Hollywood Online: Movie Marketing Practices in the Dial-Up and Broadband Eras of the Internet 1994-2009

My thesis provides a historical account of online film marketing practices in the dial-up (1994 – 2001) and broadband (2002 – 2009) eras of the internet. Theatrical exhibition was crucial for the long-term life cycle of a film in the 1990s. It fostered demand in the marketplace and raised public awareness in preparation for film’s subsequent exploitation in a range of ancillary markets. The growing home entertainment market remained the most important site for generating these revenues, combining television, satellite, homevideo and DVD, personal computer, videogame console, and internet technologies. I argue that online marketing represented the culmination of a range of marketing techniques associated with these channels of delivery, and which were developed to increase film consumption in the US household.