Publication details
Viewers and Screenwriters in the Streaming TV Era : Uses and Gratifications Analysis
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| Year of publication | 2018 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
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| Description | The presentation will offer theoretical analysis of viewers’ motifs when making decisions to watch the conventional broadcasted TV or the streaming TV (Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO Go). In addition, it will also consider the consequences of these decisions on the screenplays and their structure. The analysis will be conducted using Uses and Gratifications theory devised by Blumler and Katz. The theory considers viewers to be active in TV-viewers relationship. Part of this activity is the decision-making process of selecting a specific type of media (conventional or streamed TV for the purposes of this presentation) in order to satisfy their particular needs (mood control, passing time, socialization), which are also called, within the U&G theory, gratification factors. The hypothesis for the presentation is that streaming TV provide higher gratification than conventional TV because they provide 24/7 access to wide range of (oftentimes) high-quality content in (mostly) ad-free environment with the ability to pause/rewind/replay the content at the viewers’ convenience. This gives the viewers the power to decide when and where the “prime time” takes places. At the same time, the presentation will address the changes in screenplays, such as the decreasing impact of cliffhangers at the end of individual episodes due to the availability of the whole series at once, and the increased opportunity for complex narratives within episodes. The analysis will become part of the dissertation project which deals with viewers’ (emotional) reactions to presented content in Page to Stage and Page to Screen texts. |
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