An overview of connected viewing

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An overview of connected viewing Connected viewing: uma visão geral FERNANDA PIRES DE SÁ* Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Information and Knowledge Society Doctoral Program. Barcelona – Catalonia, Spain

HOLT, Jennifer; SANSON, Kevin (Orgs.).

Connected viewing: selling, streaming, & sharing media in the digital era. New York; London: Routledge, 2014, 266 p.

ABSTRACT A range of mobile technologies, multiple screens, and user engagement are arising in connected formats of media usage. Connected viewing is a term that refers to these varieties of platforms for content distribution and multiple viewing practices that are being developed, or have evolved, within the convergent digital landscape, and generates many disruptions in the viewing consumption. This paper presents the book anthology edited by Holt and Sanson, Connected Viewing: Selling, Streaming, & Sharing Media in the Digital Age, with subjects on how connected viewing is affecting the contemporary media environment such as business models of production, infrastructure, distribution, user engagement, TV, film, video games, and social media. Keywords: Connected viewing, media content, convergence culture, user-engagement, new media practices

* PhD candidate of the Information and Knowledge Society Doctoral Program by the Open University of Catalonia (UOC). Member of the Mediaccions: digital culture research group, from the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute IN3-UOC. E-mail: fpires@ uoc.edu English revision: Lara Monteiro

RESUMO É crescente o uso de mídias na forma conectada devido à variedade de tecnologias móveis, múltiplas telas e diferentes modos de engajamento dos usuários. Connected viewing é o termo que se refere a essa variedade de plataformas de distribuição de conteúdo e multíplices práticas de visualização que estão sendo desenvolvidas, ou que evoluíram no cenário digital de uma cultura convergente, gerando muitas rupturas e transformações no consumo dos meios de comunicação. Este artigo apresenta a antologia organizada por Holt e Sanson, Connected viewing: selling, streaming, & sharing media in the digital age, abordando, entre outros temas, como a visualização de conteúdo conectada afeta o meio ambiente dos meios de comunicação, o seu modelo de negócio, a infraestrutura, o modo de distribuição, o envolvimento do usuário, TV, filmes, games e redes sociais. Palavras-chave: Connected viewing, conteúdo midiático, cultura da convergência, engajamento do usuário, novas práticas midiáticas DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.11.606/issn.1982-8160.v10.i1p.175-179 V.10 - Nº 2 jul./dez. 2015 São Paulo - Brasil FERNANDA PIRES DE SÁ p. 175-179

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HIS BOOK ANTHOLOGY edited by Holt and Sanson1 can be considered a starting point for an ongoing project that cleverly tries to forge an academic and industrial dialogue. It is a result of a collaboration between a body of renowned researchers from the Carsey Wolf Center’s Media Industries Project at the University of California and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, uniting forces from two different sectors, to achieve a better understanding of the media ecology situation and its upcoming transformations (p. 2). An interesting fact is that it was done in a critical way to bring innovative insights concerning the digital media environment (p. 2). This critical approach can be seen even when it directly concerns Warner Bros as we can see in chapter five. Finally, a very important point of this initiative was that all the rights of the research and its findings were kept by to the scholars involved in the project (p. 2). Connected Viewing was defined as an impending revolution in how screen media is created, circulated and consumed (p. 1), referring to multiplatform experiences and also to a larger trend across media industries, which integrate digital technology and socially networked communication with traditional screen media practices (p. 1). The connected viewing discussion is split into three parts with a total of twelve essays. Each part shows clear central themes developed in a different manner within each essay, which consequently brings a very wide overview of media complexity in the connected viewing scenario. The first part, Industry Structure and Strategies, with four essays, explores a range of subjects related to systems of content delivery, policies, content applications (apps), and ways of achieving and channeling viewer’s decisions. In the first essay, Holt focuses on trends in regulatory policies that affect the digital media infrastructure, mainly the problems that both content providers and end-users have to face with the internet providers companies, as well as with the lack of policies related to data traffic (p. 26-28), international jurisdiction of content, and problems with cloud storage and access (p. 28-31). The research is done in the American context, but has its international relevance as it concerns information and communication technologies existent in other locations. The second essay, by Lee and Andrejevic, demonstrates how TV is undergoing a time, platform and place shift (p. 47). All these alterations fragment audiences in such a way that challenges marketers, audience ratting companies and TV producers. They reveal that multiple platforms and services of video-on-demand, such as Netflix, tend to fragment more audiences offering the possibility of skipping traditional TV programming (p. 43). Whereas, sec-

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ond screen apps tend to gather people at programming time (p. 43). Although it is an interesting essay, there is not a deeper discussion on non-authorized platforms, which also influence audience dispersion. Nelson, in the third essay, explains the former windowing strategies within Hollywood. Then, she describesthe confusion that this industry has been facing since 2000 with the introduction of DVDs, cheap rental companies, such as Netflix, that evolved for video-on-demand, among other online video services that have emerged. Nelson also exemplifies a variety of types of existent video-on-demand that change according to timing, price, and user engagement (p. 67-69) and demonstrates different attempts of innovative windowing strategies for adapting to a connected environment (p. 65-67). Steirer’s essay points out some changes in the practices of collecting. The author explains how the modes of consumer-goods interaction used to be before digital goods appeared (p. 83). He makes this explanation to compare how collecting is changing by focusing his attention on two activities commonly made by collectors: organizing and selling (p. 84-91). Nonetheless, the author also ignores piracy, non-authorized platforms, informal markets and the user’s disruptive capacities of media usage, which are strong variables concerning practice transformations. Part two, Technology and Platforms, with four essays, present companies that provide authorized and non-authorized content access, peer-to-peer models, platforms for videos distribution, debates the role of social media in accessing content and users’ perceptions for content dissemination. In the fifth essay, Vonderau criticizes a speech by the Warner Bros president, Thomas Gewecke, given at the 40th Anniversary of the Internet Conference. He does it to unveil the technological determinism present in the president’s speech about connected viewing and his idea of a “completely networked living room” (p. 102). Vonderau goes into the territory that the previous essay and others authors did not discuss – i.e. piracy, more precisely on the Pirate Bay case and the Sweden connected viewing ecology. He directly criticizes his partners (Warner Bros) and makes us reflect on piracy and normalization that media companies try to impose within the digital market. The sixth essay discusses companies that develop software to provide infrastructure for connected viewing. Braun reveals how some intermediary companies for content distribution heavily affect the path of video content to viewers by giving example of three companies that provide different online services (p. 128-135). The author also acknowledges the invisibility of these infrastructure intermediaries and the amount of data that they get from us, critically reappraising to the politics behind new media infrastructure and how information is used. In the seventh essay, Kokas contributes to the understanding of the actual context V. 10 - Nº 1 jan./abr. 2016 São Paulo - Brasil FERNANDA PIRES DE SÁ p. 175-179

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of connected viewing in People’s Republic of China (PRC) (p. 148-149), most precisely about tensions and disruptive behaviors of users of social network websites from PRC’s government censorship, to widowing strategies of Hollywood movies (p. 150-153). This essay clearly illustrates the active role of users while circulating and curating media content on social media websites. In the eighth essay, Evans and Macdonald discuss the development of media content distribution systems in the UK. They present an empirical study, acknowledging that many habits remained the same or transcended from the mass media system to digital space (p. 165-174);especially when it concerns free and universal access. Although this study is focused on the UK context, it reveals insights about the audience’s preference and behavior on the connected way of accessing media content that can similarly be found in other countries. The final part, Content and Engagement, gives particular attention to user’s engagement and their usability of different media services, including games applications, video-on-demand subscriptions, and cable TV. Payne’s essay is about his research, in which his students played what he calls “the companion app” or second screen apps of two famous games, Elite app for Call of Duty and Battlelog app for Battlefiled, to analyze its community building and gaming capital (p. 191-198). The author exemplifies well the functions of these applications and the perceptions of users, how these apps contribute to long-lasting game awareness (p. 190). The relevance of this essay cannot be understated due to its discussion of games, which can be considered one of the most promising areas for fostering user-engagement. Tussey’s essay is based on research in which her students tested many types of connected viewing second screen apps and classified the types according to their offered functionality (p. 205). Based on their experience, the author highlights the problems users face with such apps, since they offer very similar experiences to the living room massive model of distribution, instead of providing a more appropriate one for the mobile context (p. 210). Tyron and Dawson researched two different universities in USA (private and public), to confirm whether or not the viewing habits of content consumption of the so-called digital generation (people born between 1980 and 2000) (p. 217) was homogenous, determined by technology, and ignored old ways of content consumption (i.e. surfing). Unsurprisingly, by settling for such a question over whether digital technology determines patterns of viewing, their findings confirmed that factors such as location, family setting, and income, among others, do influence very heterogeneous ways of content consumption (p. 229-230). The final essay of the book, written by Strover and Moner, describes connected viewing habits and engagements among different platforms and social media. The interesting

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aspectof the essay is that Strover and Moner compared these viewing practices between USA and Portugal (p. 240). Most of the viewing habits related to on-demand consumption and non-authorized platforms for content access differed a lot within Portugal due to the lack of authorized services, similar to those existent in the USA. In conclusion, this edited book collection is well timed and relevant in understanding the present media landscape. The parts naturally merge as the issues build up in each essay. The work is broad and offers us a very complete overview of the contemporary media environment, since it provides scholars, students, and the industry a picture of developing modes of digital content access and distribution, many cultural practices around it, and it snapshots the process of business adaptation to the connected viewing context. The book is well worth reading and would certainly have more positive outcomes if it were translated from English to other languages. Nevertheless, it can be seen as an example for fostering similar studies and partnerships in the context of other countries. M

REFERENCES HOLT, J.; SANSON, K. Introduction: Mapping Connections. In: ______. (Org.). Connected viewing: selling, streaming, & sharing media in the digital era. New York; London: Routledge, 2014, 266 p. Available from: . Accessed on Mar. 9, 2016. Article received on November 2 nd, 2015 and approved on March 1 th, 2016.

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