Media Streaming

by

Amanda Lotz, Mohammed Foysal Chowdhury

• LAST MODIFIED: 22 November 2024
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756841-0311

Introduction

The entire process of creating, circulating, and consuming media content experienced swift and substantial changes due to the widespread adoption of Internet-based distribution, especially since 2010. Researchers have analyzed the rapidly evolving media ecosystem from different perspectives using a variety of analytical tools. This article aims to orient the readers with the key debates and deliberations of media streaming scholarship. Significant studies of the field are sorted into twelve major themes: theories and methods, industry, audience, policy, content, globalization, national contexts, service case studies, algorithms, technology, YouTube, and music streaming. Section descriptions and article annotations highlight the key arguments and findings of different studies and indicate how they are contributing to the growing body of media streaming scholarship. Together, these sections sketch out a broad overview of the important concepts and concerns of media streaming to make sense of key media transformation in the Internet era.

Theory and Methods

The distinct affordances of Internet distribution, such as on-demand, personalized delivery, and expanded subscriber payment through direct-to-consumer offerings, have triggered fundamental changes in the industry structure and norms and in the viewing practices tied to series and movies. The scale of adjustment requires updating and adapting pre-digital understandings to account for the media ecosystem in the streaming era. Notably, many aspects of pre-digital screen culture continue so that the contemporary environment is best understood as more varied than previous, rather than in a process of replacement. Johnson 2019 argues that it is more important to develop new terminologies and theories to make sense of the evolving media ecology rather than detail the current changes with empirical data. Lobato 2017 argues that the changing industry logics are posing new research problems and researchers must try out new methodological tools alongside the old ones to investigate the emerging research questions. Lotz 2022 contends that there is a lack of strong conceptual frameworks to study the subscription video on demand (SVOD) services, and the author offers different concepts, categories, and terms to analyze the distinct characteristics of these services. Chalaby 2022 posits that the blurring of national and global media industries calls for a new theoretical framework to analyze the contemporary dynamics of the international media. Wang and Lobato 2019 highlights the importance of adjusting prominent theories while studying different contexts. The authors discuss the shortcomings of platform theory to analyze non-Western companies, such as Chinese streaming services, that are distinctively different from their Western counterparts.

• Chalaby, Jean K. 2022. Global streamers: Placing the transnational at the heart of TV culture. Journal of Digital Media & Policy 13.2: 223–241.

  DOI: 10.1386/jdmp_00083_1

  Most international communication theories were developed at a time when there was a clear demarcation between the local and the global media ecosystem. Chalaby contends that this line has been blurred and this warrants a new theoretical framework to analyze the cross-national flow of media content in the digital era. He underscores the strengths of global value chain (GVC) that offers a holistic approach to studying the interconnected components of the media industry across what have become increasingly interdependent national markets.

• Johnson, Catherine. 2019. Online TV. Abingdon, UK, and New York: Routledge.

  DOI: 10.4324/9781315396828

  Contemporary media landscapes have become more complex as well as instable due to the rapidly growing number of different types of Internet-based television services. This book offers some important conceptual models to categorize and explain the key dimensions and dynamics of the television industry in the Internet age. These frameworks and language ultimately help to analyze prominent forms of competition and codependence among different companies and how these strategic actions are controlling the access to culture.

• Lobato, Ramon. 2017. Rethinking international TV flows research in the age of Netflix. Television & New Media 19.3: 241–256.

  DOI: 10.1177/1527476417708245

  Some of the central concerns about international flows of media content such as cultural imperialism and content diversity are still relevant in the streaming era. Lobato takes up Netflix as a case study to explore the pros and cons of analyzing its catalogue to investigate these critical issues. Lobato also offers a set of key research questions related to the diverse implications of Netflix’s global reach that can be explored through catalogue research.

• Lotz, Amanda D. Netflix and Streaming Video: The Business of Subscriber-Funded Video on Demand. Newark, NJ: Polity, 2022.

  Conceptualizes subscription video on demand (SVODs) services as one component of the broader field of Internet-distributed video and underscores the importance of considering the differences among SVODs to better understand their economic and cultural role. This book is divided into two sections. The first section primarily studies the differences between SVODs and ad-supported linear television and the significance of these differences. The second section discusses some of the key differences between Netflix and other SVODs with reference to their library and content strategy.

• Wang, Wilfred Yang, and Ramon Lobato. 2019. Chinese video streaming services in the context of global platform studies. Chinese Journal of Communication 12.3: 356–371.

  DOI: 10.1080/17544750.2019.1584119

  Uses China’s iQiyi as a case study to reconsider some of the fundamental assumptions about streaming and the ontology of platform theory that have been primarily developed centering on Western streaming services. Chooses Netflix and YouTube as points of comparison to highlight the structural specificities of iQiyi, and it illustrates why theories built on these services cannot be directly applied to Chinese context. Argues that some adjustments in the existing theories can apply to studying Chinese services rather than regarding the Chinese context as peculiar or attempting to develop bespoke platform theory.