Dr. Courtney Brannon Donoghue

UNT Faculty Profile

Bio

Dr. Courtney Brannon Donoghue is an Associate Professor in the Department of Media Arts specializing in media industry studies, global media, and cultural studies. Her research broadly utilizes critical media industry studies approach, grounded in industry interviews and international fieldwork, to explore the intersection between local media professionals working for transnational companies and broader forces of gatekeeping, access, and power.

Her areas of expertise include Conglomerate Hollywood and international operations, local-language productions, Brazilian film and television, distribution cultures, feminist production cultures, and blockbusters and franchising. Dr. Brannon Donoghue's first book Localising Hollywood (International Screen Industries series, British Film Institute Press, 2017) explores the increased importance of international audiences for the Hollywood studios and evolving strategies for co-producing and distributing local-language films from the 1990s to mid-2010s. The research is based on extensive industry interviews and international fieldwork conducted across eight countries in Europe and Latin America. Brannon Donoghue'sandnbsp;book, The Value Gap: Female-Driven Films from Pitch to Premiere (University of Texas Press, August 2023) explores gender inequity and female-driven filmmaking in contemporary Hollywood. Based on industry fieldwork and interviews conducted over a five-year period, The Value Gap examines the barriers female-driven films and their filmmakers face at each phase of the pipeline from development to distribution. She received an Award for Faculty at Hispanic-Serving Institutions from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 2022 to support this project.

Her publications have appeared in Cinema Journal, Media, Culture and Society, Feminist Media Studies, and a variety of edited collections including Point of Sale: Analyzing Media Retail (edited by Daniel Herbert and Derek Johnson, Rutgers University Press, 2019) and From Network to Netflix: A Guide to Changing Channels (edited by Derek Johnson, Routledge, 2018). She is a co-editor with Paul McDonald and Timothy Havens of Digital Media Distribution: Portals, Platforms, Pipelines (NYU Press, 2021). She has served as a member-at-large on the board of directors of the Society of Cinema and Media Studies and the co-chair of the Media Industries Special Interest Group.

At UNT, she teaches courses including Global Media, Understanding Media Industries, Women's Work in Hollywood, Film Festivals and Markets, Media Franchising, and Media in the 21st Century. She created and co-leads the Media Arts at Toronto International Film Festival, the first faculty led study abroad program of its kind at UNT. Prior to joining UNT, she was a faculty member in the Cinema Studies program at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. Dr. Brannon Donoghue taught courses including Understanding Media Industries, Film Festivals, Women in Hollywood, Latin American Film, Detroit Media, Indie Media, and History of Global Film. She also developed a number of experiential learning programs grounded in media industry studies, led annual student trips to the Toronto International Film Festival, and served as a faculty mentor for the Cannes Film Festival.

Born and raised in Corpus Christi, Dr. Brannon Donoghue earned a B.A. in English Literature with a concentration in Film Studies at Texas AandM University - College Station, and M.A. and Ph.D. in Media Studies from the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas at Austin.

Research Areas

• Media Industries
• Global Media
• Female-Driven Filmmaking
• Conglomerate Hollywood
• Brazilian Media
• Film Festivals
• International Fieldwork