Shawna Kidman

I am an Associate Professor in Communication, specializing in media industries, specifically: broadcast and cable history, streaming content and digital distribution, film financing, film franchising, copyright law, media audiences, theatrical exhibition, and corporate strategy. Most of my research and teaching is about understanding how corporate, legal, and financial systems shape our entertainment landscape. Using business and legal history, communication theory, and cultural studies, I work to contextualize and historicize media texts and practices. 

In Comic Books Incorporated: How the Business of Comics Became the Business of Hollywood (UC Press, 2019), I explain why comics are so ubiquitous in Hollywood, and how they came to take over corporate multimedia production of the 21st century. Covering 80 years of history, I show how many current trends in the media business—like transmedia storytelling, the cultivation of fans, niche distribution models, and creative financial structuring—have roots in the comic business. As a result, even though comic books themselves have a relatively minuscule audience, and have suffered declining sales for decades, the form and its marquee brands and characters continue to gain in global prominence and popularity.

I am the co-founder of the MACRO Lab, which makes publicly available data and visualizations that demonstrate historical trends in media, including around ownership, market share, financial metrics, labor, originality, and inequality.

My current research examines the causes and effects of Hollywood's shift to franchise filmmaking, particularly as it has impacted theatrical exhibition. My work has been published in the International Journal of Learning & Media, Velvet Light Trap, The Journal of Film & Video, The Oxford Handbook of American Film History, and The Journal of Cinema & Media Studies. 

I earned my Ph.D. in Media Studies at the University of Southern California, School of Cinematic Arts. Before that, I worked in the film and television business, primarily in development. As a  television and film scholar with real-world working experience, I bring to UCSD a practical approach to media studies, but one deeply informed by history and theory. I bring this love of history and this dedication to analyzing material structures to all of my work, with the hope that more robust media education and scholarship will bring improvements to contemporary cultural production.

For more information, please visit shawnakidman.ucsd.edu

COMM 100C: Communication, Institutions, and Power (syllabus)

COMM 106: Intro to Media Industries (syllabus)

COMM 111G: Popular Culture

COMM 134: Media Audiences (syllabus)

COMM 180: Communication Theory: Pop Culture & History

COMM 190: Feminist Media Studies (syllabus)

COGR 275: Media Studies Methods (syllabus)