Marc Steinberg's research focuses on animation, media industry studies, and digital media, focusing on the role of digital platforms in mediating cultural production and experience.
He is author of the award-winning book Anime’s Media Mix: Franchising Toys and Characters in Japan (University of Minnesota Press, 2012) which historically situates the practices of merchandising or the media mix in relation to the anime industry. Along with its expanded Japanese translation Why is Japan a “Media Mixing Nation”? (Tokyo: Kadokawa, 2015), it won the ITRA-BTHA Book Prize (Senior Prize) from the International Toy Research Association (2014), and the Japan Society for Animation Studies Book Prize (2015).
His second monograph, The Platform Economy: How Japan Transformed the Commercial Internet (University of Minnesota Press, 2019), tracks the platform-led transformation of film,media, and Internet cultures. Offering a comparative study of platformization with a focus on Japan as the key site for global platformization,the book systematically examines the managerial, medial, and social functions of platform theories and platform practices.
Media Theory in Japan (Duke University Press, 2017), co-edited with Alexander Zahlten, traces the politics and parameters of media theorization in the Japanese context.
He is currently at work on three different projects. The first examines the effect media platforms have on animation production and circulation, with a continued focus on media industries and transmedia practices in the wake of platformization. This includes the role of "super apps" in East Asia as they are inflected by anime and its transmedia circulation. His article "LINE as Super App: Platformization in East Asia" is an example of this work.
The second, maps the intersection of management theory and just-in-time logistical systems, which has resulted in two publications: Media and Management (University of Minnesota Press, 2021), an open access book co-authored with Rutvica Andrijasevic, Julie Yujie Chen and Melissa Gregg; and “From Automobile Capitalism to Platform Capitalism: Toyotism as a Prehistory of the Digital Economy” recently published in Organization Studies.
The third project analyzes the role of convenience in the platform economy, and especially the role of convenience as an aesthetic or feeling that works as a lure to platforms. Part of this includes a consideration of the convenience store as a key site for producing convenience in the late 20th century.
He is also the director of The Platform Lab, a research group dedicated to the study of platforms.
He welcomes supervisees on topics in media industry studies, animation studies, anime histories, social media, fan studies, transmedia, and platform studies, including streaming platforms.
Education
PhD (Brown University), MA (McGill University), BA (McGill University)
Areas of expertise
Platform studies, industry studies, Asian media industries, Japanese animation/anime, animation studies, material culture, media theory, digital culture, app studies
Books
Media and Management (co-authored with Rutvica Andrijasevic, Julie Yujie Chen, and Melissa
Gregg), Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press/meson press, 2021.
The Platform Economy: How Japan Transformed the Consumer Internet, (University of Minnesota Press 2019) (https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/the-platform-economy)
『なぜ日本は〈メディアミックスする国〉なのか』Naze Nihon wa “media mikkusu suru kuni” nanoka / Why is Japan a“Media Mixing Nation”?), translation by Nakagawa Yuzuru, supervised by Ōtsuka Eiji. Tokyo: Kadokawa E-Pub/Kadokawa Gakugei Shuppan, 2015.
Anime’s Media Mix: Franchising Toys and Characters in Japan,Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012. 314 pp. Italian translation 2019.
-Awarded the ITRA-BTHA Prize (Senior Prize) from the International Toy Research Association for 2014.
-Awarded the Japan Society for Animation Studies Book Prize for 2015 (along with Why is Japan a “Media Mixing Nation”?).
Edited Collections
Media Theory in Japan, co-edited with Alexander Zahlten, Duke University Press, 2017. 432pp.
Regional Platforms, co-edited with Jinying Li, special issue of the journal Asiascape: Digital Asia 4(3), Fall 2017
Articles
“From Automobile Capitalism to Platform Capitalism: Toyotism as a Prehistory of the Digital Economy”
Organization Studies
“LINE as Super App: Platformization in East Asia” in Social Media Society 6(2) (June 2020)
https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305120933285
“Media Mix Mobilization: Social Mobilization and Yo-Kai Watch” in Animation: An Interdiscplinary Journal (2017) 12(3): 244-258. (Invited contribution)
“Genesis of the Platform Concept: iMode and Platform Theory in Japan” in Asiascape: Digital Asia 4(3) (2017), 184-208.
“Introduction: Regional Platforms” (co-written with Jinying Li) in Asiascape: Digital Asia 4(3) (2017), 184-208
“8-Bit Manga: Kadokawa’s Madara, or, The Gameic Media Mix,” Kinephanos, Vol 5, Issue 1 (December 2015) (Invited contribution)
“McLuhan’s World, Or, Understanding Media in Japan,” in Journal of Visual Culture, Special
Issue: “Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media at 50,” 13:1 (April 2014) (Invited contribution), 97-99.
“Copying Atomu,” Mechademia 8 (January 2014) (Invited contribution), 127-136.
“Condensing the Media Mix: Tatami Galaxy’s Multiple Possible Worlds,” in the Canadian Journal of Film Studies, Fall 2012, 71-92.
Book Chapters
“Kanban” in Proof of Stake: Claims to Technology. A Book of Organizational Objects, ed. Simon Denny,
Bettina Steinbrügge, Robin Holt, Claus Pias and Timon Beyes. Forthcoming from Lenz Press, 2022.
“Pandemic Platforms: How Convenience Shapes the Inequality of Crisis” (with Joshua Neves), in Pandemic
Media: Preliminary Notes Towards an Inventory, ed. Laliv Melamed, Philipp Dominik Keidl, Vinzenz Hediger and Antonio Somaini. Meson Press, 2020. https://pandemicmedia.meson.press/chapters/space-scale/153-2/
“Managing the Media Mix: Industrial Reflexivity in the Anime System,” in Transmedia Storytelling
in East Asia: The Age of Digital Media, edited by Dal Yong Jin (Routledge, 2020).
“Delivering Media: The Convenience Store as Media Mix Hub” in Point of Sale: Analyzing Media
Retail, edited by Derek Johnson and Daniel Herbert (Rutgers University Press, 2019).
“Otaku Pedestrians” (co-written with Edo Ernest dit Alban), in Wiley Companion to Media Fandom and Fan Studies, edited by Paul Booth. (Oxford, UK: Wiley Pub) (Wiley-Blackwell 2018).
物流するメディア：メディアミックス・ハブとしてのコンビニエンスストア (Distributing Media: The Convenience Store as Media Mix Hub) in ポスト情報メディア論・Post Information Media Studies, ed. Okamoto Ken and Matsui Hiroshi (Nakashimaya: 2018).
「メディアミックスによる動員―総動員と妖怪ウォッチ事変」(Media Mix and Mobilization: Total Mobilization and the Yokai Watch Incident) in Ōtsuka Eiji ed., Dōin no media mikkusu (Kyoto: Shibunkaku, 2017), 13-28.
“Platform Producer Meet Game Master: On the Conditions for the Media Mix,” in World Building: Transmedia, Fans, Industries, ed. Marta Boni (Amsterdam University Press, 2017)
“Converging Contents and Platforms: Niconico Video and Japan’s Media Mix Ecology” in Asian Video Cultures, ed. Joshua Neves and Bhaskar Sarkar (Duke University Press, 2017), 91-113.
“McLuhan as Prescription Drug: Actionable Theory and Advertising Industries,” in Media Theory in Japan, ed. Marc Steinberg and Alexander Zahlten (Duke University Press, 2017), 131-150.
“Introduction” (co-written with Alexander Zahlten) inMedia Theory in Japan, ed. Marc Steinberg and Alexander Zahlten (Duke University Press, 2017), 1-29.
“Realism in the Animation Media Environment: Japanese Debates Around Manga, Anime, and Videogames,”Animating Film Theory, ed. Karen Redrobe (formerly Beckman) (Duke University Press, 2014).
Conference Organization
Society of Animation Studies Annual Conference 2018: Then | Now | Next, co-organizer, Concordia University, June 18-21, 2018.
Porting Media II, co-organizer, Concordia University, October 12-14, 2017.
Media Ecologies, co-organizer and principal investigator for workshop grants, Concordia University and McGill University, December 1-3, 2016.
Porting Media: Asia, co-organizer and principal investigator for workshop grants, Concordia University, May 15-17, 2015.
SCMS Conference: Montreal local organizing committee, March 25-29, 2015.
Media Theory in Japan, organized between Harvard University and Concordia University, held at Harvard University, November 15-16, 2013.
Practices of World Building: Fans, Industries, Media Fields, Concordia University, June 6-7, 2013, Scientific Committee.
Experiencing the Media Mix, President’s Conference Series, Concordia University, February 4-6, 2012.
