in helping me
find resources. I am also grateful to Camilla Torpe, Ryan Greenwood, and
many of their colleagues at The LEGO Group for permitting me to do on-
site research in Billund and providing useful feedback.
Indeed I would not have been able to turn this research into a deliverable
manuscript without all the helpful feedback I received along the way. My
editor at University of Michigan Press, Mary Francis, patiently listened to
me stumble through my ideas for this book over the course of many meet-
ings and many years, but I left each one with more focus and direction. I
appreciate her persistence, excitement, and confidence in what this book
could be. Dan Herbert shared his expert thoughts on early drafts of this
project, and I continue to enjoy every opportunity I get to collaborate with
him. Opportunities I have had to share this work with colleagues across the
globe also provided vital insights. I am especially grateful for Tim Havens
from the University of Iowa, Ben Aslinger from Bentley University, Sébas-
tien Francois from the CoCirPE Project at Université Paris 13, and Jianbin
Guo from Yunnan University for generous invitations to deliver talks based
on works in progress. My colleague Zhongdang Pan was also particularly in-
strumental in facilitating that latter trip. Each of these intellectual exchanges
significantly evolved and refined my ideas.
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Acknowledgments ix
All that said, a book about media and the transformative, overlapping
identities of kids and parents obviously owes much to my family. As this
book often focuses on the pleasures of sharing media with the next genera-
tion, I must acknowledge a debt to my grandmother, Liz Johnson; decades
later, I still remember her zeal in enabling me and my siblings in our earli-
est explorations of consumer culture and in taking us to movies for which
we were certainly too young. My grandparents Donald and Milly Swanson
were the complete opposite of this, but they are missed just the same. I am
also grateful for the considerable time spent with my two daughters by their
own grandparents Carol Johnson, Jeff Johnson, Steve Blomgren, and Mar-
die Blomgren (without which this book still would not be done). It is with
Colleen, however, that I share the pleasures and responsibilities of raising,
loving, and sometimes just dealing with our girls; I am in awe of how much
she does, not just to give our kids the world, but also to make that world a
better place. In bringing our girls into that world, she has already given me
the entire universe— and I love sharing it with her.
It is a rather odd and mediated universe, though: one full of LEGO
bricks, family movie nights, trips to the comic book store, nightly Harry
Potter chapters, and co- viewings of Deep Space Nine and Full House alike.
And in that sense, my daughters Dahlia Lucille and Annika Roslin were
collaborators in the research for this book, as well as co- producers of the
experiences and identities in play for me as an author. I dedicated my last
book to Dahlia, so it is perhaps fairest and most appropriate to give this one
to Annika, who came into our lives just as this project began. The process
of writing this book brought the twin joys of trying to share that universe
with her and slowly realizing that it was her universe to share all along. I
look forward to seeing what else this wild, strong, independent girl will do
to change it.
