My research takes a critical, multidisciplinary approach to studying international television trade, specifically how industry and cultural forces combine to shape the content and flow of global television. Rather than asking what television globalization does to the world’s cultures, I explore how cultural differences have shaped the business strategies of international television and how the industry harnesses particular kinds of difference for profit. In exploring this question, I draw on several academic fields, including Marxist and mainstream economics, organizational sociology, business management, and cultural and media studies.

Publications

BOOKS
Global Television Marketplace. British Film Institute Press, International Screen Industries Series, (c) 2006.

Understanding Media Industries with Dr. Amanda D. Lotz. Oxford University Press, (c) 2012.

Black Television Travels: Meida Globalization and Contermpoary Racial Discourse. New York University Press, Communication and Critical Cultural Studies Series (forthcoming).

PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLES
Havens, Timothy. “The Hybrid Grid: Globalization, Cultural Power, and Hungarian Television Schedules” Media, Culture & Society, forthcoming.

Havens, Timothy. “Exhibiting Global Television: On the Business and Cultural Functions of Global Television Fairs.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 47 (2003): 18-36.

Havens, Timothy. “’It’s Still a White World out There’: The Interplay of Culture and Economics in International Television Trade.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 19 (2002): 377-398.

Havens, Timothy. “Subtitling Rap: Appropriating The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air for Youthful Identity Formation in Kuwait.”  Gazette: The International Journal for Communication Studies 63 (2001): 57-72.

Havens, Timothy. “‘The Biggest Show in the World’: Race and the Global Popularity of The Cosby Show.” Media, Culture and Society 22 (2000): 371-391.

BOOK CHAPTERS
Havens, Timothy. “The Biggest Show on Earth: The Cosby Show and the Ascent of American Situation Comedies in the International Market.” In The Columbia History of Television by Gary Edgerton, Columbia University Press, in press.

Havens, Timothy. “When Telenovelas Travel Abroad: Globalization and Generic Transformation.” In Gary Edgerton and Brian Rose (eds.) Thinking Outside the Box: Television Genres in Transition, U. of KY Press, 2005.

Havens, Timothy. “African American Television in a Global World.” In Planet Television: A Global Television Reader, pp. 423-438, Shanti Kumar and Lisa Parks (eds.), New York: New York University Press, 2003.