Understanding modern media requires financial vocabulary, not just market vocabulary

Evidence

For most of the twentieth century, understanding the structure and practices of the U.S. cultural industries required vocabulary like commodity, supply and demand, ownership, and market research. The derivative media of today are driven by new financial forces with another set of terms: asset management, speculation, diversified portfolios, and securitization. To grasp the broader conditions of this system requires a critical financial literacy that is attuned to the strategies of contemporary capitalists and the structures of contemporary capitalism. — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 96

Categorization

• DEFINE: Directly frames the reader’s stated purpose: ownership structure shapes artistic form, and the shift from commodity to derivative vocabulary is the mechanism.