NDLI: Books, Not Comics: Publishing Fields, Globalization, and Japanese Manga in the United States

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Brienza, Casey E.
Copyright Year	2009
Abstract	The market for Japanese comics, called manga, in the United States grew rapidly at the beginning of the twenty first century at a rate unprecedented in the publishing industry. Sales grew a remarkable 350% from $60 million in 2002 to $210 million in 2007 and did not begin to decline until the beginning of the recent economic downturn beginning in late 2008. No published research is yet able to account for this phenomenon in a manner that is both socially-situated and medium-specific. In this paper, I provide such a sociological account of the rise of manga in the United States and its implications for the globalization of culture. Adapting Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical formulation of the cultural field, I argue that manga migrated from the comics field to the book field and that the ways in which industry practices, distribution networks, and target demographics differ between the two fields are directly responsible for the medium’s newfound visibility. Furthermore, I argue that, despite the now-common transparency of the Japanese origin of Japanese titles, the American publishing industry’s creation of manga as a category of books distinct from other comics is an ineluctable naturalizing process that ultimately erases from American consciousness the Japanese, the foreign, the other.
Starting Page	101
Ending Page	117
Page Count	17
File Format	PDF
ISSN	10538801
Journal	Publishing Research Quarterly
Volume Number	25
Issue Number	2
e-ISSN	19364792
Language	English
Publisher	Springer US
Publisher Date	2009-04-14
Publisher Place	Boston
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	Manga Comics Graphic novels Globalization American publishing Field theory Japan Methodology of the Social Sciences Humanities Library Science Printing and Publishing Social Sciences
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Business and International Management Management of Technology and Innovation Computer Science Applications Communication Marketing Media Technology

Sl.	Authority	Responsibilities	Communication Details
1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
5	Website/Portal (Helpdesk)	Queries regarding NDLI and its services	support@ndl.gov.in
6	Contents and Copyright Issues	Queries related to content curation and copyright issues	content@ndl.gov.in
7	National Digital Library of India Club (NDLI Club)	Queries related to NDLI Club formation, support, user awareness program, seminar/symposium, collaboration, social media, promotion, and outreach	clubsupport@ndl.gov.in
8	Digital Preservation Centre (DPC)	Assistance with digitizing and archiving copyright-free printed books	dpc@ndl.gov.in
9	IDR Setup or Support	Queries related to establishment and support of Institutional Digital Repository (IDR) and IDR workshops	idr@ndl.gov.in

Douglas Wolk: Reading Comics and What They Mean: How Graphic Novels Work

The first Japanese Manga magazine in the United States

Casey Brienza: Manga in America: Transnational Book Publishing and the Domestication of Japanese Comics

Purchase Patterns of Popular Japanese Novels in Hardcover and Paperback

Are electronic books “books”?

Behind the Panel: Examining Invisible Labour in the Comics Publishing Industry

Multicultural children’s books: An American fairy tale

The influence of globalization

The Publishing Industry in Thailand

Books, Not Comics: Publishing Fields, Globalization, and Japanese Manga in the United States

Similar Documents

Douglas Wolk: Reading Comics and What They Mean: How Graphic Novels Work

The first Japanese Manga magazine in the United States

Casey Brienza: Manga in America: Transnational Book Publishing and the Domestication of Japanese Comics

Purchase Patterns of Popular Japanese Novels in Hardcover and Paperback

Are electronic books “books”?

Behind the Panel: Examining Invisible Labour in the Comics Publishing Industry

Multicultural children’s books: An American fairy tale

The influence of globalization

The Publishing Industry in Thailand

Books, Not Comics: Publishing Fields, Globalization, and Japanese Manga in the United States