A list of generic roles in media:

creators All communication media include some variant of creator of messages, a role that immediately bifurcates into the potentially seperate roles of creator and performer. The creator may be a writer, composer, director, designer, or journalist, among many potential namings. The performer may be an actor, musician, newscaster, reporter, dancer, messenger, or fulfill any of dozens or other named performance role. In many media the creator and performer will be the same person. In some cases this creator/performer will be more a participant than a performer. There are many possible variations in the combination of creator, performer, and consumer of messages, and different media will normally support some one of these combinations in preference to the others. It is sometimes difficult to differentiate the creator of messages of messages from performers. It is sometimes easy. This should be expected. All performances entail some level of creation. All creations entail some level of performance. Hence while it may be desireable to seperate creator characteristics from performer characteristics, it is also entirely reasonable to view them as a single cluster of related characteristics.
consumers All communication media include some variant of consumer of messages. The consumer may be a reader, viewer, a listener, an audience, a participant or any one of a dozen other namings of people that describe modes of message consumption.
selector/gatekeepers

Many media entail a generic role of content selector or gatekeeper. Specifically, there are buyers, content acquisition specialists, editors, phone screens, reviewers, or other selectors of message content who select content for publication, performance, or other variant of storage and/or delivery through the medium. Such selection will, in general, reflect the editorial goals, preferences, and guidelines of specific instances of the media instance. The issues associated with these goals, guidelines and preferences will include, in varying degree according to the medium and instance, such things as subject matter, entertainment value, fulfillment of submission requirements, and quality of content. This rooting of selection in instance-specific editorial policy is important to defining this generic role, as selection is specifically not about censorship, which seeks to prevent specific kinds of content from being selected for any instance within a medium or set of media. So long as every instance of a medium has a unique editorial policy based on the needs of the specific market niche it addresses, it can be reasonably presumed that all content has a potential home somewhere.

publishers/producers

Many media entail a role of producer or publisher. Where associated with a medium, producers and publishers take organizational responsibility for organizing, managing, and funding the process of producing and/or publishing content. The nature of this production/publishing role can and does vary by medium, as does the name applied. Indeed, some media may use entirely different names to describe people whose role is to find and/or provide the financing and organization required in order to enable the creation, manufacturing, promotion, and/or distribution of content. In some cases the role of publisher/producer is a very limited one in which a person or group decides to publish or produce a specific piece of content (a play or movie, for which this variation is fairly common, or a book). In other cases the role will be an expansive one in which an organization builds a business on its publication or production of many content instances (e.g. a publishing house, a movie studio, a television network, etc). In this latter case it is not unusual to see a layering of the role of publisher/producer, with the larger organization desigating a set of executive producers or series editors who organize a series of related content instances and a more local set of producers or editors that take responsibility for one or a few content instances at a time. Namings can be confusing here, especially in publishing, where an editors role may be akin to executive producer, selector, or production staff depending on the exact nature of their responsibilities. The roles associated with namings in theatre, film, and broadcasting are, in general, cleaner in their divisions of responsibilities

directors Many media entail the role of a performance director who takes specific responsibility for guiding and coordinating performers and other production staff in their coordinated effort to interpret content for an audience. Other names that can be associated with the role of director can, depending on the medium, include, conductor, choreographer, managing editor, judge, moderator, and chairperson, among many others. Note that the role of director is clearly distinct from that of publisher/producer. Where a publisher/producer is concerned with organizing all of the details of a production, including preproduction issues like content selection and postproduction issues like duplication and distribution, a director is generally only responsible for coordinating the performance to its completion. That completion may take the form of an actual performance, a finished newspaper ready for layout and printing, director's cut film, a successfully completed meeting or proceeding, or other completed and integrated content.
performers Many media entail a seperable role of performer. Specifically,there are, in many media, people whose principle role is to perform message content that has been created by others. This does not mean that a performer does not play a creative role. The performer often can and will exercise some level of creativity in interpreting content for an audience and/or in enhancing the performance with improvised additions. The existance of the role does, however, imply a formal bifurcation of the roles of creator and performer, with the creative role composing all or most of the message and the performer enacting the message for consumption. The role of performer is common in dynamic art media like movies, theatre, and musical performance and broadcast media like television and radio. It is not normally associated with a wide variety of other media, including books, letters, newspapers, talk radio, and face-to face interaction, among others. The names that is probably most prototypically associated with the role of performer is actor, but depending on the medium, such names as musician, dancer, anchor, and news reader may apply.
transcribers/recorders Many media entail a transcription recording role in which people and/or organizations play an intermediate role in capturing a performance to a recording medium such that it can be stored for later use (e.g. viewing, reference, editing, reproduction, etc). Names associated with this role, in various media, include stenographer, court reporter, cameraman, recording engineer, and recording secretary.
content editing

Some media entail a content editing role in which people take specific responsibility for editing content after it has been created by the author, writer, or other creator of content or transcribed/recorded by a cameraman, recording engineer or other recording professional. Specific names for this content checking roles include copy editor, proofreader, and fact checker. The purposes associated with such editing can be varied, and include such issues as meeting content length objectives, managing content to meet editorial guidelines, correcting errors, and even combining parallel or related messages obtained from multiple sources into a single message. While content editors frequently have little role in the creation, direction, transcription, selection, or performance of content, they do frequently have veto power, within the scope of a media instances editorial policy, over the final publication/distribution of content.

advertisers Many media distribute advertizing as part of the overall content of the medium. The advertizing space used is generally sold to advertizers, there people and/or organizations who provide and pay for advertizing content that is presented in the medium. The relationship of this advertizing to other content within specific media is likely to vary considerably. Indeed, there may be generic differences in the nature of advertizing content and presention between different instances in the same medium. Indeed, in some cases (public television, programs at school plays) the advertizers may not even be formally identified as advertisers, but as funders, sponsors, or grant sources. To the extent that a person, enterprise, or other organization stands to get business or otherwise acheive organizational goals as a result of exposure of its name and/or messages within the content of the medium, and such exposure is contingent on payments or other services, it will be regarded as advertizing.
content integrators Many media entail a content integration role in which people and/or organizations play an intermediate role in combining diverse content into a cohesive whole. Names for people who play this role in various media include layout, paste-up, film editor, and others. Note that the role of content integrator differs from that of content editor even where the editors role is creating a single message out of multiple parallel message (see the description of content editor). The content integrators role is to turn a content from a variety of sources into a finished composite performance (e.g. a publishable edition of a newspaper or a duplicable cut of a film) after the performance has been completed. The role of the content editor would normally precede this role. In some cases the finished product of an editors effort will be a performance that can be content integrated into a final integrated edition. In other cases, the role of the content editor will occur between initial creation and performance.
reproducers Many media entail some form of formal content manufacturing in which people and/or organizations play an intermediate role in manufacturing copies of a stored performance. A name normally associated with this role, in publishing media, is printer. The name duplicator is more normally associated with film. Other names probably apply in other media.
distributors/carriers

All media involve message transmission. For many media, however, this transmission is formalized through a formally maintained message distribution system. Specifically, there are people and/or organizations associated with many media who take responsibility for transmitting, transporting, sorting, storing, distributing, and/or delivering messages without, in general, regard for the specific content carried. These distributors/carriers exist in a variety of forms, ranging from individual messengers and independent truck drivers through long distance telephone companies, internet network service providers, overnight shipping companies, wholesale distributors, and postal systems, among others.

retailers

Many media involve the direct sale, via retailers, of access to the medium or to specific media content. Specifically, are there people and/or organizations who sell access to the medium and/or its content directly to participants in the medium, whether those participants act as net receivers of messages or a interactants within the medium. A variety of forms of retailing fall within this generic role, including those associated with ticket sales, equipment sales, subscription sales, network access charges, advertizing sales, and direct sales of publications, copies of performances, and other manufactured content representations.

representative/advocates Many media involve the participation of representatives or other advocates who, independent of a performance role, act in the interests of one or another of the various participants in the medium. This includes, in many cases, the production itself. Specifically, are there people associated with the medium whose job is to advocate and act as a representative for an individual or production assocated with the medium. Names associated with the role of representative/advocate in different media when an individual is being represented include manager, agent, lawyer, publicist, receptionist, and promoter. Names associated with this role when the a production is being represented include advertizing, marketing, publicity, public relations, media relations, community relations, and merchandizing. The job of the representative/advocate, in general, is to translate the performance of an individual or production in one medium into a favorable viewing in another. The marketing representatives for a motion picture, for instance, will seek to place advertizing in newspapers and on television. The publicity function for the same picture will work to book the movie's stars on talk shows and in interviews. The movie star's agent, in seeking to limit the number of such appearances while maximizing the star's salary, will almost certainly employ a lawyer to ensure that there are no surprises in the contract. If, in fact, there is a problem that requires litigation to resolve, a lawyer will represent the star, and perhaps the agent, in court. Note, in particular, the myriad media crossovers associated with this example.
regulators

Some media entail a regulative role in which people, agencies, or organizations act in a regulatory capacity relative to the medium. The nature of such agencies can vary, but would certainly include agencies like:

  • the Federal Communication Commission which allocate and enforce restrictions on the use of radio frequency bandwidth under U.S. Law
  • voluntary organizations like the Motion Picture Assocation of America, through which the film and broadcast industries self-regulate in providing ratings of movie and television shows
  • and agencies that enforce formal censorship of content. An example might be found in the post World War II Allied "Civil Censorship Office", which censored a wide range of information in Japan between 1945 and 1949.
critics

The critic or critical role acts specifically to critique and evaluate content within the medium. While there can be several variations on the critical role, including that of consultant, futurist, and (in theatre, at least) "fixer", the prototypic role of critic is to act as a independent public witness to media content who will, after viewing a performance, offer a considered evaluation of what they saw as a guide to other potential consumers of that performance or production. While critics sometimes create content for use within the medium they critque and evaluate, it will often be the case that the critiques and other evaluations they make of content within the medium will be distributed within another medium. Note that critics generally serve their critical role in one medium as a function of playing a creator role in another.

investors Some media involve an explicit and seperable role of investor. Investors are people or organizations whose sole or primary relationship to a medium is to provide the capital necessarily to produce content and/or distribute or enable the distribution of content. Investors may influence productions and performances through their interaction and agreements with producers, but they have no direct relationship to production, performance, or its management beyond their potential return on investment if the production is successful.
financial management As productions become more complex and/or grow in number, the publisher/producer will inevitably need help in managing and tracking the financials associated with production. Management of the enterprise may entail such namings as company or studio president, vice president, director, manager, personnel, office manager, business manager, and account services. Tracking of financials will entail such namings as treasurer, controller, accountant, finance, payroll, and collections. None of these people will usually be directly associated with the production of messages within the medium they support, but all play key roles in coordinating the efforts of others and ensuring the ongoing financial stability of the production, studio, publisher, or other media enterprise.
production support A wide range of other people act to support the production of content in media in various ways. Some production roles are fairly common in the production of messages. A number of such roles are broken out seperately above. Others roles are more difficult to classify as a generic role in production, or occur in only one or a few media. These roles include such namings as set designer, set dresser, makeup, wardrobe, electrician, painter, plumber, carpenter, property masters, act development, artist development, touring department, engineering, maintenence, crane operator, caterer, first-aid, copyboy, news assistant, telephone operators, help desk, librarian, information retrieval specialist, polling, and research. The production support role is a critical one, but it is very much in the background. The efforts of production support may be visible in the set that the performance occurs on, the positioning of the camera, and the performers makeup, wardrobe and accessories. They may also be as invisible as the food the cast and crew ate between takes or the electricity that the lights, camera, and other equipment consumed during takes. Many media do not entail any level of formal production support. Others could not function without efforts of people in a wide variety of support roles.