Netflix and the Construction of
‘You’.
Flow, Control and Television Experiences in the Digital Age.
Aster Reinboud
Studentnumber: 6063330
Universiteit van Amsterdam, Mediastudies
MA Television and Cross-Media Culture: Beroepsgeoriënteerde Specialisatie, Documentaire
Supervisor: dr. Sudeep Dasgupta
Second Reader: prof. dr. Christoph Lindner Date: 27 June 2014
Abstract
This thesis analyzes the Netflix service and platform through a partially empirical analysis in which the way Netflix works, how viewers navigate through and interact with it, and what possible experiences the platform contains will be examined. This in-depth analysis of Netflix discusses and focuses on how this new platform changes traditional concepts in Television Studies. In order to do this, this Internet-based television service will be compared to traditional ways of broadcasting television. Transformations in distribution, production and reception created by Netflix will be discussed, as well as the way these shifts affect traditional television concepts. Television ‘flow’ is a concept that has been subject to several changes. The analysis of Netflix will discuss transformations in notions of flow and I will argue that the meaning of this concept needs to be revised when it comes to this new televisual service. The transformations in the concept of flow have also impact on other traditional television concepts, such as ‘liveness’, ‘agency’, ‘co-presence’ and our sense of time and place. The changes to these traditional concepts affect television experiences and the relationship between viewer and television, which will be extensively discussed in this thesis.
Key words
Table of Contents
1 Introduction 4
2 Flow, control and the relationship between television and viewer 7
2.1 Flow and Liveness 7
2.2 Control and disruption 12
2.3 Television experiences, place and simultaneity 13
2.4 Netflix: an in-depth analysis of service and platform 18 3 Netflix versus Broadcasting: Flow, Control and Freedom 20
3.1 Transformations in Flow 20
3.2 Control and freedom 27
4 Transformations in television experiences and viewer-medium relations 34 4.1 Broadcasting, narrowcasting and individualization 34
4.2 Liveness and the sense of place 38
4.3 Time famine and choice fatigue 43
5 Conclusion 47
1 Introduction
When I asked a couple of friends whether they watch television frequently, they all straight off said ‘yes’. Funnily enough many of them do not even own a television set or cable connection, but they do watch television shows at on-demand and online platforms or they download television content. Although they do not watch television the ‘traditional’ way my friends experienced and labelled their media consumption as ‘watching television’. Even though they label it as watching television they use multiple devices to watch ‘television’ such as mobile phones, tablets and laptops. Many of them added that they like their way of consuming television, because of the possibility of watching anything, anytime and on any device with a screen. They feel like they are not stuck to their television sets or homes anymore to have access to television content. I had this discussion with my friends before the Internet-based television service Netflix was introduced in the Netherlands.
In September 2013, Netflix expanded and introduced its services to the Netherlands after many successful years in, mainly, the USA, where it was founded in 1997 as an online video rental service. Over the years the company developed significantly by becoming one of the world’s leading Internet television networks, with a base of customers of over 40 million members worldwide. With the introduction of its services in the Netherlands, Netflix corresponded to the ‘modern’ way of watching television – just as the way my friends described – perfectly. The current Netflix service is similar to a video rental service at home in offering its users a database filled with series, documentaries, television shows and films. Through the observation of individual viewing behaviour, Netflix gathers information about you in order to know and remember what you like or how long you watch a show uninterrupted. By doing so the Netflix database not only contains all kinds of media content but it also deploys and depends on a significant number of algorithms and metadata, gathering information about you in order to construct an accurate personal profile. Based on this information and observations, Netflix makes suggestions on what other shows and films you might like. Instead of paying per film – as in on-demand services such as Canal Plus or Film1 – the Netflix database is available for a
small price per month. Additionally, instead of having a specific and pre-set schedule,
Netflix claims to hand over the ‘remote control’ to the individual viewer, by offering
him the option to choose any content he wants at any moment he wants and on any device he wants.
Besides offering already existing programmes and films, Netflix also produces its own series: one of these series is House of Cards. The choice to produce House of
Cards was determined by user data, collected by Netflix in order to find out what its
viewers’ media habits were. Netflix determined the most popular series that the database contained, which was the eponymous British series on politics. Instead of asking for a pilot, Netflix gave the producers a chance to develop their series instantly. As expected and predicted by Netflix, House of Cards became extremely popular and won nine Emmy Awards. House of Cards is a Netflix originals series, which is uploaded to Netflix per season and not per episode, as is the case with traditional television production. This gives viewers the opportunity to watch a season continuously, without being interrupted by commercial breaks. At the Edinburgh Television Festival, Kevin Spacey spoke about the success of the Netflix-model, in which an entire season of House of Cards is released at once. In his speech Spacey claims that this strategy proves that the audience appreciates the control and freedom and that if that audience wants to see several following episodes consecutively, the industry should give that opportunity to its viewers. Moreover, Spacey predicted that these new methods of content consumption would dispose of the boundaries between television, movies and online streaming because the device and length of a production are not relevant anymore:
“Watching Avatar on an iPad or watching YouTube on a TV or watching
Game of Thrones on a computer; it’s all content. It’s just story. And the
audience has spoken. They want stories. They’re dying for them. They’re rooting for us to give the right thing. And they will talk about it, binge on it, carry it with them on the bus and to the hairdresser, force it on their friends, tweet, blog, Facebook, make fan pages, silly GIFs, and God knows what else about it. Engage with it with a passion and an intimacy that a blockbuster
movie could only dream of. And all we have to do is give it to them.” – Kevin Spacey1
With his speech Kevin Spacey encourages traditional broadcast networks to use the model of Netflix, which claims to be a viewer-empowering model. Traditional broadcasters should give the audience more control over their way of consuming programming. Moreover, House of Cards producer Dana Brunetti even predicted at the last edition of South by Southwest in Texas, that the traditional television’s model would be dead in five years and that ‘next new networks’ are getting more and more important and eventually will take over.
That Netflix provides a new way of watching television is undeniable but the question is whether it lives up to its promises. This thesis is built upon the bold statements above and examines to what extent the Netflix-model is providing the freedom and control it claims to provide. It will discuss whether Netflix is freer than traditional broadcasting and will deal with the question: does Netflix empower its users and give freedom or is it just an illusion of freedom? Given the transformation in distribution and reception produced by Netflix, I will analyze how transformation in television ‘flow’ affects theories of power, agency and televisual experiences in Television Studies. In order to examine this I will make a comparison between the
Netflix-model and traditional broadcasting strategies. In this comparison I will focus
on programming strategies of both Netflix and traditional broadcasting that are being used in order to create a certain ‘flow’, with the intention to get viewers to consume more and more content. Additionally, I will discuss whether Netflix changes the relationship between television and viewer and how television experiences change through this new television service. I will conclude with Dana Brunetti’s statement in mind and question whether the ‘death of traditional television’ and the conquest of ‘new networks’ is a real possibility or if it is a statement that is in strong contradiction with the reality.
1 Kevin Spacey at the Edinburgh Television Festival.
2 Flow, Control and the relationship between television and viewer 2.1 Flow and Liveness
Since Raymond Williams’ introduced the concept of ‘flow’ television has gone through many changes. During the 70s Williams claimed that the ‘planned flow’ provided by broadcasting systems could be seen as “the defining characteristic of broadcasting” (Williams 1975: 86). These broadcasting systems are characterized by sending content from a centre to the masses and one-way content distribution (Moe 2005: 774). Williams came across his notion of the concept when he was in a hotel in the United States, where he put on the television and was surprised by the continuous stream of television content and how it was structured. Intervals were interweaved with other sequences of content, instead of visibly present (Williams 1975: 92). With his notion of ‘planned flow’, Williams states that “the true series is not the published sequence of programme items but this sequence transformed by the inclusion of another kind of sequence, so that these sequences together compose the real flow, the real ‘broadcasting’” (91). In other words, flow could be understood as a programming strategy in which various textual units are smoothly and without any ruptures linked to one another and all together form one scheduled sequence of content. This scheduled sequence contains television programs as well as interrupting units such as commercials, trailers and teasers – the main goal is to get viewers in on the flow and seduce them to keep on watching and consume more television content (Williams 1975: 94). In this sense, television’s continuing stream could be compared to a rippling river in which viewers can immerse and where they are encouraged to ‘go with the flow’ the river is presenting them.
However, Williams’ television experience in the hotel in the United States was a generational experience, which is slightly outdated in today’s television landscape. Ever since the age of television that Williams described, television has gone through many changes and technological developments that have changed the concept of flow. The introduction of the remote control device (RCD) led to a shift from a program-centred flow (as in Williams’ experience) to a notion of flow that was viewer-program-centred. Where Williams’ notion of flow happened in the TV set, the RCD took flow partially
outside the TV set, by enabling the viewer to switch channels easily and in doing so enable him to disrupt the classic flow (Uricchio 2004: 168). This revised notion of flow contains “a set of choices and actions initiated by the viewer” (Uricchio 2004: 170). Threatened by the new technology of the RCD, broadcasting networks implemented several programming strategies, aiming to keep viewers engaged with the network’s flow and expand continuous viewing by linking programs in a very specific and thoughtful way (Caldwell 2003: 134; Uricchio 2004: 173). Techniques of ‘time-tested programming’ had to ensure that viewers stayed tuned to the channel’s programs. With these techniques popular programs are inserted at the beginning of a time block, or less popular programs are placed between two popular ones (‘hammocking’). Another strategy is creating a certain channel identity – seen in channels such as Animal Planet, TLC and Comedy Central. By using this ‘channel identity strategy’ network programmers aggregate “series of the same or similar genre to minimize disruptions” (Uricchio 2004: 173-174). Examples of this ‘stacking strategy’ can also be found in scheduled television nights for specific groups of viewers, such as a television night filled with romantic programs for female viewers, or action movies aiming to catch the attention of male viewers. Besides the time-tested and channel identity strategies, other interesting strategies in broadcasting are ‘continuity strategies’. These strategies attempt to immerse viewers in the scheduled flow by reworking credits in several ways; for instance skipping theme songs, inserting credits over the opening scenes, or using an epilogue in order to keep viewers interested until the end of the slot. By applying ‘hot starts’, in which advertisements between two programs are being dropped to attract viewers directly after one program ends, broadcasting networks stimulate continuous watching by presenting and linking one program into the next. Additionally, the insertion of sharp program hooks before a commercial break, such as previews and trailers of the following sequences, is a way to trigger viewers to continue watching that particular program and thereby the channel’s flow (Uricchio 2004: 173-174).
However, the effectiveness of the strategies described above has been threatened by several technological developments in television, such as cable and satellite television, video recorders (VCR), an increasing amount of channels,
video-on-demand and most recently the Internet. All of these technologies fragment the television’s planned flow, which makes it hard for producers, programmers and content developers to “strategize and sequence tier flows” (Caldwell 2003: 134-135). In the present digital era several underlying shifts could be found. Firstly, there has been a shift from broadcasting, the strategy to attract as many people as possible to the content, to narrowcasting, where content is targeted at a specific group, at a specific location, or at a specific time. Secondly, a shift from mass economies to niche economies has happened. And thirdly, serial flows have shifted to unrelated cyclical flows (Caldwell 2003:135). Content in the digital age is becoming more specific for particular groupings; and the amount of available content is increasing drastically. Content management seems to be even more compelling in digital media, since one of the Internet’s main characteristics is the never-ending content it contains and distributes (Caldwell 2003: 136). The new digitalization technologies of these days result in the creation of television services that are inspired by and look like the Internet. These new services are based on algorithms, software and metadata, which are used to make decisions for you which will fit your viewing behaviour (Uricchio 2004: 175). The shift to metadata management and algorithms again means a transformation of the notion of flow: from being program-centred in Williams’ classic notion of flow, to an active audience with the introduction of technological devices such as the RCD, to adaptive agents in the metadata systems in which algorithms are the defining characteristic that construct our viewing experience and mediate our individual taste (Uricchio 2004: 180). The notion of flow has changed over the years and could now be seen as “the endless stream of sounds and images from 500 channels from which each of us […] can compose our individual sub-flows.” (Gripsrud 1998: 31).
Associated with television’s flow, ‘liveness’ is another defining characteristic of the medium. Liveness is “the possibility that anything could happen, that real events or accidents could break through the carefully managed stream of information” (Gadassik 2010: 118). In an historical sense television began as a live experience in transmitting an event simultaneously with the actual event but due to technological developments the ability to broadcast pre-recorded content arose. However, live
broadcasting retained its influence on television content by pursuing notions of ‘presence’ and ‘immediacy’ (Bourdon 2000: 531). Through the use of liveness, television programs can create the feeling that the content is ‘immediate’ on that particular location, which in turn creates an ‘intimacy’ connecting viewers to the place of action. The live broadcasted event on television promises to happen right here, right now, and the viewers form a group by becoming real time spectators to an event that occurs elsewhere. In this sense, liveness “marks the media’s constructed role as the access point to what is supposed to be “central” to the “group”, that is, the whole society.” (Couldry 2004: 359). In showing what is central to society and presenting things as they happen, liveness could be seen as an ideology that connects viewers to these events and claims to show the ‘reality’ that exists outside the television set (Feuer 1983). Liveness could also be interpreted as a ritual term and “a category put to use in various forms of structured action that naturalize wider power relationships.” (Couldry 2004: 354).
In addition to watching television and being immersed in the television’s stream there is a constant possibility of interruption of the programming for a real life event (Gadassik 2010: 120). Live television and its interruptions, such as ‘breaking news’, “demonstrates that not everything has been planned” (Bourdon 2000: 537) and that there is room for immediate intrusions of important events that cannot be ignored and should be seen by a large group of viewers. It is the potential connection that can be made with the real world and real events that underlies the notion of liveness (Couldry 2004: 355). An important element of liveness is the ‘direct address’, which has been important for the practice of television since the early years of the medium. Through the ‘direct address’, television presenters speak to the viewers directly, by using personal pronouns such as ‘I’ and ‘You’. The direct addressing of television’s viewers gives the impression that the audience is joining the presenter on his experience and that they are in this together (Bourdon 2000: 540).
Although the digital age brings several new television services that are technologically different from traditional television, “the possibility of affective liveness remains one of the continuing appeals of televisual media models” (Gadassik 2010: 131). In other words, liveness does not run to waste and remains an important
element of contemporary television and the ‘direct address’ still plays a big role in the way viewers relate to the medium and its content. This direct address executes itself in the way the platform or service presents its content, through its design or interface, and the way it addresses its viewers in order to call them to action. With the rise of the Internet, the concept of liveness changes. For new services based on the infrastructure of the Internet, a new ‘online liveness’ arises, in which a certain ‘social co-presence’ exists in several ways; for instance, chat rooms, comments on websites and continuous ‘breaking news’ distributed by news websites (Couldry 2004: 356). However, in the new television services, such as on-demand television and Netflix, the traditional notion of liveness, with its potential of interrupting in order to permit its viewers to get in on a real event is missing. Since in these new services the way of watching television is highly individualized and personalized, the medium cannot decide whether the viewing experience can be interrupted. There is no longer any question of one event that is central to one certain group within the audience. However, liveness still has a role in these new television services. Instead of the traditional notion of flow in which the programs broadcast are themselves live, the viewer now (in the new notion of flow in the digital era) produces its own liveness by interacting with the service itself. The programs in these services are not live, yet by clicking, scrolling, rating and choosing the content he likes, the viewer has a power to use a certain ‘liveness’ and interaction in order to construct his own unique televisual experience at the time that suits his personal schedule best. In this sense the notion of liveness is becoming ‘on demand’ and the “embrace of flow is selective and user-generated; in its sense of community and connection is networked and drawn together through recommendation, annotation and prompts.” (Uricchio 2009: 35). Besides, the notion of liveness now depends on the device viewers are using. With their highly mobile televisual experiences viewers now have access to the ‘outside world’ through applications and messaging programs on devices such as Smartphones or tablets, which can interrupt the television service’s flow. With these different notions and fundamental shifts in television flow and liveness in mind I will discuss the way we could look at issues concerning power and control and the changing relation between viewer and television in the next sections of this chapter.
2.2 Control and disruption
Flow is all about control and disruption. In the classic, programming-centred notion of flow described by Williams, producers and programmers determine the channel’s flow and ideological view on the world. A passive viewer is the perfect target for this flow, since the only thing the viewer needs to do is sit, watch and immerse in a journey with the television. This seemingly passive ‘couch potato’ is caught by the planned flow that drags him from one time block into the next one. Yet the couch potato became an active zapper with the introduction of the remote control device, as well as program guides and other technological devices, and took ownership over the planned flow, which now could be disrupted and controlled (Uricchio 2004: 170-171). The notion of flow became viewer-centred instead of program-centred. With the advent of digitalization technologies and television services comparable to the Internet in which media users have access to almost any content, a shift in ownership over flow takes place: neither viewer nor television programmers control flow. In new television services and platforms, viewers are forced to become increasingly proactive in making viewing-decisions and creating individual taste (Tay & Turner 2010: 46). Viewers get the opportunity to have a personalized and privatized viewing experience by selecting and watching only programs they like, which disrupts the traditional flow of broadcasting even more.
Although we feel empowered in choosing the televisual content we want, we are not as empowered as we would think. The technological systems and metadata behind the services and platforms are helping us in choosing what we want. However, it does not allow us to make a decision unconditionally. Today’s television services do not allow its users to create, upload and watch their own content, which is a characteristic of the online video platform YouTube. In this sense, the highly proactive users are not allowed to be entirely proactive. Rather, the ‘proactive users’ only have a say in the choice of when and where they are watching, instead of what they are watching. They are, sometimes without even noticing it, ruled by filtering technology, algorithms and metadata programmers in the way they watch television and make televisual choices. These technologies determine what we will see by defining to what content we have access, how it is labelled and in which way we navigate through
program categories (Uricchio 2004: 176-177). Although new televisual services give users the opportunity to create individual tastes and viewing experiences, the interface and screening of metadata become big players in the relation between television and viewer and are part of the televisual viewing experience. In new television services and technologies, such as on-demand services, the way we interact with television content is through interfaces, which are presenting themselves as simply functional, serving its users to find the content they want. However, “interfaces are actively screening metadata, deploying them as key aesthetic features, as navigational elements leading to related screens, and as actionable criteria upon which media experiences are customized.” (Chamberlain 2011: 235). In the automated viewer-centred notion of flow, agency is given to software, which provides a view on the world that is more hidden than in previous notions of the concept. It is presented to us through the media interface which invites consumers to ““take control” over their television experiences.” (Chamberlain 2011:250). However, the interface is extremely powerful in hiding its design and the intelligence of its system, in order to give viewers the impression determining their experience and view on the world themselves (Chamberlain 2011: 240). Viewers feel empowered, yet they do not know what is going on behind the screen and how metadata work in order to create an individual identity based on previous preferences and taste that fits their own image of themselves. Thus, the control users feel is actually constructed by companies that provide the service (Chamberlain 2011: 250). In other words, television interfaces may appear as simple technologies, yet behind it there is an invisible world of codes, algorithms and networks that control what the interface shows and the way media experiences are constructed.
2.3 Television experiences, place and simultaneity
In traditional conceptions television is an experience of being in two places at the same time. One of those places is the physical place in which a viewer is at home and sits in front of the TV set; the other place is the ‘social’ place, which exists in the transmitted event through the television set. This place is social since each viewer is connected to other viewers who are doing the same thing at the same time. In contrast
with regular social interactions, viewers now connect with other viewers without seeing or knowing them. Although there are two different places in which viewers find themselves, “these diverse places do not cancel each other out, but interact within the new co-existence between nearness and distance, here and elsewhere, home and world, ‘home and away’” (Buananno 2008: 19). In other words, the combination of two utterly different places forms a new way of being, in which the viewer’s world gets expanded in being permitted to exist in different places at once.
Echoing John Ellis, Milly Buananno divides three phases of the age of television. Each of these phases is connected to a period in television’s history. The first phase took place during the second half of the 1970s until the beginning of the 1980s, and could be understood as the ‘phase of scarcity’ in which there is both a limitation in quantity of channels as well as hours of airing (20). Around the transition between the seventies and the eighties there was room for expansion. The number of channels and programs became more wide and varied, which made this phase the ‘phase of growth’. In this phase ratings of the audience became more important and broadcasting networks started competing with each other more and more. Then, the third phase, which took place during the 1990s was the ‘phase of abundance’, also defined as the ‘multi-channel environment’. In this phase new technologies, such as cable, satellite and digital services caused a multiplication of channels, platforms, networks and ways of distribution. Also the audience became more fragmented than ever and a certain scarcity of content arose, since all of these channels had to be filled with content (Buananno 2008: 21).
Noting these phases, it is clear that the experience of watching television is an experience that is subject to fundamental changes and shifts. An important shift in television programming and experience is the shift from broadcasting to narrowcasting. In the first and second (whether or not to a lesser extent) phases of the television age, television was marked by the practice of broadcasting. In broadcasting television the focus is on the public sphere – meaning the major part of society – and the content is rather generic in order to attract and ‘please’ as many viewers as possible. In making a connection with the audience, broadcasting television exists as “one-way monologues” (Buananno 2008: 23). Thus broadcasting attempts to bring
individuals together and provides a collective and simultaneous vision on the world. The experience of watching broadcast television is an experience of conjunction, in which viewers feel connected with other viewers that are watching the same program simultaneously. In doing so broadcast television provides an ‘invisible meeting’ in which the audience takes part without knowing the members of the meeting or the ‘imagined community’. Consequently, watching television could be understood as “an experience of connecting, and sharing broader or narrower circles, with other individuals and viewers” (Buananno 2009: 24-25). Each viewer is ‘co-present’ in “watching as part of a larger, customarily national, audience and […] this constitutes a significant component in the character of our engagement with what we watch on television” (Tay & Turner 2010:44-45). In other words, when a single viewer watches a national or celebrational event – for instance the inauguration speech of a president – he is part of a big group of people sharing the same televisual experience. Each viewer has his own responses on the event, and in sharing these reactions with other viewers the event becomes a part of the social life outside the home and within a community. Thus broadcasted events can create national identities. Another major characteristic of broadcasting is its power to create a global awareness amongst the masses (Gripsrud 1998: 31). Through the view on the world provided by broadcasting television, viewers get a sense of what is happening in the world and can construct their own idea of it. In this sense, broadcast television provides a notion on the world that widens the viewer’s view and makes him feel highly connected to it.
With the growth of available channels in the second phase of television, the audience became more fragmented. Where the first phase of broadcasting used a communicative model of dissemination (or ‘one-way monologue’), in which television unifies viewers and constructs a particular view on the world, the second phase of broadcasting used a rather selective communication model, in which it isolates and separates viewers. The transition between the two phases and communication models caused the shift from broadcasting to narrowcasting. In narrowcasting broadcasting networks create channels and programs that attract small groups of people and focuses on specific niches. The audience of the generalist program of broadcasting transforms into an audience that is fragmented by a large
amount of channels that are focused on offering viewers what they need, limitlessly (Buananno 2008: 25). In this sense, broadcasting networks take into account what the audience and the several sub-audiences want and need. In doing so the one-way monologue of traditional broadcasting is becoming more of a dialogue between sender and several groupings of society. However it is still the broadcasting network that provides a certain view on the world, even though several views exist next to each other. This transformation also changes the way households watch television, since in narrowcasting every member of a family can be attracted to a specific program.
Within the era of what John Ellis (2002) calls ‘the era of plenty’, in which choices are almost infinite, the relation between viewer and television changes (169). The era of plenty has become even more saturated with choice than when Ellis wrote about it. Thanks to digitalization technologies and new television services, viewers are encouraged to construct their own viewing experience in selecting the content they want to consume, when and where they want to consume it, and on what device they want to consume it. The notion of ‘co-presence’ and ‘invisible meeting’ might be at stake in this highly individualized television experiences. Since a viewer’s television experience is now based on individual and ‘independent’ choices, he is not part of a bigger audience with whom he can share responses to the content anymore. Instead of a ‘co-presence nation’, we might speak of a “co-present globalized taste culture or subculture” (Tay & Turner 2010: 45), practiced by the viewer in the construction of an individual viewing experience. With the possibility and power to create a highly individualized experience, notions of ‘time famine’ and ‘choice fatigue’ arise in the new, Internet-based and on-demand television services of today, in which an almost infinite set of selections is available. Time famine could be described as a certain kind of obsession with choices and a desire for choices to be immediately available. The constant wide horizon filled with choices provokes this feeling of impatience and increases a feeling that there is not enough time to make a selection that fits your taste the best. In addition, the enormous amount of possibilities creates ‘choice fatigue’, which is “a combination of impatience, a great modern vice, and the sense of simply not wanting to be bothered” (Ellis 2002: 171). By knowing
that the wide horizon filled with options demands individual selections, certain tiredness and impatience arises. Also a feeling of nostalgia for times when there were fewer options to choose from and a desire for patterns emerges. In television experiences, ‘choice fatigue’ results in nostalgia for traditional broadcasting and its scheduled programming, which can answer these feelings of impatience and nostalgia (Ellis 2002: 174). Thus, the numerous options and choices in contemporary television watching provided by new television services such as Netflix, are associated with negative feelings in the viewing experiences.
Television opens up the world to viewers, by pulling them into several places at one time. As mentioned before, in traditional broadcasting viewers could be present in two places at the same time. The electronic and digital media expanded the opening up of the world even more by “bringing about a new kind of experience of place marked by the ambivalent relationship between presence and absence, nearness and distance, localization and dislocalization” (Buananno 2008: 20). Simultaneity has been an important concept in television’s history and caused social experiences of connected ‘imagined’ communities. This type of simultaneity was located in the opportunity of being at two places at the same time. However, in the digital age the highly individual consumption is not simultaneous anymore and ‘asynchrony’ rises. Rather, “to ‘despatialized simultaneity’ we now add ‘despatialized asynchrony’, without substituting the one for the other” (Buananno 2008: 70). With the opening up of the world through digital technology new ways of viewing are enhanced. By making television a kind of archive or library that contains an almost infinite amount of content through which viewers can take their individual path, watching television becomes an experience of isolation in a viewer’s own viewing. This isolated viewing is connected to the television’s content that is taken out of context, place and time, because of the individual choices that are underlying for this way of watching television (Buananno 2008: 69). Another new way of viewing could be found in the so-called ‘binge watching’. In the digital era, in which planned schedules are no longer demanded, viewers do not have to wait for content anymore since they have access to content in several ways. In the watching experience of serials this creates the opportunity to watch several episodes consecutively (binge watching), which makes it
comparable to a non-stop movie viewing experience. Instead of keeping viewers engaged with the network’s programming and planned flow, these networks need to produce their serials in such a way that will attract viewers and encourage them to keep watching and viewing one episode after another.
2.4 Netflix: an in-depth analysis of the service and platform
This thesis analyzes the Netflix service and platform. In the analysis, I will carefully examine how the service of Netflix works, how viewers navigate through and interact with it, and what possible experiences the platform contains. In doing so, I will partially base my analysis on my own experiences with Netflix. For instance, I will set up a Netflix-account and observe what happens when making choices and ratings; I will create a wish list and look at the suggestions that follow from my choices. In other words, I will make extensive use of the service in order to make a partially empirical analysis, in which I will use my observations and findings in order to deal with the question how transformation in television flow affects theories of power, agency and televisual experiences in Television Studies. In this in-depth analysis of the Netflix-platform and service I will focus on the way in which Netflix changes traditional concepts in Television Studies and I will make a comparison with the traditional ways of broadcasting (and narrowcasting) television. Here I will examine transformations in distribution, production and reception produced by Netflix, and discuss how these shifts affect several traditional television concepts, which I have explained earlier in this chapter.
In the first section of chapter three I will analyze how the concept of flow is operating in Netflix. I will compare my findings and observations to traditional broadcasting and discuss to what extent this concept is also relevant to this new and Internet-based platform. I will state that the classic notion of flow should be revised when it comes to Netflix, in order to maintain its importance and relevance. Additionally, I will discover how the different notions of flow stimulate continued viewing and what strategies are being implemented in both televisual programming and Netflix. The second section of chapter three focuses on concepts of control and agency. I will look into Netflix’ promise of giving the remote control to its users and
in doing so its assumption to empower viewers by giving them a certain kind of freedom. I will examine the boundaries of this freedom by focusing on questions of control described in the second section of this chapter, and discuss whether this freedom is just an illusion of freedom. Thereby, I will look at Netflix’ tone of voice, how the services addresses its users, and the influence of the interface – through which viewers navigate in and interact with the database – for the way that viewers are making televisual choices and creating individual taste profiles. The fourth chapter will dive into the changing relation between viewers and television (or medium) through the three different ages of television, described in the third section of this chapter, and eventually in the service of Netflix. In focusing on the possible experiences that are implemented in the service’s platform, I will discuss how traditional conceptions of time, place, co-presence, simultaneity and liveness transform through the Netflix-platform. Moreover, I will discuss some of the negative feelings that new services could cause, in which choice is almost infinite, and I will state that broadcasting television could be a solution to these negative feelings.
The last chapter will be the concluding part of this thesis and will give answers to the question of how transformations in televisual flow in Netflix influence notions of power and agency, and how televisual experiences and relations between viewers and television change in Netflix and the digital age. Besides, I will come back to the bold statement Dana Brunetti’s made on the ‘death’ of traditional television and the conquest of ‘new networks’, such as Netflix. With the gathered insights, through my analysis of Netflix, I will protest this statement and argue that new services such as Netflix are additions to the (traditional) televisual landscape rather than substitutions of traditional television forms.
3 Netflix versus Broadcasting: Flow, Control and Freedom
In this chapter, I will focus on the concept of flow in which continued viewing is stimulated by programming strategies. In the first section of this chapter I will look into the way traditional broadcasting and programming strategies are creating a certain flow. Subsequently, I will compare these strategies with the Netflix-model and discuss how the concept of flow operates in this new televisual service. I will argue that the notion of flow – which changed over time since the concept was found – should be revised when it comes to the platform of Netflix in order to keep its relevance in Television Studies. The second section of this chapter will focus on questions of control and freedom, regarding Netflix’ model that claims to empower its users and provide freedom by enabling them to structure their own viewing-experience. I will examine the boundaries of this ‘freedom’ and argue that it is an illusion of freedom rather than an absolute freedom.
3.1 Transformations in Flow
One night in the seventies, Raymond Williams sat down in an American hotel and analyzed the continuous stream of television content that was coming to him. He discovered that every single item, or unit of content was linked to the other units and that all units together form a certain flow that draws its viewers into it and triggers them to continue watching (Williams 1975). The concept of flow changed when several technologies, such as the remote control device and on-demand television, empowered the viewer to disrupt the continuous flow of content. These ‘new’ technologies and the increasing amount of available channels facilitate the possibility to switch among different programs easily and create a wide range of options. By empowering viewers to make choices on their own viewing experience and behaviour, these technologies change the classic notion of flow and “it signals a shift away from the programming-based notion of flow that Williams documented to a viewer-centered notion” (Uricchio 2004: 168). This shift is making the producers’ and programmers’ task of pulling viewers into the stream harder. Where “programming departments historically have attempted to lock viewers into a linear, sequential
viewing pattern within or inside of a single, bounded brand, the Internet, personal video recorders, and multitasking have made this an unrealistic and improbable goal” (Caldwell 2003: 135). Nevertheless, broadcasting networks incorporated broadcasting strategies that are meant to obstruct viewers from changing channels and “to keep viewers engaged with a single network’s proprietary, ad-sponsored “flow”” (Caldwell 2003: 134).
Looking at a random television night today, these strategies could be observed easily. Selected programs are put together in one tied schedule such as shows for children in a particular children’s programme or crime series in a special ‘crime-night’ programme. Commercial breaks are carefully scheduled in the television’s sequence and teasers and previews of the upcoming content are implemented in order to keep viewers engaged with the channel’s continuous stream of content. ‘Hot starts’ are inserted in the schedule in order to prevent the next program from losing viewers in the transition between two programs. Popular programs are scheduled at ‘prime time’ and new or less popular programs are classified between two programs that are highly watched and appreciated among the audience. In this manner, the successful programs warrant a large group of viewers, which is needed for a broad introduction of a new show. Through these so-called ‘time tested’ and ‘hammocking’ strategies, the networks seem to say: “this show is going to be as good as the previous and next ones, since we put these shows together.” Also, entire channels are arranged in a way that supports a certain identity of the channel, for instance a continuous stream of programs on animals in Animal Planet and a linkage of reality programs that are labelled feminine on the ‘women’s channel’ TLC. With these channel identity and stacking strategies, broadcasting networks tend to engage viewers with their created programming or flow, in order to seduce them to keep on watching and consume more of the content they distribute. Main goal of these broadcasting strategies is to prevent viewers from switching channels by approaching a continuous interest in and engagement with the channel’s flow. In this sense the notion of flow described by Williams changed from being centred on an ongoing stream of programs “without definite intervals” (Williams 1975: 94) in order to offer an uninterrupted viewing experience to a notion of flow in which programming strategies are used to ensure an
attraction of the viewer to the network’s channel and planned flow and make sure he doesn’t switch channels. In other words, the program-centred flow of Williams transformed into a viewer-centred flow (Uricchio 2004: 168). The transformed notion of flow could be seen as an ongoing stream of audio and video derived from numerous channels, from which viewers can create an individual sub-flow (Gripsrud 1998: 31).
In the digital age the previously described strategies lose some of their success and importance since “programming strategies have shifted from notions of network
program “flows” to tactics of audience/user “flows”” (Caldwell 2003: 136). The
digital era is an era of individuality and has brought several new television services – amongst others Netflix, an Internet based on-demand television platform. In this Internet based service, you are the one in charge and you are encouraged to do what
you want and what suits your own schedule. Users are no longer stuck to
prescheduled television programming. With setting up Netflix on an Internet-device users can create individual accounts in which individual preferences, choices and viewing habits are being aggregated and saved. This personal information is collected in Netflix’ database in order to offer each individual user the content that fits his profile best. Not only does Netflix use this information to set up a profile in order to present suggestions, the service also tries to categorize an individual user in a larger group of users with actions and preferences that are similar. In doing so the service is able to present suggestions that are even more accurate since several ‘similar’ users have proved that these suggestions were successfully received before.
In the Netflix service, each membership could create several accounts, thereby making it possible for households to create individual profiles for each of the family members. Based on each user’s individual choices and preferences Netflix suggests series, films or programs that are comparable and corresponding with these previous actions in Netflix. In doing so, a family of two parents and two children – a nine year old son and a fourteen year old daughter – contains four totally different profiles. Each of these profiles is likely to offer specific suggestions that are based on and adapted to that user’s personalized profile. For instance, the father of the family previously watched several movies that are classified in genres such as science
fiction, action, humour and documentaries on nature. Besides, he rated a few movies that he has watched with rates varying of three to five stars. Netflix uses his earlier activity on the service to suggest him content that he has not seen yet but that will perfectly fit his usage habits and the ratings of titles he has seen previously; and thus in his personal Netflix-profile. The family’s mother on the other hand has watched romantic movies, art house films and documentaries concerning social problems. She rated one of the titles she watched with one star, which means that she found that title ‘abominable’. Her profile contains a set of suggestions that Netflix links with these previous actions and it will not offer her options that are comparable to the title she didn’t like. Netflix also offers profiles that are for young viewers, for in this case the youngest of the family. From the moment of setting up his account the nine-year-old son has a profile that is set to children’s content (for children up to 12 years old). Through the programs he has watched earlier the service has learned that this content could be associated with being a boy. Hence Netflix offers him programs that focus on this group of users. Besides, the system is able to indicate a certain level of understanding or age through the child’s choices of programs in the past in order to specify the offered content even more and offer him programs that fit his level instead of programs with a level that is too high or low. Finally, the teenage daughter has an account that is set for ‘adults’, meaning twelve years and older. However, she does not like the programs her parents watch, but she prefers reality programs, talent shows on fashion and music and teenage serials and soaps. With this specific information
Netflix creates a profile that is built upon her preferences and that offers options that
fit the ‘girl teenager’ profile. This example shows that Netflix uses information on you as an individual user, in order to set up a list of suggestions that fits your personal profile and taste.
The notion of flow is in several ways visible and operating in the platform of
Netflix. On the one hand Netflix creates an almost infinite stream of content in making
it possible to choose the content you want in an immense database of televisual content. By making suggestions Netflix offers a tool to control the enormous amount of available content. On the other hand it transforms the notion of flow from a continuous stream of linked content to a notion of flow in which several sub-flows
exist that are all unrelated cyclical flows existing on their own and next to each other (Caldwell 2003: 135). When setting up a Netflix account, the service immediately suggests several categories you might like. As table 1 shows, these categories are rather general, containing 25 options:
Table 1
Popular on Netflix American TV
Oscar-films TV-thrillers
British TV Kids-TV
New releases Action-TV
TV-Comedy TV-Drama
Reality-TV Action
Cabaret Comedy
Documentaries Drama
Arthouse movies Horrorfilms
International Kids and Family-Films
Dutch movies Romantic films
Sci-Fi Sports movies
Thrillers Rate the movies you’ve already seen2
Source: Netflix <www.netflix.com> (Translated from my own personalized homepage).
The interface of Netflix is playing a big and important role in the way these categories are being presented to users. The homepage of a personalized account looks like a puddle of categorical streams (flows) of suggestions for you. Each of these sub-flows is being displayed as a horizontal stream. When you would put your cursor on the arrow on the right angle of this stream, it starts moving and presenting all of the options. In a constant speed the suggestions of this certain sub-flow are crossing your eyes. Alternatively you could put your cursor on the left arrow of the stream and it starts moving backwards in the exact same speed. When the last suggestion has passed, the first suggestion is offered again (after a small interval, displayed as a thin vertical line). The stream operates as a closed loop in which you can spin uninterruptedly. Any time a program that catches your interests passes, you can put your cursor on the image of the film or program. Immediately the stream stops moving and the interface presents a short description of the content together with a
2 This option is offered to you in order to get you started in giving information to Netflix about you preferences and to get the stream of even more personalized suggestions started.
prognosis of the rates you will probably give it in order to indicate your individual taste. If you would still like to watch that particular program, you can click on the image and it starts playing right away. In this sense, the notion of flow is vividly present in the design of the interface of Netflix, by linking several suggestions in a cyclical stream of content although it is different from the classical notion of flow in having several sub-flows that are working as closed loops instead of a continuous stream. Users can now step into a sub-flow by choosing one program in the linked stream. However, the choice of one program doesn’t mean that the next program will be the following program in the stream. By choosing one program, another even more specific and personalized stream starts in which the focus shifts from offering suggestions in a specific genre, to an even more specific suggestion based on the program you watched. When the chosen program has come to an end, Netflix immediately suggests another program aiming to say: “if you like this, you might like this as well”. These suggestions are placed parallel to the credits of the previous program, which has transformed from a full screen image into a small framework on the left corner of the screen (picture 1). Below this framework Netflix places three new options, accompanied with a line that says: “Would you like to watch something else? According to us you like these titles…”33
Picture 1
Source: Netflix <www.netflix.com>.
3 Translated from my personal Netflix-homepage, <www.netflix.com>.
In this manner, Netflix uses a programming strategy that is used in traditional broadcasting frequently. The strategy of reworking credits in order to keep viewers attracted to the content of the stream, is now used by Netflix to stimulate users to keep on consuming the content suggested by the service and watch continuously, providing a flow of one program going into the next. Instead of preventing the user from switching channels, the goal of this strategy deployed by Netflix is to seduce users to push the button in order to watch one of the three suggestions it offers. In doing so,
Netflix implements another strategy, which is based on the traditional broadcasting
strategy of creating a channel identity. However, Netflix revises this strategy by creating an identity based on you, as an individual user. Instead of a schedule that serves the interests of a certain group of viewers, as is the case in programming schedules of channels such as National Geographic, Netflix makes a more specific schedule that is particularly arranged to serve ‘only you’. The traditional strategy of creating a certain ‘channel identity’ is being used and adapted in a revised identity strategy in which individual user information is being used in order to create a very specific and personal ‘channel’ of suggestions that is unique for that particular user and wears his Netflix-identity. In other words, the ‘channel identity’ is now solely created by your taste and viewing preferences. By means of the creation of an individual and personalized ‘channel’, Netflix creates a flow that attempts to draw individual users into it and immerse them in order to stimulate them to stay in the flow and to consume more content. This strategy is also operating in the previous example of the four family members owning four very different accounts containing suggestions that are specifically corresponding with the Netflix-identity of each of the relatives.
Another way flow works in Netflix is present in the series it offers (both traditional television series and Netflix original series). For instance in House of Cards each episode ends with credits that are reworked just like an ending movie, as described earlier. Instead of a selection of three suggestions Netflix thinks you might like, a countdown of 19 seconds for the following episode is inserted. If you do not hit any button in those 19 seconds and just sit, watch and wait, Netflix will automatically start the next episode. This could go on until the end of a season, yet the next season
will be ready to watch immediately through one push on the button. Thus, without doing anything Netflix draws you into the flow of a single series. In this manner a series becomes a ‘super movie’ made of numerous episodes and seasons and a continuous stream of serial content. In addition, this characteristic of Netflix’ flow changes the way users are active in their viewing experience. With the remote control device, users gained activity and control over the channels they were choosing. Although Netflix wants you to choose content from the database, this database takes over the activity of choosing how many episodes you will watch. Instead of actively choosing the next episode, the service starts a new one almost immediately, without intervention from the user. In this sense user activity through the RCD gets taken over by database activity of Netflix.
Given these previous observations and arguments I would like to argue that in the current digital era the classical notion of flow should be revised and updated, in order to prevent it from losing its meaning and importance. Flow in new television services such as Netflix operates as a series of unrelated cyclical streams of content which could loop over and over again. In addition, due to an almost infinite amount of content in the Internet-era, there is not just one flow anymore. Yet there are several sub-flows that are all closed loops that exist next to each other. The notion of flow should be one of cyclical sub-flows in the age of the new, digital and Internet-based television service. These sub-flows are not fixed – they are constantly changing and moving through the actions, choices and preferences of the service’s individual user. Flow has always been about agency. As I will discuss in the following section, questions of power and freedom have also changed in the digital era and through the service of Netflix. Although it seems to be the case that viewers have the power to decide on what they are going to watch, Netflix inserts several strategies in order to still create a certain flow that is in accordance with strategies of traditional broadcasting.
3.2 Control and Freedom
In Raymond Williams’ notion of flow, the audience consists of so-called ‘couch potatoes’; highly passive viewers who do not have any power and just sit, watch and
let the television’s flow take over. With the introduction of the remote control device, the audience gained some of the power over the television’s flow. Now, viewers have been able to disrupt the flow that was planned by producers and programmers by easily switching channels, mute commercial breaks, or switch off the TV set through one click on a button (Uricchio 2004: 170-171). However, the increased power of this active television audience changes in new televisual platforms such as Netflix. Netflix claims to give the user – or rather you – the ‘remote control’ instead of deciding what is up next. With this claim, Netflix opposes its service to traditional broadcasting in which a pre-set schedule is being offered. It also states, with this opposition, that giving the ‘remote control’ to the audience is rather new and innovative; that this is not usual practice in traditional broadcasting. Netflix’ service tends to offer you the opportunity to create your own viewing-identity in order to provide a way of watching television in which you only watch what you like, when you like it and what corresponds with your television profile. By doing so, the service asks its users for a high level of proactivity (Tay & Turner 2010: 46). However, these claims are arguable for several reasons, starting with the way Netflix provides access to its service. Where traditional “television has distinguished itself historically by its low threshold of accessibility, helped by the fact of being free of charge” (Buananno 2008: 22), Netflix makes its service available through a fixed price per month. In doing so, only paying Netflix-members have access to the service and database. Besides, “watching television requires no prior acquisition of competencies” (Buananno 2008: 22), and anyone is able to understand the television’s messages. However, in an Internet based service such as Netflix, users have to have knowledge of digital devices. In this sense, the service can only be accessed and used by users that are technologically literate, and users who have enough money to allow themselves a membership. Thus the freedom, which Netflix claims to provide, is only permitted to a specific group of users, rather than everyone.
Another argument lies in the first steps of creating a Netflix-account. When setting up an account the only available choice is whether it is a profile for a child (up to 12 years old) or an account in which content for adults could be made available as well. After hitting the ‘continue’ button the profile is set up and you can get started
watching Netflix’ content. Though the service doesn’t know anything about you or your preferences and taste yet. As table 1 already showed earlier on in this chapter, a pre-set selection of categories that are rather general is being offered. This is the starting point for all new users from which the personal account gets created. In order to start personalizing your profile, Netflix has made an option in which you can declare what you like in three steps. In the first step there is a selection of genres, in which you can register how often you watch a genre by choosing ‘never’, ‘sometimes’ or ‘often’. Then, the next step offers a selection of movies or programs in a specific genre (picture 2), in which you are invited to rate the ones you have already seen. The last step presents random movies that can be rated in order to give Netflix information on what kind of content you like.
Picture 2
Source: Netflix <www.netflix.com>.
After following these steps, your ‘personalized’ account is all set to make suggestions based on the content you have said you like. However, the options in these ‘personalization’ steps are just part of a pre-set selection of choices. What if you do not like those general genres at all? Or what if you are equally interested in all of the offered genres? In addition, what if none of the options are really your taste, yet you rate them positively because you find the other options worse or relatively ‘like’ this one? Besides, in rating the suggestions Netflix has already filled in a prognosis of your ratings of the content. In doing so, Netflix categorizes your taste and takes the part of the process, the individual thinking about what you like, partially away from you.
What I want to argue with this example is that Netflix does not allow you to get started choosing your program content from scratch, as there is always a pre-set selection of possible choices. This means that there are several choices that could be made but are not provided by the service of Netflix.
The selection of available options has also to do with agreements and contracts with the production companies that own the rights of series and movies.
Netflix might be aware of your interest in American television drama with female
characters; so it is likely for you to be interested in ABC’s television series Desperate
Housewives as well. Yet, the lacking of an agreement with ABC results in the absence
of this series in the Netflix-database. Although Netflix presents its service as if it serves your needs and gives you freedom by presenting you the content you might like, the options are not complete. This results in a televisual environment in which choices are not ‘free’ at all and you are ruled by the selections Netflix has made for you. In this sense, Netflix is not as innovative as it claims to be, in still making selections in televisual content in order to some sort of schedule (whether or not a fixed schedule), just as with traditional broadcasting. In addition, Netflix has designed its service in a way whereby the interface is the only thing users have access to and it is the only thing in the service that has been made visible. Viewers interact with the service through the interface in which technology determines what users will see and how they navigate through it (Uricchio 2003: 176-177). Although the service presents itself as a naturally functional platform through its interface, the interface is highly active on screening metadata in order to present its users the content they want as well as offer them the best possible navigation through the platform and database (Chamberlain 2011: 235). In Netflix, users are able to make selections, rate options and make individual lists of content they would like to watch. They accept the working of the service yet they do not know how it actually works behind the screen (Chamberlain 2011: 240,250). It is not explicitly visible how metadata is working for you and how algorithms are deciding which content is presented to its users and which content is not. In other words, for the selected few categories that are presented to us that correspond with our individual tastes, there are thousands of categories that are not visible to us. For questions of freedom this means that Netflix is not providing
