{"title":"Relocating video cultures","authors":"Jennifer M. Kang, Amanda D. Lotz","doi":"10.1177/13678779231202545","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13678779231202545","url":null,"abstract":"This special issue ‘relocates’ video cultures by focusing on the specific industrial dynamics and practices of six different countries. It is in conversation with scholarship that challenges the conceptualization of streaming as a universal force, and instead foregrounds the importance of location. The emergence of streaming and its disruptive influences on audiovisual industries have mostly been approached in relation to US-based multinational streaming services, and the articles in this issue demonstrate how the implications of streaming vary significantly depending on national contexts. Each contribution traces the trajectory of pre-digital cultures that led to the nation-specific consumption patterns of streaming video to date. We hope this special issue helps advance approaches that are attentive to locality and diversity beyond the US streaming culture.","PeriodicalId":47307,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Cultural Studies","volume":"48 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136308027","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Streaming and India's film-centred video culture: Linguistic and formal diversity","authors":"Ishita Tiwary","doi":"10.1177/13678779231197696","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13678779231197696","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, I foreground the importance of the ‘cinematic’ as the most important vector of video cultures in India. The article identifies how the timeline of video culture disruption in India deviates from countries with stronger television-based cultures. The availability of videocassettes and their ability to make movies more widely available was consequently of greater consequence in India than in other places, and a development that was still adjusting the video culture as digital distribution arrived. Internet distribution and digital production technologies have also brought significant changes to India's viewing culture, though again, the peculiarities of the Indian market make these changes distinctive. Where many countries have encountered greater access to foreign-produced content and services, key digital changes in India tie into access to and interest in a broader range of domestic cinema. The following analysis flags key moments of disruption and explores discussion of the emergence of pan-Indian film that coincided with streaming platform adoption in India.","PeriodicalId":47307,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Cultural Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-09-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42522765","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The media operations of postcolonial mobility regimes: The cases of Filmstichting West Indië and Vereniging Ons Suriname in 1940s and 1950s Netherlands","authors":"K. Leurs, Philipp Seuferling","doi":"10.1177/13678779231198124","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13678779231198124","url":null,"abstract":"This article analyses the communication activities of Filmstichting West Indië, which in the late 1940s and early 1950s produced 12 documentary propaganda films about Dutch colonial Suriname, and the resistance against these reductive representations in zines of the Surinamese migrant organization Vereniging Ons Suriname. We draw on hence unstudied archival material to dissect the role of media operations, as persuasive, strategic media productions, in constructing and challenging differential relations between colonizers and colonial subjects, and symbolically negotiating how different territories and bodies relate to each other. A visual and textual analysis of the cases unpacks historical struggles over the regimes of (post)colonial (im)mobilities, as they are produced and articulated within regimes of representation. We ultimately argue that, in order to understand the historical constitution of mobility regimes (and, in order to be able to critique them), we need to study the co-production of mobility regimes within regimes of mediated representation.","PeriodicalId":47307,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Cultural Studies","volume":"26 1","pages":"672 - 696"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47479792","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘Terebi banare’: Historicising internet-distributed television and the ‘departure from television’ in Japan","authors":"Yu-Kei Tse","doi":"10.1177/13678779231197698","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13678779231197698","url":null,"abstract":"This article historicises and examines the implications of internet-distributed television for televisual culture and viewing in Japan. It challenges the simplistic media discourse of ‘ terebi banare’ (i.e. the audiences’ departure from television), which overlooks the complexities of evolving viewing practices. It explains why, largely due to the dominance of major terrestrial broadcasters in the media ecosystem, online consumption of television was slower to take hold in Japan than in other developed countries. It also demonstrates how, while Netflix and Amazon Prime Video have popularised pay online viewing from the late 2010s, the content Japanese viewers consume online remains inclined towards local outputs from terrestrial broadcasters. By elaborating on how terrestrial broadcasters have continued to play an important role in shaping audience experiences with their evolving content, frames, and services, this article provides a critical account of the meaning of terebi banare in the age of streaming.","PeriodicalId":47307,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Cultural Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43057342","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Cultures of (im)mobile entanglements","authors":"E. Cabalquinto, K. Leurs","doi":"10.1177/13678779231198548","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13678779231198548","url":null,"abstract":"What does the increased reliance on digital communication technologies by migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, migrant communities, governments and researchers reveal about the benefits, limits and politics of everyday mobile and immobile experiences during the pandemic? This introduction to the special issue on cultures of (im)mobile entanglements addresses this inquiry, alongside ten articles covering themes of governance and surveillance, agency and negotiated subjectivities, translocal and transnational solidarity, as well as doing research in pandemic times. Critically engaging with both mobility and immobility in the intersecting field of mobilities and migration research, the special issue centres a multidimensional and multi-scalar perspective on the deep interlinking of various modes of mobilities and stasis in and beyond spatial and temporal conditions mediated by politically and culturally structured digitalization. It endeavours to create a vantage point to critically examine the mobility–immobility continuum as informed by power relations, hierarchies and inequalities in a networked and global society.","PeriodicalId":47307,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Cultural Studies","volume":"26 1","pages":"623 - 635"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43302126","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Beyond Netflix: Ownership and content strategies among non-US-based video streaming services","authors":"Amanda D. Lotz, Oliver Eklund","doi":"10.1177/13678779231196314","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13678779231196314","url":null,"abstract":"Major multi-territory streaming services such as Netflix, Prime Video, and Disney+ dominate this new sector of video distribution, but the economic features of internet-distributed video enable a diverse sector. This article examines 16 non-US-based multi-territory services and 10 national/regional markets to investigate the other types of transnational streaming businesses emerging. The analysis assesses the ownership of the 16 services, as all but one emerge from existing corporations with activities in the audiovisual or distribution sector, to identify the implications of different ownership priorities. It then pairs the ownership analysis with data on the size and country of origin of the services’ content libraries. The findings identify subcategories of multi-territory streamers and, by considering an array of national markets, reveal the counter-strategies available to non-US-based services.","PeriodicalId":47307,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Cultural Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-09-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47790704","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘They are now pocket videos, not home videos’: Streaming and reconfiguration of video consumption in Nigeria","authors":"G. Simon","doi":"10.1177/13678779231197697","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13678779231197697","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines how streaming is altering established viewing practices that traditionally characterised video film consumption among domestic Nigerians. Following the creation of the Nigerian video industry (Nollywood) as a straight-to-video film industry, audiences watched movies solely through the technologies of television sets and video players. The fluid and opaque circulation of video copies located audience consumption practices within informal realms and communal spaces. This article analyses how streaming is catalysing a distinctive viewing culture in Nigeria. It argues that streaming is formalising access to Nollywood movies, upending the communal practices associated with legacy video viewing, and fostering an individualised viewing culture though some informal communal practices persist in the streaming ecosystem. By emphasising the role of smartphones and apps in the emergent streaming culture, this article demonstrates how streaming is restructuring the temporal, spatial, and affective features of audience engagements that traditionally characterised movies viewing in Nigeria.","PeriodicalId":47307,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Cultural Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47119300","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Disrupting Brazilian television: Streaming and the decline of Globo's hegemony in video cultures","authors":"Melina Meimaridis","doi":"10.1177/13678779231197699","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13678779231197699","url":null,"abstract":"The Brazilian audiovisual landscape has been monopolized by the Grupo Globo conglomerate and its commercial broadcast network, TV Globo, which established a common video experience centered on the telenovela. Although cable and the internet sowed seeds of discontent in the 2000s, it was only with the advent of video streaming services in the 2010s that Brazil's video landscape was transformed. This led to the multiplication of video cultures and greater access to transnational audiovisual flows. This article frames streaming as a competitive force that has compelled Grupo Globo to diversify its storytelling and representation, highlighting its potential to disrupt Brazil's video cultures and exposing the limits of cultural proximity. It examines how streaming services affect Brazilian video cultures and how preexisting conditions in Brazil provide opportunities and limitations to underline streaming's disruptive potential for Brazil's video cultures and Globo's declining hegemony and ability to adapt to the digital era.","PeriodicalId":47307,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Cultural Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49536720","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Not just Netflix: Interventions of Korea's domestic streamers","authors":"Jennifer M Kang","doi":"10.1177/13678779231197695","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13678779231197695","url":null,"abstract":"Korean video culture has changed from a broadcast-focused culture into a diversified experience that includes a variety of videos from both domestic and global streaming services. Contrary to the mainstream view that Netflix is at the centre of all changes, this study positions the domestic streamers’ original content as not necessarily a direct response to Netflix but indicative of the many changes that were already occurring in the local media landscape. Their content has adapted to fit viewers’ changing lifestyles and desire for stories not seen on television. Efficient everyday storytelling fits into viewers’ busy commuter lifestyles and features mundane topics that they can easily identify with. Also, the domestic streamers cater to small, underserved audiences with regard to specific topics avoided by traditional media. Thus, the original content of domestic streamers indicates that they offer different value propositions than formulaic romance stories by broadcasters and the high-end, large-scale original dramas of subscription video on demand (SVOD).","PeriodicalId":47307,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Cultural Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44687078","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Scenes of precarity: Conditions, dynamics and challenges for the post-pandemic future of cultural labour in Argentina","authors":"Guillermo Quiña","doi":"10.1177/13678779231195644","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13678779231195644","url":null,"abstract":"Creative industries are often promoted as key for economic, social and cultural development, particularly in countries of the Global South. In Argentina, the impact of the pandemic nurtured cultural workers’ organization and collective action, which brought to public attention the precarious conditions of cultural labor, and brought into question the centrality of individual and private initiatives known as ‘culturepreneurship’ within culture production. This article discusses the issue through an approach to cultural labor in general, and theatre and live music in particular, based on interviews and focus groups with 23 cultural workers in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area. We argue that cultural labor precarity presents a specific set of characteristics that are not only material but also related to its symbolic and subjective character, which public policy makers and cultural workers themselves need to consider in order to improve these conditions in the post-pandemic period.","PeriodicalId":47307,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Cultural Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47827863","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}