Looking Ahead

[Excerpt] The American entertainment industry and its system of labor-management relations is now at a crossroads. Its future will be determined to a great extent by emerging developments that could either hinder or facilitate expansion, depending on the course of affairs approaching the year 2000. The key trends will converge to influence the course of collective bargaining in the industry and the choices made by unions and employers

Existing and Potential In-Flight Entertainment Transmission Systems - Strengths and Weaknesses

In-flight entertainment is likely to greatly expand its content over the next few years, mirroring changes that are occurring in terrestrial digital entertainment and communication systems. Most in-flight entertainment systems have been based on either in-plane, aircraft-to-ground, or aircraft-to-satellite technologies. The expansion of content expected in the near future will require advanced transmission systems that will be both technically and commercially able to deliver broadband services. This paper explores the strengths and weaknesses of existing transmissions technologies and suggests aircraft-to-aircraft transmission technology may offer advantages that other systems do not

Is Hollywood a Risky Business? A Political Economic Analysis of Risk and Creativity

capitalisation creativity film distribution Hollywood riskThis paper seeks to explain why Hollywood’s dominant firms are narrowing the scope of creativity in the contemporary period (1980–2015). The largest distributors have sought to prevent the art of filmmaking and its related social relations from becoming financial risks in the pursuit of profit. Major filmed entertainment, my term for the six largest distributors, must discount expected future earnings to present prices with the forward-looking logic of capitalisation; and uncertainty about where creativity in cinema is going can produce financial uncertainty about the future earning potential of new film projects. Conversely, a degree of confidence in the expected future earnings of Hollywood cinema can increase when the art of filmmaking and broader social world of mass culture are ordered by capitalist power [Nitzan, J. and Bichler, S., 2009. Capital as power: a study of order and creorder. New York: Routledge]. For the period of 1980–2015, major filmed entertainment lowered its risk relative to the period before, 1960–79. This historical process of risk reduction is the effect of major filmed entertainment making the wide-release strategy (a.k.a., saturation booking) more predictable through an aggressive implementation of the blockbuster style and the high concept standard

Future of Augmented Reality

Today virtual reality is very popular, but it is used mostly for entertainment. In future augmented reality referred to as the integration of digital information with the user's environment in real time will be the most popular thing in the world. Referring to these definitions, unlike virtual reality, which creates a totally artificial environment, augmented reality uses the existing environment and overlays new information on the top. By this way our life can become more interesting and informative. With the help of advanced AR technology (e.g. adding computer vision and object recognition) the information about the surrounding real world of the user becomes interactive and digitally manipulated information about the environment and its objects is overlaid in the real world

Redefining ‘entertainment value’: A qualitative inquiry of shopping centre managers’ perspectives

Shopping centres stage entertainment events (e.g. children workshops, mini concerts, and mini festivals) to add ‘entertainment value’ to the retail experience and in turn build customers’ loyalty and approach behaviours (e.g. extended stay and increased spending). Despite the relationship between delivery of entertainment value and retail entertainment events, there are gaps in the extant literature, including: i) existing definitions of entertainment value have been mostly examined in retail contexts outside of entertainment events; ii) prior studies have primarily utilised a unidimensional approach to measuring customer value. Customer value is complex in nature and the extent to which a multidimensional approach would be more relevant for understanding entertainment value within the retail entertainment event context remains unknown; and iii) shoppers have been the primary unit of analysis with other stakeholders’ perspectives (e.g. managers) about entertainment value and its dimensionality rarely being considered. To address these gaps in the extant literature, this study involved in-depth interviews with eight shopping centre marketing managers who were highly experienced with staging entertainment events. The qualitative results contribute to the extant literature in three ways: i) a multidimensional definition is proposed as more insightful and practical for examining the entertainment value within the context of shopping centre entertainment events; ii) the multidimensional definition potentially comprises affective, activity, and aesthetic dimensions (evident in extant literature), as well as, functional, social, and altruistic dimensions (emerging from this research) and iii) altruistic value identified in this study highlights the increasing use of entertainment events for cause-related purposes by retailers, reflecting the ‘selfish altruism’ phenomenon (Fairnington, 2010). Theoretical and managerial implications arising from the qualitative findings are discussed together with opportunities for future research

The glocalised telenovela as a space for possible identifications for diaspora girls in Northern Belgium: an audience cum content analysis of Sara

Because research on glocalised telenovelas in Western Europe is absent in literature and telenovelas seem highly popular among diaspora girls from Moroccan descents living in Northern Belgium, this paper studies the embedded themes and identification possibilities of telenovelas and explores its thematic interest and meanings for diaspora girls. By means of an audience cum content analysis on the case study Sara, text and audience are combined. Sara is predominantly a ‘Cinderella story’ with a clear ‘love’ and ‘class and social mobility’ discourse where emotional identification is triggered through different parameters. Belgian girls from Moroccan descent mainly watch the Sara for reasons of entertainment and escapism. They negotiate between lived and telenovela-created experiences and consequently formulate aspirations and dreams for future partners, gender roles, careers and (family) life

The Benefits of Being the Player

Gaming, specifically video games has affected everyone’s lives since its creation during the early 1970s. From being a form of entertainment to being an instructional material for class--the impact of gaming is highly visible in our society. The future of gaming is getting bigger--with the creation of various video games genres, consoles etc. Gaming is exponentially rising with the advancement of technology. With its exponential growth, video games or gaming should be used in our society not just as a form of entertainment, but as a tool for education and self-growth

Is Hollywood a Risky Business? A Political Economic Analysis of Risk and Creativity

capitalisation creativity film distribution Hollywood riskThis paper seeks to explain why Hollywood’s dominant firms are narrowing the scope of creativity in the contemporary period (1980–2015). The largest distributors have sought to prevent the art of filmmaking and its related social relations from becoming financial risks in the pursuit of profit. Major filmed entertainment, my term for the six largest distributors, must discount expected future earnings to present prices with the forward-looking logic of capitalisation; and uncertainty about where creativity in cinema is going can produce financial uncertainty about the future earning potential of new film projects. Conversely, a degree of confidence in the expected future earnings of Hollywood cinema can increase when the art of filmmaking and broader social world of mass culture are ordered by capitalist power [Nitzan, J. and Bichler, S., 2009. Capital as power: a study of order and creorder. New York: Routledge]. For the period of 1980–2015, major filmed entertainment lowered its risk relative to the period before, 1960–79. This historical process of risk reduction is the effect of major filmed entertainment making the wide-release strategy (a.k.a., saturation booking) more predictable through an aggressive implementation of the blockbuster style and the high concept standard