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In the contemporary motion picture industry, production is vertically disintegrated, organized around transactions among a network of small firms. In this regard, motion picture production resembles other industries whose production organizations can be characterized as flexibly specialized. In this theoretically infornied case study, we trace the transformation of the industry from vertically integrated to vertically disintegrated flexibly specialized production and elucidate how this transformation affects the spatial location of production activities and labor market dynamics.

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A broad assessment is provided of the current state of knowledge regarding the risks associated with shale gas development and their governance. For the principal domains of risk, we identify observed and potential hazards and promising mitigation options to address them, characterizing current knowledge and research needs. Important unresolved research questions are identified for each area of risk; however, certain domains exhibit especially acute deficits of knowledge and attention, including integrated studies of public health, ecosystems, air quality, socioeconomic impacts on communities, and climate change. For these, current research and analysis are insufficient to either confirm or preclude important impacts. The rapidly evolving landscape of shale gas governance in the U.S. is also assessed, noting challenges and opportunities associated with the current decentralized (state-focused) system of regulation. We briefly review emerging approaches to shale gas governance in other nations, and consider new governance initiatives and options in the U.S. involving voluntary industry certification, comprehensive development plans, financial instruments, and possible future federal roles. In order to encompass the multiple relevant disciplines, address the complexities of the evolving shale gas system and reduce the many key uncertainties needed for improved management, a coordinated multiagency federal research effort will need to be implemented.

Like all forms of work, project work is constructed within the rules that govern labor and capital markets. In this paper, I examine how project work and the project workforce in ‘old’ media (motion pictures and television) and ‘new’ media (multimedia or Internet-based information, entertainment, and infotainment) have been affected by changes in the regulatory regime governing entertainment and information-intensive industries in the United States. Of particular significance is the role that collective bargaining institutions play in industry governance. In the case of old media, the regulatory regime initiated in the 1980s by the Reagan administration considerably reshaped the terrain for media production. ‘Virtual integration’ of a substantial portion of production resulted in the routinization of project work and decreased the need for collocation of preproduction, production, and postproduction in Los Angeles, the ‘home base’ of these industries. Old media, however, retained the key governance organizations that predated changes in regulation, particularly guilds and unions. New media, by contrast, emerged in the 1990s era of laissez-faire regulatory policy. ‘Consent decrees’, regulating competition in a wide range of industries were lifted, allowing firms to acquire, merge, and move freely both to concentrate economic power and to diversify. Unlike their old-media counterparts, new-media workers (and their employers) did not have the intermediary institutions to set the rules for employment, to define roles in project production, or to facilitate project management. For the new-media worker, and his or her employers, stronger dependence on interpersonal connections for credentials, legitimacy, and job match means stronger dependence on regional markets. The history of change and continuity in media project work can illuminate broader questions, such as how market regulation affects the location strategies of firms and workers.