Streaming Media Platforms: Social Implications of the Transformation of Audience Activity

Abstract

Streaming media platforms are increasingly replacing cinema and television as the dominant means of narrative-content distribution, yet viewing media on these platforms differs in important ways from cinema and television spectatorship, both through the narrative and interactive possibilities they allow, but also through the temporal and spatial conditions they impose on audiences. With the help of the mobile media technologies they are delivered through, streaming media platforms free audiences from the temporal and spatial limitations of cinema and television and offer a continuous yet isolated viewing experience. Algorithmically regulated and customized program flow and the accompanying illusion of interactivity create a privatized viewing experience which contrasts with the publicness and collectiveness of that of cinema and television. In this article, we discuss the novel conditions imposed on viewers by streaming media platforms at a conceptual and theoretical level and interrogate their impact on public life.