Toward a paradigm for media production research: Behind the scenes atgeneral hospital

This essay points to the dearth of media production studies conducted under the cultural studies rubric and calk for cultural studies of media production that fulfill the models of cultural circulation theorized by Stuart Hall and Richard Johnson. It argues that such a perspective must include analyses of both economic and discursive power. It presents five factors shaping the production process of a U.S. broadcast television network soap opera as provisional categories for scholarly exploration, as well as offering an in‐depth look at the soap opera production process and its cultural implications.