Shawna Kidman

I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at UC San Diego, specializing in media industries. I write and teach about broadcast and cable history, streaming content and digital distribution, copyright law, media audiences, and contemporary issues related to pop culture and society.

My newly released history of the comic book industry explains why comics are 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.

Most of my research and teaching is about the media business and examines 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 looking at the structural interdependence of different media industries and different media cultures, my works takes a trans-industrial approach to the field of 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.

Most college students, particularly those in the humanities and social sciences, can expect to work with digital communications in some form. While they can typically acquire technical skills on the job, it is a deeper and broader comprehension of the media landscape—in its past and present forms—that enable them to anticipate the future, and to excel personally and professionally. In my teaching, I work hard to facilitate that learning, so I frame coursework in relevant ways, create an atmosphere that encourages thoughtful learning and discussion, and challenge students to see beyond the limitations of their own social and cultural identities. I also work to provide students with functional knowledge they can use as practitioners in whatever field they choose; I address topics like intellectual property, fair use, free speech, and labor disputes. I not only teach students about the historical significance of these media institutions, but encourage them to become familiar with the practices that guide them today.

In taking a class with me, students can expect to develop a media literacy that is firmly grounded in a historical economic and social context that will enable them to become conscientious, critical consumers of media, and active, engaged citizens. What exactly does that mean? I ask my students how media texts came to be (in terms of financing, demographic targeting, and marketing), how they were received (critically acclaimed? controversial? popular? profitable?), and how they impacted culture (assessing their artistic legacy in addition to their effects on both the culture industries and social issues). I also emphasize the critical relevance of media history, encouraging connections across different media, and also between past and present. Through discussions and writing, we examine how industry, cultural values, and political and social institutions have changed and how they remain the same. My overall goal is to help students of every background and interest better understand the nature of their own media practices and to engage more thoughtfully in contemporary cultural debates.

For more on my courses and past syllabi please visit my website.

Comic Books Incorporated tells the story of the US comic book industry. In recent years, the medium has dominated the film and television landscape and has come to define contemporary corporate transmedia production. But before moving to the center of mainstream popular culture, comic books spent half a century wielding their influence from the margins and in-between spaces of the entertainment business.

This book argues that the best way to understand this dynamic and influential history is through political economic analysis and an examination of material details of production. This entails a focus on industrial infrastructure, and a closer look at aspects of our media environment that often lack public visibility--including distribution, copyright and contract law, organizational networks, and financing. An interest in the details of these systems yields a very different kind of narrative about what comic books are and how they came to be.

The story begins with the inception of comic book publishing in the 1930s, when comics were a reviled, disorganized, and lowbrow mass medium. Focusing on critical moments in the industry’s evolution—market crashes, corporate takeovers, upheavals in distribution, and financial transformations—it shows how industry structures and everyday business practices contained the medium's growth and gave it shape. The story ends in the early 2000s, once Hollywood had fully incorporated comic book properties and comic book strategies into its business models. Comic books had transformed into the heavily exploited, exceedingly corporate, and highly esteemed niche art form we know so well today.