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Television Interfaces
Abstract
This article considers television interfaces, the screens of menus and metadata that must be engaged, as part of emergent television viewing practices. Found on devices and services such as TiVo, Hulu, YouTube, and Apple's iTunes suite, television interfaces are productive spaces that reframe the programming we watch, introduce new metadata-based aesthetics, alter the rhythms of the time we spend with television, and reveal the struggles between media corporations both established and emergent. After a brief overview of television interfaces, this article interrogates the specific role that television interfaces play as explicitly interactive sites where the emergent media ontologies of customization, navigation, and control are invested and contested.
... With greater personalization of our experiences through systems like TiVO and Netflix, we have allowed our preferences to be made explicit with only the expectation of our content in return, although recommendation systems can help but not especially hurt a system. [10] Largely this has been a boon for marketers as greater troves of information on our preferences are handed over without bounds [11]. Mostly, however, these navigation interfaces are created for the lowest common denominator possible. ...
... Mostly, however, these navigation interfaces are created for the lowest common denominator possible. They are ultra-simple and allow for basic personalization in the form of watchlists, playlists, and other crafted lists such as 'top trending' lists [11]. More complex media navigation systems have been explored in the form of 3D browsing [12], visual querying [13], and even adaptive user interfaces which employ machine learning to create automated changes in the user interface rather than increase the complexity of interaction [10]. ...
The culture of televised media experiences has changed very little since the time it began in the 1930s, but new internet technologies, like Netflix, Hulu, and Youtube, are now quickly forcing major change. Although these new internet technologies have given the viewer more control than the historical dial, they have also left behind some of the greatest contributions of traditional television. These contributions include not just the well-favored simplicity of use, but also the sense of social experience and connectedness, the ease and continuity of scheduled programming, and the understanding that television is now, current, and pulsing. This thesis presents Me.TV, a web platform that combines the benefits of traditional television and on-demand viewing for a new experience that allows us to let go, watch the same channels as our friends, flip our preferences around, get constant, current content, and still have control over the type and timing of content. To make this experience possible, we present a visual programming language at the center of the Me.TV platform that enables users to create complex rules with simple interactions. The visual language constructs allow users to create static preferences, such as genre constraints, and plan for non-static ones, such as a current mood, in as many channels as they want. To support the Me.TV programming language, the platform comprises of an editor, translation engine, application programming interface, video player and navigation dashboard, which we prototype in this thesis as a javascript web application. Work reported herein was funded by the Media Lab Consortium and the Ultimate Media Program.
... Two approaches to the study of television in its online format inform this study: The first is represented by Paddy Scannell (1996) and John Ellis (1982Ellis ( , 1999Ellis ( , 2000 and centres on communicative strategies and the programme schedule as cornerstones of the television medium; the second draws on the scholarly work on online television and streaming services of Derek Kompare (2002), Daniel Chamberlain (2010), and Catherine Johnson (2019). Together, these two approaches form the basis for an understanding of how two BVoD services seek to translate some of the traditional characteristics of the television medium into a digital environment, as television transforms from a time-structured to (also) a space-structured medium. ...
As on-demand media claim an increasing amount of the time we spend on digital media, traditional broadcasters have adopted video on-demand (VoD) services as a means of presenting their programmes. This article analyses two Danish VoD services offered by legacy broadcasters – that is, BVoD services. It argues that the traditional features of broadcast television, to communicate liveness and immediacy, are reappropriated in the publishing practices of the BVoD services. With an analytical focus on the use of temporal paratexts, the article finds that whereas both services emphasise liveness and immediacy in their publishing practices, they apply different means of expressing the temporal qualities. These differences can be attributed to organisational differences. Finally, the article concludes that competitiveness, distinctiveness, and the public service identity of the broadcasters are explanatory factors for the reappropriation of time-structured publishing in the two Danish BVoD services DRTV and TV 2 Play.
... 73-91). As a result of digitization, television experiences have been reformed (Chamberlain, 2010). While the choice of the viewer is limited in the traditional broadcasting approach, platforms such as Netflix claim that they give their users the right to choose content from a wider perspective. ...
Today, with the development of technology, many developments and changes have been experienced in mass media. In the traditional period, content could only be accessed from sources such as television, newspapers, magazines, and radio, while the digital platforms that emerged with the era of the so-called new media enabled people to acquire the content they wanted at any time. Netflix, one of these digital platforms, is a video streaming service that offers on-demand access to individuals. Netflix, which first started selling DVD subscriptions by mail in 1998, has turned into a platform that sells monthly subscriptions to reach the video content it hosts today. Digital platforms such as Netflix offer users the opportunity to watch the content they want from anywhere, with the communication device (tablet, phone, computer) they want, in a way that they can create their own streams, without even the need for internet. Within the scope of this study, the contents on the Netflix platform in the context of the flow theory of Raymond Williams will be analyzed by content analysis method. Williams discussed the program structure of the television as streaming. According to him, television contents create a whole among themselves and present a flow to the viewers and the audience is caught in this flow. Within the scope of the study, the contents of Netflix, one of the digital content viewing platforms that are formed as a result of changing broadcasting concepts, will be analyzed using semi-structured interview technique in the perspective of flow theory.
... 73-91). As a result of digitization, television experiences have been reformed (Chamberlain, 2010). While the choice of the viewer is limited in the traditional broadcasting approach, platforms such as Netflix claim that they give their users the right to choose content from a wider perspective. ...
Today, the development of technology has brought about the creation of new environments in the field of communication. In this context, it can be said that virtual technologies have started to be used in many areas from education to health, from sports to cinema. Virtual reality is a process in which the real and the unreal are fictionalized and brought together through virtually created place. In the virtual reality environment, it can be said that individuals experience the feeling of being there. In this context, virtual reality platforms, which can make the sense of reality feel close, especially in situations where physical proximity is not possible, is one of the important steps in the field of communication. This study aims to investigate the effects of technology in the field of communication by realizing a communication experience via vTime, a virtual reality platform created by a UK-based team. In this direction, the potential of virtual reality environments to create a public sphere is one of the points emphasized by the research. In the study, 5 Turkish people who were brought together on the vTime virtual reality platform were included in a conversation with virtual reality tools. These people were asked questions about their instantaneous experiences in the virtual reality environment and their thoughts on this technology by interview method. By analyzing the answers given, the possibilities of using virtual reality platforms as a communication tool today and in the near future were tried to be revealed.
... 73-91). As a result of digitization, television experiences have been reformed (Chamberlain, 2010). While the choice of the viewer is limited in the traditional broadcasting approach, platforms such as Netflix claim that they give their users the right to choose content from a wider perspective. ...
Public relations and social media are basically based on communication. Changing the order of communication along with the development of new technologies affected all fields of work as well as the field of public relations with the implementation of new practices and tools. Social media applications, which are included in public relations studies, have entered the research field of academic studies on this occasion. In this manner, the subject of this study has been carried out in Turkey and named "public relations" with the concept of "new media" or "social media" concept constitutes the graduate theses. The aim of this research in public relations axis graduate of surveys conducted in Turkey in social media and taking in conjunction with new media concepts to what extent to put forth that takes place in the general population and post is to establish a general map of this thesis. The bibliometric analysis method was used in this study. From this point of view, the year of the thesis, the title and thesis advisor, university and department, the research method, the data collection method of this research, the number of pages and keywords categories were created and the data of the theses were recorded. In the first stage of the analysis, 41 theses containing the words public relations and social media were reached, and 13 theses containing the words public relations and new media in the second stage. It was determined that 54 theses obtained as a result of these scans were carried out between the years 2006-2020. It has been determined that there are 11% of 577 graduate theses, which are in the general universe between these years and have the concept of public relations in their names. As a result of the analysis made, it was determined that the graduate theses with the words social media or new media in their names together with the words of public relations are highly postgraduate thesis. It has been revealed that these theses were published by 31% of Marmara University and 67% were studied in the Public Relations and Publicity Department. In addition, it was determined that the content analysis method was preferred as the data collection technique in these theses with a rate of 63%. In addition, 214 keywords were reached in theses, and it was recorded that ring relationships came in the top rank with 53 frequencies and 25% of these keywords.
... Jeff Bewkes dijital devrim kavramını interneti televizyona dönüştürmek" olarak tanımlamaktadır. Bewkes, cihazlar arasındaki farkları yok sayarak tablet, telefon gibi cihazların yalnızca daha küçük ve taşınabilir televizyon niteliği taşıdığını öne sürmektedir (Jang & Park, 2016, s. 73-91) Dijitalleşme sonucu televizyon deneyimleri yeniden biçimlendirilmiştir (Chamberlain, 2010). Geleneksel yayıncılık anlayışında izleyicinin tercih hakkı sınırlı iken, Netflix gibi platformlar kullanıcılarına daha geniş bir perspektifte içerik seçebilme hakkı tanıdıklarını iddia etmektedir. ...
Günümüzde teknolojinin gelişmesiyle birlikte kitle iletişim araçlarında da bir çok gelişim ve değişim yaşanmıştır. Geleneksel dönemde içeriklere yalnızca televizyon, gazete, dergi, radyo gibi kaynaklardan ulaşılabilmekteyken yeni medya olarak adlandırılan dönem ile birlikte oluşan dijital platformlar kişilere istediği zaman istediği içeriği edinebilme özelliği sunmuştur. Bu dijital platformlardan biri olan Netflix bireylere isteğe bağlı erişim sunan bir video akış hizmetidir. İlk olarak 1998 yılında posta yoluyla DVD aboneliği satmaya başlayan Netflix günümüzde barındırdığı video içeriklerine ulaşmak için aylık abonelikler satan bir platform haline dönüşmüştür. Netflix gibi dijital platformlar kullanıcılarına internete dahi gereksinim duymadan istedikleri içerikleri kendi akışlarını oluşturacak biçimde istedikleri yerden, istedikleri iletişim aracı (tablet, telefon, bilgisayar) ile izleyebilme imkanı sunmaktadır. Bu çalışma kapsamında Raymond Williams’ ın akış kuramı temelinde bağlamında Netflix platformunda yer alan içerikler içerik analizi yöntemi ile analiz edilecektir. Williams’ ın televizyonun program yapısını akış olarak ele almıştır. Ona göre televizyon içerikleri kendi aralarında bir bütün oluşturarak izleyicilere bir akış sunmakta ve izleyiciler de bu akışa kapılmaktadır. Çalışma kapsamında değişen yayıncılık anlayışları sonucu oluşan dijital içerik izleme platformlarından Netflix’ in içerikleri akış kuramı perspektifinde yarı-yapılandırılmış görüşme tekniği kullanılarak analiz edilecektir.
... The increasingly central role of software to the television industry has been noted in some of the academic literature on internet television (Evens and Donders, 2018;Robinson, 2017;Wilken et al., 2011). There has also been valuable work examining the role of interfaces in shaping the experience of television in digital and online environments (Chamberlain, 2010(Chamberlain, , 2011Johnson, 2017Johnson, , 2019Sanson and Strierer, 2019). However, this literature rarely interrogates the nature of internet-related software, failing to examine the differences between apps (for example) and other forms of internet-related software, such as HTML. ...
This article examines the appisation of television: the emergence of apps as a mainstream means of delivering television services/content through smart TVs, connected devices, smartphones and tablets. Exploring the interrelationships between TV content, discovery and aggregator apps, the article demonstrates how content/software providers, device manufacturers and infrastructural platforms vie to control our access to, and experience of, television in a market underpinned by datafication, commodification and selection. This control is enacted within a multidimensional software, device and platform ecology where discoverability is central because it determines which content, services and apps are most prominent, accessible and easy to find.
... Evolusi selanjutnya dijelaskan oleh Gurevitch (2010) dimana perkembangan tekstual, teknologi, estetika, dan ekonomi membentuk nilai "transaksi" promosi dalam media digital. Dalam kaitannya dengan teknologi, Youtube memungkinkan sistem untuk merekam jejak video yang dilihat karena adanya penerapan teknologi metadata (Chamberlain, 2010). Fasilitas dalam berekspresi dan adanya kebijakan informasi menjadikan Youtube sebagai platform pilihan (Gillespie, 2010). ...
p align="center"> ABSTRACT
The act of avoiding or inevatibility perception of advertisements formed from the simple concept of leaving the room the ad is displayed to change the program channel. Internet users avoid advertisements caused by 3 (three) factors, namely internet media is intended as a media that is more oriented to a specific destination other than entertainment. The second factor is that internet users feel that regular advertisements will slow down access speeds and download processes. The third factor is advertising on the internet at any time can make users click links that appear intentionally or not. This study aims to analyze the determinants of the attitude of avoiding advertisements on Youtube. This research uses quantitative methods with SMART PLS 3.0. The research involving 100 samples found that the act of Avoiding Adverts was not directly affected by the perception of the user's goal being obstructed in enjoying the shows on Youtube and also by the user's skepticism as a moderating effect; Actions to avoid ads are influenced by the clutter of the advertisement when enjoying shows on Youtube, and previous negative experiences both directly and by using the moderation effect. As a recommendation in this study, the use of more specific sample characters (channel owners or hobbyist favourite channel lovers) can contribute more diverse results.
Keywords; inevatibility; advertising; scepticism; experience; youtube.
ABSTRAK
Tindakan menghindari atau persepsi keniscayaan iklan terbentuk dari konsep sederhana yaitu meninggalkan ruangan yang iklan yang ditayangkan sampai kepada mengganti kanal program. Pengguna internet menghindari iklan disebabkan oleh 3 (tiga) faktor yaitu media internet lebih ditujukan sebagai media yang lebih berorientasi pada tujuan tertentu selain hiburan. Faktor kedua yaitu pengguna internet merasa iklan yang tampil secara berkala akan memperlambat kecepatan akses dan proses unduh. Faktor ketiga yaitu iklan di internet sewaktu-waktu dapat membuat pengguna mengklik tautan yang muncul secara sengaja atau tidak. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis determinan sikap tindakan menghindari iklan di Youtube. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode kuantitatif dengan Structural Equation Modelling – Partial Least Square dengan menggunakan SMART PLS 3.0. Penelitian yang melibatkan 100 sampel ini menemukan bahwa tindakan menghindari Iklan tidak dipengaruhi secara langsung oleh persepsi terhambatnya tujuan pengguna dalam menikmati tayangan yang ada di Youtube dan juga dengan sikap skeptis pengguna sebagai efek pemoderasi; Tindakan menghindari Iklan dipengaruhi oleh kesemrawutan iklan yang ada pada saat menikmati tayangan yang ada di Youtube , dan pengalaman negatif sebelumnya baik secara pengaruh langsung maupun dengan menggunakan efek moderasi. Sebagai rekomendasi dalam penelitian ini, penggunaan karakter sampel yang lebih spesifik (pemilik kanal atau penikmat kanal favorit hobi) bisa memberikan kontribusi hasil yang lebih beragam.
Kata Kunci; keniscayaan; iklan; skeptisisme; pengalaman; youtube. </p
... Closer to our concerns here are those raised in an early contribution by Chamberlain (2010), who discussed how the then newly evolving interfaces of Hulu and YouTube offered "a sense of individualized control over forces and quantities that seem unmanageable" (p. 86). ...
This article examines the screen interfaces that have become central to the experience of television, film, and video content in an era when Internet-distributed video coexists with older technologies. We outline how these interfaces represent new sites of media circulation power in their ability to direct audiences toward certain kinds of experience and content, and therefore away from others, power that we contextualize in the longer term history of media industries. We identify multiple levels of video interface: those provided by various video devices, those offered by video services, those of marketplaces that sell services, and aggregated interfaces that blend all of these activities. We identify mechanisms of circulation power that can be applied to all of these interface types, including interface placement, recommendation, search and other functions, and metric display power. We conclude by outlining some ways in which policy and regulation might respond to these emerging forms of media circulation power, and the implications for research on streaming services and other developments in the media industries.
This article identifies and contributes to a small but growing body of research that critically analyzes the user interfaces of digital platforms and apps. By examining how the interfaces of music-streaming platforms (MSPs) frame musical experience, we test claims that such platforms encourage "functional" and "mood-based" uses of music linked to problematic forms of power and subjectivity. While such framings are indeed evident in MSP interfaces, so too are other, rather different constructions of engagement with music. We argue that one significant power of MSPs is to incorporate diverse forms of musical experience into pervasive hybrids. Our approach advances interface analysis and research on the platformization of culture by illustrating the benefits of critical platform interface analysis through intra-domain platform interface analysis, and by offering general and music-specific taxonomies of digital platform interfaces.
Despite discoverability and prominence emerging as crucial to contemporary industry and policy debates in relation to online and internet-distributed television, there remains relatively little rich, qualitative data about how contemporary audiences discover content. This article addresses this gap through empirical audience research focused on the ‘routes to content’ through which UK audiences find and decide what television to watch. Defining television broadly to include all forms of video content accessed in the home, we argue for the importance of thinking about discoverability as an audience activity, not just an industrial strategy. Building on TV audience studies’ longer history and more recent literature on engagement, media literacy, algorithms and technological affordances in contemporary media platforms, we argue for new understanding of the imaginaries shaping people’s habitual viewing activities. The article proposes four new concepts for thinking about discoverability as an audience activity. First, we explore technological affordances and default behaviour, developing the concept of the negotiated-null affordance to explain how technological affordances can be rendered invisible by habitual behaviours. Second, we focus on algorithmic literacies and propose a new dissonant algorithmic imaginary to explain our participants’ ambivalences towards algorithmic personalisation. Third, we unpack the dynamics of access that emerge in our participants’ negotiations of television technologies, services and content. Fourth, we examine the role of word of mouth and promotional paratexts, theorising a second-order algorithmic imaginary to help us understand how these forms of communication can often, themselves, be subject to algorithmic processes. In doing so, we argue for the need for further qualitative research that looks beyond the ‘savvy’ consumers that dominate audience research in order to unpack the technological, industrial, cultural and social processes that shape people’s routes to content in a platform-dominated media landscape.
This chapter continues the sustained case study of MUBI, by dissecting the platform’s web and app interface. It illuminates how the service attempts to consolidate a brand identity and taste community by reactivating and modernising traditional recommendation models and inscribing a digital-culture, neo-liberal, neo-Habermasian form of gatekeeping.KeywordsMUBIInterfaceCultural recommendationCultural tasteCommunity buildingGatekeeping
This chapter continues to explore the impact of digital platforms on twenty-first-century manifestations of genre, but this time examines how the UK broadcaster ITV’s streaming platform, ITV Hub—along with its online marketing strategies and its digital spread across social media channels—transforms the genre of docudrama into a mode of engagement specific to today’s multiplatform culture. Looking at ITV’s high-end docudrama Quiz (2020), this chapter argues that the docudrama genre has evolved into an aesthetic, discursive and interactive engagement strategy that works to scaffold today’s digital infrastructures of catch-up TV, namely heightened customisation and democratic voice.
How do you get citizens/media consumers to voluntarily choose to expose themselves to diverse content? Is there a role for government in helping people make diverse choices? Professor Helberger addresses these questions by suggesting “diversity by design” as an antidote to the ironic fact that broadband media abundance actually makes it more difficult for users to choose diversely. She presents four conceptualizations of diversity policy: marketplace of ideas (“external diversity”); public sphere (“internal diversity”); personal autonomy (“individual choice”); and random exposure (“serendipity”), and suggests concrete design principles to guide regulators in implementing them. However, she notes, in the end it remains for the user to decide.
Whilst Chap. 3 considered the top-down strategies of CCTV and HBS, this chapter focuses on the production cultures and convergent screen forms, borne out of a set of top-down and bottom-up upgrade cultures that represent the distinct characteristics of Chinese TVIII in the ongoing attempts to balance the pressures of commercialisation and political subservience. Drawing on interview accounts, digital screen forms and industry artefacts collected from CCTV, Mango TV and Tencent Video, this chapter and Chap. 6 will uncover the cultural effects of institutional strategies and examine how these strategies lead to shifting production cultures and inform the production of distinct screen cultures and programme forms within these production circumstances. This chapter will begin with investigating the shifting production cultures and newly emerging screen forms in the convergence production of Chinese television. In particular, I will illustrate the particular production cultures in Chinese broadcast television with case studies at CCTV (CNTV) and HBS (Mango TV) across broadcast and digital environments. By examining the distinctive production cultures and multiplatform forms at CCTV and Mango TV, this chapter seeks to capture and set out the hidden discourses that are borne out of the processes of production cultures at Chinese broadcast institutions. I continue to examine the extent to which these are informed by the institutions’ origins as an overarching concern.
How do you get citizens/media consumers to voluntarily choose to expose themselves to diverse content? Is there a role for government in helping people make diverse choices? Professor Helberger addresses these questions by suggesting “diversity by design” as an antidote to the ironic fact that broadband media abundance actually makes it more difficult for users to choose diversely. She presents four conceptualizations of diversity policy: marketplace of ideas (“external diversity”); public sphere (“internal diversity”); personal autonomy (“individual choice”); and random exposure (“serendipity”), and suggests concrete design principles to guide regulators in implementing them. However, she notes, in the end it remains for the user to decide.
The emergence and development of video streaming technology has been the reason for a strong change in traditional television production and consumption forms. An active viewing process for the audience is frequently mentioned, also new opportunities and new business models in the distribution of television content are emphasized. The study focuses on OTT, one of these business models, together with It examines the basic codes of change adhering to a conceptual analysis. The Netflix effect statement is often used to describe this change. In this context, the determinations of how Netflix stands out are at some point a concrete example of the change in television. Netflix has grown globally with developing content catalogs that fit the fragmented structure of the audience, implementing its own broadcast plan against the standard television stream, and strategies that support the binge watching behavior associated with them.
Industrial discourses surrounding subscription video on demand (SVOD) services are deeply embedded in the rhetoric of viewer choice and control. However, these discourses are often misleading, with viewers given only nominal amounts of agency in their viewing experience, most often circumscribed by the limited affordances of the service’s interface. This article takes online TV interfaces as its object of study and interrogates to what ends SVODs use them. In particular, it examines how the interface can operate as a part of an SVOD’s larger branding campaign. Using Netflix as a case study, the article argues that the interface is discursively positioned as empowering viewers to easily find what they want to watch, yet the actual operation and affordances of the interface significantly delimit viewer agency. Instead, the interface works to guide viewers to Netflix original content to strengthen the core brand values of abundance, personalization, and exclusivity.
With growth in access to high-speed broadband and 4G, and increased ownership of smartphones, tablets and internet-connected television sets, the internet has simultaneously begun to compete with and transform television. Online TV argues that these changes create the conditions for an emergent internet era that challenges the language and concepts that we have to talk about television as a medium. In a wide-ranging analysis, Catherine Johnson sets out a series of conceptual frameworks designed to provide a clearer language with which to analyse the changes to television in the internet era and to bring into focus the power dynamics of the online TV industry. From providing definitions of online TV and the online TV industry, to examining the ways in which technology, rights, interfaces and algorithms are used to control and constrain access to audiovisual content, Online TV is a timely intervention into debates about contemporary internet and television cultures. A must-read for any students, scholars and practitioners who want to understand and analyse the ways in which television is intertwining with and being transformed by the internet.
This essay updates Raymond Williams’ flow by defining its contemporary logics – televisible and invisual. The televisible are both media content and visual digital media forms that shape – and are shaped by – interactions with media content through digital media platforms. The invisual are unseen operations of software, algorithms and other processes that configure and manifest the televisible. A case study of Netflix illuminates how this reconceived flow series functions as a framework for understanding the stakes of digital media platforms that both foster possibilities for user interactivity and attenuate users to industrial models for audienceship and programming.
The past 5 years have seen a rapid acceleration in the development of online television in the United Kingdom and beyond, with rise in ownership of Internet-connected television sets, smartphones and tablets, increased access to broadband and the growing penetration of transaction and subscription video-on-demand (VoD) services. This article asks how free-to-air terrestrial broadcasters are adapting to a media marketplace in which, according to Ofcom, on-demand television is becoming mass market, through an analysis of ITV Hub – the VoD player for the United Kingdom’s largest free-to-air advertiser-funded broadcaster. Focusing on the mature UK VoD market and the broadcaster whose business model is most threatened by online television, the article combines trade press and textual analysis to demonstrate how ITV has developed a VoD service highly structured by the logics of broadcasting. Centering its analysis on the interface for ITV Hub, the article argues that this increasingly quotidian form of television ephemera offers a vital site through which to understand the changing nature of television as a medium. The article concludes that with contemporary developments in VoD, the distinctions between linear/broadcast and non-linear/on-demand television (flow vs. file, passive viewer vs. interactive user) are breaking down in ways that challenge prevailing arguments that on-demand television can be understood as offering a distinctly different (and more empowered and interactive) experience for viewers.
This article deals with the streaming of online video, along a line of comparison to the music industry. Based on qualitative empirical research conducted in Sweden and other European countries, the article focuses on one particular aspect of streamed media, aggregation, since aggregation is central for how streaming is economically, technically, and socially organized. Developing its argument at the intersection of critical media industry studies and economic anthropology, the article argues that online aggregators have contributed to a process of devaluation that their services were designed to fight.
This study presents a model linking character customization and game enjoyment. Two separate studies using different types of customization (functional vs. aesthetic) were employed to test two competing mechanisms that explain the effects of customizing in-game characters: feelings of autonomy and control - rooted in self-determination theory - and perceived attachment to game characters. Additionally, this study investigated how these two divergent mechanisms influence game enjoyment through immersion-related experiences. The findings showed that the feelings of autonomy and control are consistently stronger explanations for enjoyment, regardless of customization type. The results suggest that similar to other entertainment media, games can appeal to individuals through the senses of autonomy, control, and attachment to a character; the first two prove more critical.
In this essay, I use Law's framework of heterogeneous engineering in tandem with insights from other sociologists of systems and scholarship on organizations, as a springboard to examine a number of digital artifacts assembled by the MSNBC Digital Network over the period 2007 through 2010 and to explore the manner in which a wide variety of values, interests, and concerns became invested and contested' in their design. Specifically, this article, the result of 5 weeks of interviewing and field observation at MSNBC.com, MSNBC TV, and National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) News' various online offices, explores the backstories of two seemingly mundane interfaces used by NBC News' Web properties during that period, both of which are revealed to be particularly dynamic, heterogeneous, contingent, and consequential.
“The Americanization of Jeannie” (1965), an early episode of I Dream of Jeannie, directly represents the women's liberation movement as Jeannie attempts emancipation. Through a close reading, I argue that not only does “The Americanization of Jeannie” use the same rhetorical strategies that are currently categorized as postfeminist, but this rhetoric is better understood as a doppelganger than a backlash. “The Americanization of Jeannie” presents a caricature – a feminist doppelganger – that depicts feminism as illogical, apolitical, and ultimately comedic, thereby functioning to contain the cultural representations of feminism in the public forum.
L'é-man-ci-pation de Jeannie : les doubles féministes à la télévision américaine
Résumé : 〈 The Americanization of Jeannie 〉 (〈 L'Américanisation de Jeannie 〉, 1965), l'un des premiers épisodes de la série I Dream of Jeannie, représente directement le mouvement de libération des femmes alors que Jeannie essaie de s'émanciper. Par une lecture minutieuse, je soutiens que non seulement 〈 The Americanization of Jeannie 〉 utilise les mêmes stratégies rhétoriques que celles qui sont aujourd'hui catégorisées comme postféministes, mais cette rhétorique est mieux comprises en tant que double qu'en tant que réaction négative. 〈 The Americanization of Jeannie 〉 présente une caricature (un double féministe) qui dépeint le féminisme comme illogique, apolitique et en fin de compte comique, réussissant ainsi à ma^triser les représentations culturelles du féminisme dans le forum public.
Mots clés : culture populaire, postféminisme, féminisme, I Dream of Jeannie, double
Die E-man-zi-pation von Jeannie: Feministische Doppelgänger im U.S.-amerikanischen Fernsehen
Die Amerikanisierung von Jeannie“ (1965), eine ältere Episode der Serie Bezaubernde Jeannie, repräsentiert die Befreiungsbewegung der Frau anhand des Emanzipationsversuchs von Jeannie. Mittels intensiver Rezeption argumentiere ich, dass diese Folge nicht nur die gleichen rhetorischen Strategien anwendet, die heute als postfeministisch bezeichnet werden, sondern dass diese Rhetorik eher als ein Doppelgänger und nicht als Gegenbewegung verstanden werden sollte. Die Folge präsentiert eine Karikatur – einen feministischen Doppelgänger – der Feminismus als unlogisch, unpolitisch und letztlich komisch darstellt, und damit als eine kulturelle Repräsentation von Feminismus im öffentlichen Forum fungiert.
Schlüsselbegriffe: Populärkultur, Postfeminismus, Feminismus, Bezaubernde Jeannie, Doppelgänger
La E-man-ci-pación de Jeannie: Los Doppelgangers Feministas de la Televisión en los Estados Unidos
Resumen: “La Americanización Jeannie” (1965), un episodio temprano del Yo Sueño con Jeanine, representa directamente el movimiento de liberación de las mujeres y como Jeannie intenta la emancipación. A través de una lectura minuciosa, arguyo que, no solo “La Americanización de Jeannie” usa las mismas estrategias retóricas que son categorizadas corrientemente como post feministas, sino que esta retórica es entendida mejor como un doppelganger en vez de un reacción. “La Americanización Jeannie” presenta una caricatura – un doppelganger feminista– que representa el feminismo como ilógico, apolítico, y en última instancia cómico, de ese modo funcionando para contener las representaciones culturales del feminismo en el foro público.
Palabras claves: Cultura popular, Post feminismo, Feminismo, Yo Sueño con Jeannie, Doppelganger.
This article examines emerging tensions surrounding the way television content is distributed online, introduces several of the increasingly diverse players in this field, and attempts to cultivate theoretical contributions from outside the standard communication literature as a means of capturing additional nuances of evolving television distribution practices. Specifically, I have chosen to chronicle the period between 2007 and 2009 in the development of two successful television startups whose visions for online distribution were frequently at odds. The first of these is the popular online television portal, Hulu, owned by a number of the United States' largest media companies. The second is Boxee, a startup producing software that today runs a variety of Internet‐connected set‐top boxes for televisions.
Television, the author argues, responds to two powerful desires of our age: it makes us witnesses of often traumatic events and it tries - and fails - to provide us with narratives that make sense of the world. The author makes sense of modern television, both by exploring its processes and in terms of its dynamic relationships with the cultures that provide it with raw material. Television, he proposes, offers us multiple ways of understanding the world, yet does not arbitrate between them. He explores this process as one of "working through", whereby television news takes in the chaos and conflict of the world and subsequent programmes of all kinds offer diverse ways of unravelling its confusions, from the psychobabble of talk shows to the open narratives of soaps, documentaries and dramas. By means of this working through, problems are exhausted rather than resolved. The author demonstrates how television's function in its new era is no longer that of building consensus; rather it uses all the means at its disposal, including sophisticated computer graphics, to mediate etween conflicting approaches to our age of uncertainty.
Television: Technology and Cultural Form was first published in 1974, long before the dawn of multi-channel TV, or the reality and celebrity shows that now pack the schedules. Yet Williams' analysis of television's history, its institutions, programmes and practices, and its future prospects, remains remarkably prescient. Williams stresses the importance of technology in shaping the cultural form of television, while always resisting the determinism of McLuhan's dictum that 'the medium is the message'. If the medium really is the message, Williams asks, what is left for us to do or say? Williams argues that, on the contrary, we as viewers have the power to disturb, disrupt and to distract the otherwise cold logic of history and technology - not just because television is part of the fabric of our daily lives, but because new technologies continue to offer opportunities, momentarily outside the sway of transnational corporations or the grasp of media moguls, for new forms of self and political expression.
“The PVRBlog Interview: Ten Questions with TiVo's Director of User Experience, Margret Schmidt.”
- Matt Haughey