Dr. Courtney Brannon Donoghue is an Assistant 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's forthcoming book, The Value Gap: Female-Driven Films from Pitch to Premiere (University of Texas Press, summer 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.
Her publications have appeared in Cinema Journal, Media, Culture & 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). The field defining collection brings together leading international media industry scholars in examining the complex and multifaceted 21st century landscape of distribution. She currently serves on the board of directors for the Society of Cinema and Media Studies.
At UNT, she teaches courses including Global Media, Understanding Media Industries, Women in Hollywood, Media in the 21st Century, and Transmedia Entertainment. 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 A&M 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.