Levelling Up the Screen Industries?: Film and Television Production as Regenerative Strategy in Places Left Behind

This timely book examines how screen industry development has emerged as a vital strategy for economic and cultural regeneration in England’s post-industrial regions. It is essential reading for policymakers, creative professionals, researchers, and students in media and cultural studies.

Dr Mark McKenna is an Associate Professor in Film and Media Industries at the University of Staffordshire. His work has explored those industries from a range of different perspectives, considering marketing and branding practice, regulatory policy, and media labour. He has published widely in these areas and is the author of Nasty Business: The Marketing and Distribution of the Video Nasties (2020), Snuff (2022), Big Wednesday: Lamenting Lost Youth in the New Hollywood (Routledge, 2024) and is the co-editor (with William Proctor) of Horror Franchise Cinema (Routledge, 2021). In addition to his academic work, he co-authored (with Andrew Lennon) the report Silicon Stoke: Developing Film, TV and Other Content Production in North Staffordshire, which explored the opportunities that are available locally for stimulating the growth of North Staffordshire’s screen industry set against the backdrop of the government’s ＂Levelling Up＂ agenda. That work informs this book.