Using Netflix's weekly Global Top 10 lists for English-language and non-English-language series and films, this article highlights some of the ways in which the world's most popular streaming platform misrepresents both the production and... more
Using Netflix's weekly Global Top 10 lists for English-language and non-English-language series and films, this article highlights some of the ways in which the world's most popular streaming platform misrepresents both the production and consumption of its most popular geographically diverse global content. First, the Global Top 10 lists create a series of false equivalencies between the popularity of English-language and non-English-language content that mask the difference in production budgets between the two categories. Second, Netflix's publicized data isolates the global audience distribution of non-English-language content from other economic, technological, cultural, and political factors affecting local media ecosystems as demonstrated through an analysis of South Korea. Third, in failing to account for genre-related differences, the Global Top 10 lists distorts audience behavior in the Ibero-American region. Despite the variety of limitations presented by the incomplete audience data from Global Top 10 lists, when properly contextualized with recent academic research and economic information extracted from the specialized trade press publications, this article argues that the relationship between global streaming audiences and geographically diverse content is far more complex than it appears in the Netflix's industrial discourses.
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This article considers how three competing subscription video on-demand services (SVODs)-Jewzy, ChaiFlicks, and IZZYattract American Jewish subscribers via content selection, platform design, and marketing rhetoric. Although these three... more
This article considers how three competing subscription video on-demand services (SVODs)-Jewzy, ChaiFlicks, and IZZYattract American Jewish subscribers via content selection, platform design, and marketing rhetoric. Although these three SVODs offer similar catalogs, they nonetheless foreground distinct elements of Jewish life, history, and practice. This process of commercial framing, the paper argues, creates unique brand identities for the three services that align with three different approaches to the construction of American Jewish identity. The article goes on to show that these SVODs offer an opportunity to revisit core assumptions embedded within Jewish screen studies and minority screen representation studies more broadly. Minority identity on screen is most often studied through the interpretation of key instances of minority representation. These SVODs instead emphasize the dynamics of interpellation, as they hail viewers by appealing to limited, pre-constructed concepts of cultural identity while offering entire platforms worth of representations.
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Using the media industry studies approach, this article examines the acquisition strategies and licensing practices employed by three recently launched niche Jewish/ Israeli subscription video on-demand (SVOD) services. Drawing on... more
Using the media industry studies approach, this article examines the acquisition strategies and licensing practices employed by three recently launched niche Jewish/ Israeli subscription video on-demand (SVOD) services. Drawing on qualitative interviews with executives and publicly available materials, this analysis argues that these services acquire film and television titles through a combination of traditional and innovative licensing arrangements intended to maximize access to Jewish-themed or Israeli-produced content unwanted by better funded platforms. The findings reveal the ways in which access to specific kinds of content is dependent on executives' ability to leverage preexisting industry-specific professional relationships as they attempt to maximize the value created from limited economic resources. As such, this article offers insights by contextualizing licensing practices being employed by niche SVODs across film and television industries while also highlighting the limitations of using the mainstream/niche binary to understand streaming distribution.
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This article examines the discourses of streaming success within the television industry by focusing on Netflix and two of the service's original series: Fauda and La Casa de Papel. Using publicly available secondary data through 2019,... more
This article examines the discourses of streaming success within the television industry by focusing on Netflix and two of the service's original series: Fauda and La Casa de Papel. Using publicly available secondary data through 2019, this analysis argues the transnational platform's efforts to redefine successful television while maintaining a high level of data secrecy necessitate the discursive construction of a global and undifferentiated audience. Yet, rather than representing a break with the past, the discourses of streaming success reveal Netflix to be a television institution attempting to address traditional industry challenges.
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Using the media industry studies approach, this article provides a history of the industrial discourses surrounding Netflix's audience data. From Netflix's entry into the streaming market in 2007 until late-2018, the company did not... more
Using the media industry studies approach, this article provides a history of the industrial discourses surrounding Netflix's audience data. From Netflix's entry into the streaming market in 2007 until late-2018, the company did not publicize information about viewership. During this time, executives' public discussions of proprietary data are understood in relation to multiple organizational goals: differentiating the streaming platform from the traditional television industry, denigrating traditional television industry practices, and deflecting criticism. In late-2018, the company began selectively publishing viewership numbers for a small number of original titles to highlight the popularity of the platform's original content. Although the company maintains its anti-transparency policies, the shift toward selective data releases has significant implications regarding Netflix's relationship with the traditional television industry. This analysis concludes with a discussion of streaming audience data that situates in the emerging realities of 'popular' television in the context the medium's broader transformations and continuities.
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This article compares the processes by which Netflix entered national pay-television markets in Israel and Spain. In both contexts, Netflix first establishes itself through collaborations with over-the-top (OTT) television operators and... more
This article compares the processes by which Netflix entered national pay-television markets in Israel and Spain. In both contexts, Netflix first establishes itself through collaborations with over-the-top (OTT) television operators and then expands through collaborations with legacy providers. By using the perspective of cross-national comparative research, this analysis complicates the scholarly understandings of subscription video on-demand (SVOD) global expansion by drawing attention to the significance of national multichannel providers. Given the differences between the Spanish and Israeli pay-TV markets, Netflix's similar pattern of engagement in each case highlights the value of understanding SVOD global expansion as a coherent industrial process that produces distinct, context-dependent outcomes. Ultimately, the histories of Netflix in Israel and Spain reveal that internationalization operates at a meso-level where collaborations with pay-television providers facilitate access to national audiences.
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Branding has been described as the defining industrial practice of television's recent past. This article examines publicly available industry documents, trade press coverage, and executive interviews to understand the place of... more
Branding has been described as the defining industrial practice of television's recent past. This article examines publicly available industry documents, trade press coverage, and executive interviews to understand the place of traditional television network branding in streaming video on-demand (SVOD) portals as represented by Amazon and Netflix. Focusing on materials relating to licensed rather than original content and the role of such content within the U.S. domestic SVOD market, two distinct approaches emerge. For Amazon, the brand identities of some television networks act as valuable lures that draw customers into its Prime membership program. For Netflix, linear television networks are competitors and their brand identities are seen as impediments that reduce Netflix's own brand equity. Nonetheless, for advertiser-supported cable networks, the benefits of network branded content on SVODs remains unclear. Ultimately, Amazon's efforts to build a streaming service alongside network brand identities and Netflix's efforts to build its own brand at the expense of such identities demonstrates the need to think about contemporary television branding as an ongoing negotiation between established and emerging practices.
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This article examines the ways in which depictions of race and racism in some prime-time historical dramas promote contemporary postracial ideologies. Focusing on the portrayals of overt racism and interracial relationships in Hell on... more
This article examines the ways in which depictions of race and racism in some prime-time historical dramas promote contemporary postracial ideologies. Focusing on the portrayals of overt racism and interracial relationships in Hell on Wheels (2011–2016) and The Knick (2014–), the author argues that the use of morally ambiguous white, male protagonists in contexts associated with morally unambiguous racism allows these shows to acknowledge the centrality of racism in American history while simultaneously presenting racism in interpersonal rather than systemic terms. This representational strategy differs from the politically correct depictions of race and racism in historical dramas like Mad Men (2007–2015). As such, Hell on Wheels and The Knick reflect the paradox of postracial popular culture whereby depictions of racial animus and violence support viewers' desires to forget about both race and racism. In contrast, the racial caste system in Deadwood (2004–2006) presents white supremacy and American history as inseparable. This article concludes by discussing some of the connections between these representational strategies and the shifting economic landscape of the post-network-era television.
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This article uses The Bridge (FX, 2013–2014), an adaptation of the Danish-Swedish series Broen/ Bron (SVT1/DR1, 2011-), to explore the ways in which the brand identities of channels shape the adaptation process for scripted television... more
This article uses The Bridge (FX, 2013–2014), an adaptation of the Danish-Swedish series Broen/ Bron (SVT1/DR1, 2011-), to explore the ways in which the brand identities of channels shape the adaptation process for scripted television formats. By situating The Bridge in the broader context of FX's effort to maintain a coherent brand identity, the author argues that producers were not attempting to repurpose Broen/Bron's narrative for the American audience. Rather, the network wanted to provide its traditionally young and masculine audience with another 'muscular' crime series while appealing to additional demographics in the hopes of expanding the channel's overall viewership.
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This article applies the concept of cultural class to an analysis of contemporary television viewing. The proliferation of original programming on cable networks and the emergence of digital technologies have led many observers to claim... more
This article applies the concept of cultural class to an analysis of contemporary television viewing. The proliferation of original programming on cable networks and the emergence of digital technologies have led many observers to claim that American TV is in the midst of its third 'golden age' (the first two are associated with the 1950s and 1980s, respectively). Based on qualitative interviews with 50 middle-class young adults (aged 18–34 years), this article claims that the significance of this 'golden age' varies with, but is not determined by, social location. For some middle-class young adults, engagement with post-network television includes the creation of symbolic boundaries in relation to the perceived quality of a given show's 'writing', the use of culturally legitimated content as bonding capital, and the use of low-status content as bridging capital. For other middle-class young adults, engagement with post-network television is characterized by the irrelevance of emerging status hierarchies and the continuing significance of personal identification. In the theoretical context of cultural class analysis, the author argues that attitudes towards legitimated content in the post-network era are meaningful precisely because significant differences in reception practices are identified within the American middle class.
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This analysis begins by briefly describing the historical trajectory of prime-time crime drama on American television. Next, this article brings critical audience analysis into conversation with scholarship addressing television’s... more
This analysis begins by briefly describing the historical trajectory of prime-time crime drama on American television. Next, this article brings critical audience analysis into conversation with scholarship addressing television’s elevated status in the post-network era. After describing the methods used to recruit respondents, and detailing the composition of the sample, viewers responses are presented in conjunction with critical responses to Breaking Bad. The findings indicate that there is a relationship between formal education and the acquisition of the knowledge and codes necessary to fully appreciate culturally legitimated crime drama.
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The proliferation of original programming by cable networks and the increasing availability of digital video recorders, video-on-demand services and broadband Internet access has led many observers to assert that American television is in... more
The proliferation of original programming by cable networks and the increasing availability of digital video recorders, video-on-demand services and broadband Internet access has led many observers to assert that American television is in the midst of its 'third golden age'. Such claims rely heavily on the recent prominence of cable crime drama. Yet, to date, there is little scholarship addressing TV's rising cultural status from the perspective of audiences. Using qualitative data gathered from 31 respondents (ages 18–34), this article focuses on viewers' relationships with select crime dramas appearing on basic cable (advertiser-supported) and premium cable (subscriber-supported) networks and cable omnivores who watch cable crime dramas produced in a variety of economic contexts. Considering not only what viewers watch, but also how they choose to engage with some programmes and not others, the findings indicate that post-network audience reception practices vary with the cultural status of televisual texts.
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The proliferation of original programming on cable networks and the emergence of digital technologies has led some observers to claim that contemporary American television is in the midst of its third golden age (the first two are... more
The proliferation of original programming on cable networks and the emergence of digital technologies has led some observers to claim that contemporary American television is in the midst of its third golden age (the first two are associated with the 1950s and 1980s, respectively). While critics praise the literary qualities of shows like The Sopranos, The Wire, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad, reality TV “has inherited the rotten reputation that once attached to the medium itself” as shows like MTV’s Jersey Shore “still provide a fat target for anyone seeking symptoms or causes of American idiocy” (Sanneh). In fact, reality shows are largely omitted from discussions addressing television’s rising cultural status. Nevertheless, in the context of the criticism directed at reality TV as a genre, one basic cable network is frequently celebrated for producing television’s best reality shows. According to the trade publication Advertising Age, A&E is “the premiere destination for unscripted programs that are authentic and relatable.” In describing the network, a New York Times critic writes, “From Intervention and The First 48 to Beyond Scared Straight and Heavy, these are well made, compulsively watchable series” (Hale). By highlighting the ways in which these programs rely upon problematic hierarchies that equate classed notions of reflexivity with moral worth, this article argues that the relative legitimacy of Intervention and Beyond Scared Straight depends on these shows’ ability to extract middle-class-appropriate behavior from socially marginal participants.
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Report addressing the history of Netflix in Israel for the Global Internet TV Consortium -- a network for research on Netflix and other internet-distributed TV services. https://www.global-internet-tv.com/
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In this article, the authors provide a historical overview of audience research spanning theoretical perspectives from the hypodermic needle model, the transition to British Cultural Studies, and on to postmodern conceptualizations.... more
In this article, the authors provide a historical overview of audience research spanning theoretical perspectives from the hypodermic needle model, the transition to British Cultural Studies, and on to postmodern conceptualizations. Applying an interdisciplinary lens, the article provides summaries of pertinent studies in anthropology, cultural studies, and sociology that explore how audiences understand, interact, and use media as part of their daily lives. In addition to the historical background , the article also explores specific subfields in new media, feminist, and global audience research. It concludes with insights into how the field is assessing new developments in social class and reality television.
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This article addresses Jason Mittell's controversial essay "On Disliking Mad Men" (2010) in the cultural context of post-network television. The author uses 72 critical reviews of five HBO series to place Mittell's argument alongside... more
This article addresses Jason Mittell's controversial essay "On Disliking Mad Men" (2010) in the cultural context of post-network television. The author uses 72 critical reviews of five HBO series to place Mittell's argument alongside other rhetorical strategies that resist the prestige associated with high-status prime-time cable dramas. In relation to these rhetorical strategies, the troubled publication history of and negative scholarly reactions to Mittell's essay are understood as indicative of elite post-network television audiences policing the symbolic boundaries surrounding culturally legitimated texts.