1The symposium departs from the on-going debate about transmedia storytelling and universe-building to an infrastructural analysis that tackles, beyond the narratological and pragmatic practices, the behind-the-scenes processes and circuits that made the circulations of contents possible. Initiated by the Centre for Research on the English-Speaking World, the symposium, which occurred on October 23rd, 2024 at la Maison de Recherche in Paris, and, which was co-organised by Alice Morin (International Fellow, the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities [KWI]) and Favian Mostura (PhD candidate, Sorbonne Nouvelle University), strived to define trans-media empires by exploring the expansions, rise or/and failures of media moguls such as Condé Naste, Newness, etc., or family enterprises such as Coronet and Collier, between 1920 and 1960. While bridging the interwar and postwar periods remains an unprecedented move, the event looked at the factors that emerged from the interwar period, and continued to influence media institutions and their practices through the postwar, an era certainly marked by technological as well as industrial advances.

2The development and rise of transmedia empires were the main themes of the first panel, which was moderated by Céline Mansanti (Associate professor, Picardie-Jules Verne University), and entitled “From Family Business to Corporation: American Publishers in Transformation / Les transformations du paysage éditorial aux États-Unis: des entreprises familiales aux grandes sociétés ?” Drawing on sources which were partly retrieved from Condé Naste’s archival database, Emmanuelle Paccaud’s presentation (PhD candidate, University of Lausanne), entitled “‘une affaire de famille’: organisation et cohésions socioprofessionnelles au sein du groupe de presse magazine américain Condé Nast (1920-1950),” looked at the development of the Condé Naste group through an in-depth analysis of its managerial system which she chose to define as its “professional family.” This term helped to map the multiple reconfigurations, divisions and professional dynamics which cemented a socio-professional integration. In the same panel, Favian Mostura’s presentation, titled "David A. Smart and his Media Empire, a Legacy Across Print and Film,” focused on David Smart’s transmedia legacy which spanned from print to film. Mostura delved into how Smart disseminated his ideas across multiple media platforms, which resulted in the building of a transmedia legacy reflecting his multifaceted universe from fashion to civic responsibility. Mostura examined how Smart’s business acumen and personal ideas were translated through his ventures into international publishing such as Verve, Coronet and Ken, and his engagement with film making which resulted in Coronet Instructional Films, a staple in American school curricula.

3The focus of researchers in the field has often revolved around the study of media such as television, periodicals, or radio as separate institutions operating within the limits of their local contexts. The symposium’s interest in the development and rise of transmedia empires intersects with a transnational perspective of media institutions which traces the expansion of media institutions from the United States to Europe. This expansion accounts for the mass dissemination of contents and their circulation. The second panel, moderated by Jean Yves-Mollier (Emeritus Professor, Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines University), and entitled “Transmedia Narratives in Changing Mediascapes in Interwar and Postwar France / Récits transmédias au sein d’un environnement médiatique français en reconfiguration,” expanded on the logistics of transmedia storytelling within the French media ecosystem. Alexie Geers (Associate professor, Sorbonne Paris Nord University) presented “Le Salon des Arts Ménagers et l’invention trans-médiatique de la ménagère,” which traced the trans-medial invention of the housewife universe. Based on the financial and administrative archive of the Salon des Arts Ménagers, and an extensive selection of archival media supports, the presentation traced from the late 1920s to the late 1950s the development of the Arts ménagers et culinaires magazine through a performing communicative system of the Salon which blossomed through a transmedial ecosystem consisting of magazines, radio and later television, creating altogether a highly efficient press represented mainly through catalogs, leaflets, posters, advertising, etc. and events such as public talks, conferences, and competitions. Alexie Geers emphasised the efficient role of this trans-media ecosystem in the building of a social narrative that was gradually established in the large public’s popular imagination. Moving further across the transnational borders, and more around Europe, Loic Artiaga (Associate professor, University of Pau et Pays de l’Adour) presented “Les Presses de la Cité (1926-1987) : origines industrielles, stratégies médiatiques,” which interrogated whether Sven Nielsen’s Presses de la Cité press might actually be an instance of trans-media, and whether this notion was viable to analyse the sector’s developments and transformations during the postwar period. Looking at Nielsen’s media strategies, which were inspired by the American forms and methods of production and based on the translation of the transatlantic authors, Artiaga examined how Nielsen’s Presses de La Cité contributed to the shaping of the French public’s popular imagination in a postwar and then a postcolonial Europe.

4Media empires have often been examined as institutions in competition or in isolation of one another. While the symposium advanced the notion of “empire” to imply power and expansion of media, it also admitted the thesis of media imperialism and recognised, by the same token, the spheres of economic and political influences of the U.S media institutions. The symposium advanced the trans-media notion as a new approach of media influence which involves the relations that could arise between media empires, and the structures that intersect and converge. In the third panel, entitled “Challenging the Outlines of ‘Media Empires,’ or: Thinking Through Empire(s) and (Inter)mediality / Quels contours pour quels empires ? Transformations des structures et transmédialité,” moderated by Benoît Tadié (Professor, Paris Nanterre University), the symposium challenged the traditional horizontal structures of media institutions while redefining the contours of trans-media. “Trans-media empires” drew off the contours established between media empires, and suggested instead to look at the possibilities of cooperation between them. In his presentation, “On Media Inter-Imperialism: Triangulating Time-Life, Walt Disney Studios, and the Radio Corporation of America,” Jonathan Dentler (Associate professor, the Catholic University of Paris) examined this possible cooperation through the notion of “media inter-imperialism” which suggests that media empires, just like modern political empires, not only competed with one another but also and equally cooperated with one another to expand their influence over what he referred to as sensory territories. Drawing on the cooperation between three American institutions, mainly the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and its subsidiaries RKO and NBC, Walt Disney Studios, and Time-Life Inc., Dentler traced the multiple aspects of cooperation between these enterprises through the intermediary services such as advertising, public relations, facilities and infrastructure, etc. Laura Trexa (PhD candidate, EHESS) in the second presentation of this panel, reflected on the reconfiguration and discontinuities surrounding media empires from the postwar period towards the 1960s. Drawing on an extensive archival study of several promotional departments within Time.Inc, this final presentation questioned the commercial and advertising strategies that the company had deployed to build a coherent brand of its empire during the postwar, a period which was massively informed by the company’s market research. The unprecedented emergence of diverse publishing companies oriented towards specialized press, development of Time- life books subsidiary along with the threatening rise of television during the 1960s, resulted in a reconfiguration of the company’s branding strategy which was reflected in its gradual separation from the empire model.

5The symposium was concluded by Vanessa R. Schwartz (Professor, the University of Southern California). In her keynote conclusion entitled “That’s Info-tainment! Some Thoughts on Trans-media and Press Empires,” Schwartz advanced that trans-media empires represented a media reality which was rather conquered by the infotainment industry. Schwartz opened new horizons on looking at dynamics of media institutions through the lens of intermediality. Schwartz also asserted the importance of approaching media in their serial and adjacent patterns as the most visible forms of media institutions. Claire Pettitt’s Serial Forms, she suggested, might be useful in this respect as it places the serial work in the broader context of media history, putting emphasis on its socio-cultural impact on media and print, and the general mass consumer culture. In the conclusion to the symposium, Schwartz reminded the audience that the continuities and disruptions of these media institutions should also be derived from the various aspects of serial forms which were a significant part of a dynamic cultural entertaining landscape, and which greatly appealed to a large mass consumer culture from the 1920s towards the late 1960s. At the end, she cautioned the audience against the overtly “Americanisation” of mass media, and encouraged to look beyond its alienation from modern French media.