From Spectatorship to “Survivorship” in Five Critical Propositions (original) (raw)
Consumption, identity, and surveillance during COVID-19 as a crisis of pleasure
Consumption Markets & Culture, 2022
The global COVID-19 pandemic was the latest instance of a crisis of pleasure. Crises of pleasure are periodic eruptions of discontent when consumption is disrupted by external forces. In this case, the pandemic also disrupted expressions of identity on social media, where identity is made legible through conspicuous consumption on social media in the early 2020s. Drawing from six qualitative focus group interviews conducted in the summer of 2020, we analyze how social media users interpret the accounts they follow posting content that seemingly violates social distancing guidelines during COVID-19. We find that consumption during the pandemic was highly contested and surveilled, with participants describing the disciplining power of social media and their use of news and public health guidelines to inform their identities. Both trends illustrate how surveilled modes of consumption characterize the post-lockdown consumption reality, which is polarized and partisan leading towards hedonist and puritanical models.
Binge-Watching and Contemporary Television Research
W ho are binge-viewers? Research on contemporary television audiences has revealed complex, nuanced and at times contradictory depictions of these elusive yet ubiquitous consumers of contemporary media (Castro et al. 2021; Flayelle et al. 2019; Merikivi et al. 2019). At times gluttons at times epicures, binge-viewers consume more voraciously and specifically than any audience in television history. To understand their delicate degustation of control, researchers have examined binge-viewer uses and gratifications (Merrill and Rubenking 2019; Steiner and Xu, 2020), the potential health impacts (Perks 2019; Tefertiller and Maxwell 2018), the role of viewer attentiveness on mood and content selection (Pittman and Steiner 2019; Walton-Pattison, Dombrowski and Presseau 2018), as well as antecedents and outcomes of their binges (Gangadharbatla, Ackerman and Bamford 2019; Pittman and Steiner 2021). The variety and scope of audience studies seeking to identify binge-viewers and their traits and types continues to grow (see Chapter 9 on Typology, which concludes this part). However, with so many willing human subjects (see Chapter 8 by Lothar Mikos and Deborah Castro and Chapter 6 by Lisa Perks in this part) creating windfalls of user data (as discussed by Ri Pierce Grove in Chapter 7), mediated depictions of binge-viewers have received scant academic attention. Pierce-Grove (2017) and Steiner (2018) chronicled journalistic articulations of binge-watching, but the fictional representations of binge-viewers remain largely unexplored. In part, this may be because there are so few. Couch potatoes were a common trope of twentieth-century TV, but binge-viewers seldom appear in shows being binge-watched. When the term began to catch cultural traction around 2012-14, there were a number of comedic depictions, the most famous of which was Portlandia's (IFC 2011-18) Claire (Carrie Brownstein)
It’s the End of the World and You Watch It: Media Consumption in the Time of COVID-19
International Journal of Contemporary Humanities,, 2020
This paper presents the results of an experiment undertaken by the authors to capture media consumption trends during the 2020 COVID-19 outbreak. These results are correlated with the demographics, and individual situations of the experimental participants. The overall aim is to correlate the media consumption reported by the experimental participants with national viewing trends and historical data to show that there is an increased consumption of disaster themed media during times of crisis. The research intends to differentiate this increase in disaster themed media consumption by correlating it with the differing circumstances of the viewers. Specifically, whether they watch movies and/or play video games on their own and whether they currently have more free time to consume media. This paper provides evidence to support three hypotheses: Hypothesis 1: People will consume more disaster/ pandemic themed media during pandemic induced quarantine, Hypothesis 2: Individuals with more control over their media choices are more likely to choose disaster/pandemic themed media. Hypothesis 3: Individuals with more free time to consume media are more likely to choose disaster/pandemic themed media. This paper is the second in a set of two publications, a history of disaster themed media consumption can be found in the companion paper, "It's the End of the World and You Watch It: A Brief History of Disaster Themed Media."
Chapter 9 Binge-Watching Audience Typologies: Conclusion
Binge-Watching and Contemporary Television Research
B inge-watching was a relatively obscure phenomenon before 2012. Although practised and discussed in niche circles since before the advent of DVDs, it was not until streaming services and broadband internet became more and more ubiquitous that binge-watching received increased media and academic attention. Between 2015 and 2020, researchers have asked many questions about binge-watchers, including why they watch, what motivates them, how engaged they are (or not), and what outcomes they report after the bingewatching experience. Scholars exploring these questions have found a range of motives, a variety of experiences, a spectrum of engagement, and positively and negatively valenced binge-watching outcomes-some of which are dependent on one another. Why a person binge-watches is strongly tied to what they hope to get out of the experience. What they actually get out of it is tied to what they watch and how they watch it (Castro et al. 2021; Steiner 2017). Our audience part of this book has uncovered additional patterns and structures of binge-watching. To round off the part, we use this chapter to describe audience typologies that shed some light on the why, where, when, with whom, how, and to what end of binge-watching. m o t i v e s Steiner and Xu (2020) found the following binge-watching motives: 'catching up, relaxation, sense of completion, cultural inclusion, and improved viewing experience' (90). These aligned with finding by Perks (2015), Pittman and Sheehan (2015), and later Panda and Pandey (2017). While some motives, such
Journal of Digital Media & Policy, 2020
Results of an online survey suggest that heavy binge-watching might be in part socially motivated. Among a sample of US college students, heavy binge-watchers were more likely to be opinion leaders and to experience Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) than regular binge-watchers or non-binge-watchers. They also reported higher levels of parasocial engagement with the shows' characters than other viewers. Contrary to common beliefs, heavy binge-watching did not come at the cost of decreased social engagement. Quite the opposite: heavy binge-watchers reported spending significantly more time in interactions with friends and family on a daily basis than non-binge-watchers. Heavy binge-watching was also modestly associated with a few negative outcomes (loss of sleep and decrease in productivity).
Psychology of Popular Media, 2022
COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns have had major negative effects on individuals' mental health and psychological well-being. Isolated at home, people may engage in recreational activities such as binge-watching (i.e., viewing multiple episodes of a TV series in 1 session) as a strategy to regulate emotional states. This is the first longitudinal study assessing changes in TV series viewing patterns during the first COVID-19 lockdown and examining whether binge-watching was associated with changes in positive and negative affect throughout this period. TV series viewing practices and motivations, binge-watching behaviors, psychopathological symptoms, and affective states were jointly assessed through a 6-week longitudinal online survey at 3 time points (i.e., T1, T2, and T3), in Belgium, France, and Switzerland. Results showed significant increases in individuals' watching habits (e.g., higher daily time spent viewing, expansion of coviewing practices). Results from the longitudinal analyses principally showed that male gender and social motives for TV series watching predicted a decrease in negative affect levels. A problematic binge-watching pattern characterized by loss of control was the single predictor of an increase in negative affect over time. These findings suggest that TV series watching patterns effectively increased during the first COVID-19 lockdown. Watching TV series for social motives emerged as a protective factor, whereas problematic binge-watching seemed to act as a maladaptive emotion regulation strategy throughout these unprecedented circumstances. Public Policy Relevance Statement This is the first large-scale longitudinal study specifically designed to explore the impact of TV series viewing practices on individuals' affective states during the first COVID-19 lockdown. TV series consumption patterns significantly increased over this period. Problematic binge-watching characterized by loss of control seemed to act as a maladaptive strategy to regulate emotional states, whereas watching TV series for social motives emerged as a protective factor in the lockdown context.
From Binge-Watching to Binge-Scrolling
Film Quarterly, 2021
This article approaches the paradigm of binge-watching from within a wider ecology of networked media forms and practices, which have collectively reinforced a relationship between staying home, staying connected, and staying safe during the pandemic. It explores how the short form video platform TikTok has strategically tapped into the pleasures associated with the binge model, in order to construct the nascent concept of binge-scrolling as one means of addressing the thorny problem of lockdown boredom. The piece suggests that the paradigm of bingeing now exists across a spectrum of media forms and practices, operating as one specific means of organizing time and attention in an age of digital psychopolitics.
The house cannot be full: Risk, anxiety, and the politics of collective spectatorship in a pandemic
International Journal of Cultural Studies, 2022
This article charts the pandemic-engendered configurations of moviegoing cultures, leisure, and collective spectatorship in the Indian subcontinent and locates it within the discourses of personal risk, public anxiety, and industrial exclusion that have historically permeated the cinema hall. The pandemic marks a significant moment in the remaking of collective spectatorship and must be contextualized within the two-decades-long transition from single screens to multiplexes already underway in the Indian exhibition landscape. Through an account of the industrial developments in film exhibition in the last year and a half of pandemic time across two catastrophic waves of Covid-19, I offer some preliminary insights into the ways in which these shifts signal towards the cultural production of a new spectatorial body amenable to novel forms of bio-surveillance and datafication of self.