The media system does not exist in some separate economic universe; it has its own features, and each type of medium and cultural form has its own narrower features, but it is subject to the dynamics of the rest of the political economy under capitalism. Of course, establishing a context as wide as capitalism is an impossible task. In the story of capitalism and media told here, the big corporations that dominate the cultural industries are themselves mere minnows in an ocean with much bigger ­predators. The sharks are financial firms and the ocean is a capitalism far removed from commonly held conceptions about free markets, competition, and productivity.

Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, loc. 57