Oh Look, Another Episode! Modern Viewing, Binge Watching, and Engagement


Book Description

The television landscape has undergone numerous changes since the 1950s. Television viewing today is defined by more choice, control, and personal customization than ever before as viewers can choose programming, scheduling, device, and other characteristics to shape their experience. Among those changes is the phenomenon of binge watching, the consumption of multiple episodes of the same program in a single sitting. Previous binge watching research has demonstrated that binge watching may facilitate stronger effects, but the underlying process behind the effects has gone unexplained. This study offers a test of such a process by using presence, a state of deep immersion with media, as a potential outcome of binge watching that could lead to increased viewer engagement in a variety of ways. Through an experimental design, this study tests how binge watching and weekly viewers differ in their levels of presence and engagement both during and after viewing. This work also offers testing of medium characteristics beyond binge watching that may facilitate presence. Results indicate that presence and engagement do not differ between binge watchers and weekly viewers, but presence can influence engagement. Additionally, results demonstrate that program enjoyment is a primary driver of both presence and engagement for viewers, emphasizing the importance of effectively matching individual viewers with an appropriate television diet to maximize engagement.




Procrastination, Health, and Well-Being


Book Description

Research on procrastination has grown exponentially in recent years. Studies have revealed that procrastination is an issue of self-regulation failure, and specifically misregulation of emotional states—not simply a time management problem as often presumed. This maladaptive coping strategy is a risk factor not only for poor mental health, but also poor physical health and other aspects of well-being. Procrastination, Health, and Well-Being brings together new and established researchers and theorists who make important connections between procrastination and health. The first section of the book provides an overview of current conceptualizations and philosophical issues in understanding how procrastination relates to health and well-being including a critical discussion of the assumptions and rationalizations that are inherent to procrastination. The next section of the book focuses on current theory and research highlighting the issues and implications of procrastination for physical health and health behaviors, while the third section presents current perspectives on the interrelationships between procrastination and psychological well-being. The volume concludes with an overview of potential areas for future research in the growing field of procrastination, health, and well-being. - Reviews interdisciplinary research on procrastination - Conceptualizes procrastination as an issue of self-regulation and maladaptive coping, not time management - Identifies the public and private health implications of procrastination - Explores the guilt and shame that often accompany procrastination - Discusses temporal views of the stress and chronic health conditions associated with procrastination




Netflix and the Re-invention of Television


Book Description

This book deals with the various ways Netflix reconceptualises television as part of the process of TV IV. As television continues to undergo a myriad of significant changes, Netflix has proven itself to be the dominant force in this development, simultaneously driving a number of these changes and challenging television’s existing institutional structures. This comprehensive study explores the pre-history of Netflix, the role of binge-watching in its organisation and marketing, and Netflix’s position as a transnational broadcaster. It also examines different concepts of control and the role these play in the history of ancillary technologies, from the remote control to binge-watching as Netflix’s iteration of giving control to the viewers. By focusing on Netflix’s relationship with the linear television schedule, its negotiations of quality and marketing, as well as the way Netflix integrates into national media systems, Netflix and the Re-invention of Television illuminates the importance of Netflix’s role within the processes of TV IV.




Ratings Analysis


Book Description

Ratings Analysis: The Theory and Practice of Audience Research provides a thorough and up-to-date presentation of the ratings industry and analysis processes. It serves as a practical guide for conducting audience research, offering readers the to




Media Effects


Book Description

This new edition updates and expands the scholarship of the 1st edition, examining media effects in




A State of Arrested Development


Book Description

One of the most critically-acclaimed television series of all time, Arrested Development is widely hailed as a cutting-edge comedy that broke the traditional sitcom mold. The winner of six Emmys, the series was canceled by Fox in 2006, only to be revived in 2013 via Netflix's streaming service. Beyond its innovative approach to storytelling, the series lampooned contemporary American culture, holding up an unflattering mirror to modern society. This collection of new essays explores how the show addressed issues such as wealth and poverty, race, environmentalism and family relationships. Focusing on the show's iconic characters, the essays also consider Arrested Development as it stands next to such works of fiction as Hamlet, The Godfather and the writings of Kafka. Also covered is the show's reinvention of the sitcom genre, and what its revival on Netflix means for the future of television.




Play All


Book Description

“A loving and breezy set of essays” on today’s most addictive TV shows from “an incisive and hilarious critic” (Slate). Television is not what it once was. Award-winning author and critic Clive James spent decades covering the medium, and witnessed a radical change in content, format, and programming, and in the very manner in which TV is watched. Here he examines this unique cultural revolution, providing a brilliant, eminently entertaining analysis of many of television’s most notable twenty-first-century accomplishments and their not always subtle impact on modern society—including such acclaimed serial dramas as Breaking Bad, The West Wing, Mad Men, and The Sopranos and the comedy 30 Rock. With intelligence and wit, James explores a television landscape expanded by cable and broadband and profoundly altered by the advent of Netflix, Amazon, and other cord-cutting platforms that have helped to usher in a golden age of unabashed binge-watching. “James loves television, he loves the winding stories it tells and that we share them together. Play All is a late love letter to the medium of our lives.”—Sunday Times “Large-brained and largehearted, and written with astonishing energy.”—The New York Times Book Review “Witty and insightful musing on popular and critically acclaimed series of the past two decades.”—Publishers Weekly




Complex TV


Book Description

A comprehensive and sustained analysis of the development of storytelling for television Over the past two decades, new technologies, changing viewer practices, and the proliferation of genres and channels has transformed American television. One of the most notable impacts of these shifts is the emergence of highly complex and elaborate forms of serial narrative, resulting in a robust period of formal experimentation and risky programming rarely seen in a medium that is typically viewed as formulaic and convention bound. Complex TV offers a sustained analysis of the poetics of television narrative, focusing on how storytelling has changed in recent years and how viewers make sense of these innovations. Through close analyses of key programs, including The Wire, Lost, Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, Veronica Mars, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Mad Men the book traces the emergence of this narrative mode, focusing on issues such as viewer comprehension, transmedia storytelling, serial authorship, character change, and cultural evaluation. Developing a television-specific set of narrative theories, Complex TV argues that television is the most vital and important storytelling medium of our time.




Binge Watching


Book Description

This book situates binge watching as one of several new television viewing behaviors which collectively contribute to a fundamental change in the way we view television today. Simply put, binge watching changes, or has the potential to change, everything Engagement, immersion, attention to content and other devices, identification with characters and social engagement with fellow viewers, as well as content choices, and cable and over-the-top (OTT) subscription rates. Binge watching has quickly become a new norm in television viewing across audiences. Binge Watching reviews historically significant advancements in the television industry and in technology that better enable binge watching, such as timeshifting, increasing quantity and (sometimes) quality of content, as well as distribution strategies and suggestions algorithms employed by OTT providers. We situate binge watching as human-centered, that is, driven by innate human needs and wants, such as a desire to consume well-constructed stories and to connect with others. We also review the current state of academic binge watching research-from motives and habituation to the (over-pathologizing) addiction-based studies. This text concludes with a synopsis of the central arguments made and identifies several areas for future research.




The Oxford Handbook of Entertainment Theory


Book Description

"This chapter offers some historical and conceptual orientation to readers of the Oxford Handbook of Entertainment Theory. Departing from a brief review of ancient roots and 20th century pioneer works, we elaborate on the state and challenges of contemporary entertainment theory and research. This includes the need to develop a more explicit understanding of interrelationships among similar terms and concepts (e.g., presence and transportation), the need to reflect more explicitly on epistemological foundations of entertaiment theories (e.g., neo-behaviorism), and the need to reach back to past, even historical reasoning in communication that may be just as informative as the consideration of recent theoretical innovations from neigboring fields such as social psychology. Finally, we offer some reflections on programmatic perspectives for future entertainment theory, which should try to harmonize views from the social sciences and critical thinking, span cultural differences in entertainment processes, and keep track of the rapid technological progress of entertainment media"--