"Once a specialised and niche field within internet and digital media studies, internet governance has in recent years moved to the forefront of policy debate. In the wake of scandals such as Cambridge Analytica and the global 'techlash' against digital monopolies, platform studies are undergoing a
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critical turn, but there is a greater need to connect such analysis to questions of public policy. This volume does just that, through a rich array of chapters concretely exploring the operation and influence of digital platforms and their related policy concerns. A wide variety of digital communication platforms are explored, including social media, content portals, search engines and app stores." (Publisher description)
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"La comparación con los años previos pone en evidencia el brutal desplome de la producción durante 2020 a raíz de los confinamientos y otras restricciones debidos a la pandemia de COVID-19. Tomada como un todo, la exhibición nacional de estreno cayó respecto de 2019 en un 41%, pero en algunos
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casos se llegó al 80% y 90% de caída. En términos absolutos, la mayor caída se reportó en Brasil, cuyo 68% de caída se tradujo en 891 horas menos de ficción. La única excepción fue Uruguay, que tuvo un aumento explosivo, pero desde una base de comparación muy baja. Lo anómalo del año 2020 no debe ocultar algo probablemente más estructural. Nuevamente, tomado el ámbito Obitel como un todo, la caída de un 41% este último año se agrega a la caída acumulada de un 22% que ya arrastraban los dos años anteriores a la pandemia. Este retroceso en la producción de ficción para televisión abierta no debe ser leído únicamente como una caída en la capacidad productiva. El volumen de material de estreno en VoD, mostrado más adelante, sugiere que al menos una parte del fenómeno es un desplazamiento desde una ventana de exhibición hacia otra." (Página 41)
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"Television was introduced in India in 1959 but for many years it was limited to state-owned broadcaster Doordarshan, which had one channel with twice-weekly, one-hour programs. However, there has been a marked shift in the television entertainment options available in India today, with 48 paid-for
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broadcasters, an estimated 60,000 cable operators, 6000 Multi System Operators (MSOs) and six pay direct-to-home (DTH) operators, all in addition to the public service broadcaster – Doordarshan. In total, there are over 850 TV channels registered with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. 2016 witnessed the arrival of a revolution in content consumption in India, with the entry of OTT (over-the-top) media services. OTT content is defined as the “productized practice of streaming content to customers directly over the web.” This has marked a big shift from the traditional tune-in, “consume-what-you-are-fed” model of conventional terrestrial, cable or satellite dish television, towards a new on-demand era of choice. Given the OTT boom, 82% of users in the Indian market are currently engaged on free-to-view, advertising-led videoon-demand platforms (like YouTube), compared to the 18% who pay for content on subscription-led video-on-demand services (such as Netflix and Amazon Prime). There are many factors that have been conducive to the on-demand model in India, the foremost being the growing penetration of internet and smart phones." (Introduction)
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"This dissertation explores audiovisual assistance programs through an examination of the largest such program: the EU’s ACPCultures+, which since 2008 has awarded over 50 million Euros to nearly 60 audiovisual training programs, distribution initiatives, and production projects in sub-Saharan Afr
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ica and the Caribbean. Using textual and policy analyses, in-depth interviews, and both digital ethnography and multi-sited ethnographic research in Brussels, Addis Ababa, and Nairobi, I analyze three case studies of projects funded by ACPCultures+ – a screenwriting course in Kenya, a pan-African video-on-demand platform, and the first Ethiopian film to screen at Cannes film festival – while tracing the circulation of the program’s aims and policies from its headquarters in Brussels to audiovisual professionals in Africa and the Caribbean. These cases show how, as ACPCultures+ grapples with media diversity in an era of globalization, it builds on postwar histories of both international development and EU cultural and audiovisual policies in ways that simultaneously enable and constrain media industries in the Global South. Ultimately, this research demonstrates how audiovisual assistance programs are an underexamined piece of the global media landscape in which Northern policies and Southern practices together can reframe debates about media and cultural hegemony and suggest new ways of conceptualizing the geographies of audiovisual industries and policy." (Abstract)
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"This Yearbook is divided into three parts. The first is an introduction chapter, containing a comparative synthesis of fiction in the Obitel countries. This comparison is made from a quantitative and qualitative point of view, which makes possible to observe the development of fiction in each count
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ry, highlighting their main productions, as well as the theme of the year. The second part consists in 11 chapters, one for each country, with an internal structure of fixed topics, but with new additions every year. The sections that compound each chapter are the following: 1) Country’s audiovisual context: this section presents general information about the audiovisual sector regarding the production of television fiction, such as history, trends and relevant events. 2) Analysis of premiere fictions: it is made through quantitative tables that show specific data about national and Ibero-American TV fictions released in each country. In this section the ten most watched titles of the year are highlighted. Since 2017, the Yearbook also brings the five most watched national productions of the year in an effort to enhance and deepen the issue of national identities in each country. 3) Transmedia reception: this section presents and exemplifies what channels offer to the audience fiction on the internet, as well the description of the audience’s behavior when watching, consuming and interacting with their fictions through websites, social networks and other platforms. 4) Highlights of the year: the most important productions not only in terms of audience (rating), but also for their sociocultural impact and for generating innovation in television fiction production or reception. 5) Theme of the year, which this year is Ibero-American TV fiction on video on demand platforms. This theme converges with the interests of Obitel, which for years has been following the trajectory of Ibero-American television fiction by rapidly changing scenarios. Multiple screens, transmissions, new formats, pay TV, UGC, among other topics, have been monitored and analyzed theoretically by each Obitel country research group. In this Yearbook, the proposal is to discuss production on video on demand platforms (VoD), addressing new forms of distribution and consumption. The objective was to verify the panorama of VoD production and consumption in the Obitel countries and the presence of national fiction on these platforms. In order to do so, we attempted to identify the reconfigurations that are occurring in the television scenario of each country in the face of new platforms of production, distribution and audiovisual consumption. Such reconfigurations take place from production to reception, from narrative forms to business models, to debates on legislation and regulation." (Pages 21-22)
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"This article considers the impact of online distribution on the long-term availability and preservation of African cinema. It examines the case of Electronic Media Network’s (M-Net) African Film Library (AFL), a video-on-demand (VOD) library of classic African films that was launched in 2012, but
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taken offline by 2013. The article argues that this short-lived project represents a pivotal moment in the way we think about African film archiving and distribution, in which new technologies and consequently disintermediated business models promised to facilitate the circulation of African films in a manner that was socially beneficial, but which in reality resulted in monopolistic control of the content that presented a serious threat to its long-term preservation. The article goes on to argue that the AFL case encapsulates the entire discourse surrounding the shift to online distribution, in which a ‘cybertopian’ narrative of a disintermediated and thus democratized film culture quickly gives way to a reality in which content is more tightly controlled by an increasingly narrow and powerful set of private stakeholders, ultimately threatening the preservation of any content that is vulnerable to the shifting demands of the market." (Abstract)
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"Video, particularly linear television, remains the dominant form of entertainment and, as many “web-endemic” businesses will confirm, the dominant vehicle for brand building among all advertising channels. All over the world, however, the supply of high-rating, passively consumed, linear-delive
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red, commercial-funded video and television programs is in decline. Cheap mass reach remains extraordinarily effective, but for younger audiences in particular, supply is becoming rationed [...] The video experience has changed in almost every way and for many is no longer constrained by schedules, location, devices or a narrow choice of content. We live in a world of abundance which democratizes creation, atomizes audiences and fragments attention [...] Advertisers, both traditional and new, are therefore increasingly in the business of re-thinking audiences, and using advanced segmentation in what was once the paragon of mass marketing. In disruption lies opportunity. Television and video increasingly take on the data-rich, addressable characteristics of the internet. New forms of video allow previously unimaginable segmentation by context, using data to target." (Introduction)
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"This report gives forecasts for online video spend and consumption, where available, for 40 markets in which online video is at varying stages of development. From markets such as Singapore, where 85% of the population claims to access online video (according to GlobalWebIndex, 2014), to countries
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where online video is still in its early stages of growth, what we see is that online video consumption has risen sharply over the past few years and has begun to attract budget-switching from TV advertising. TV remains, of course, the world’s most popular advertising channel, and will be so for some years yet. Nevertheless, networks and studios are having to adapt to the new importance of digital." (Introduction, page 1)
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"Die Filmproduktion befindet sich im Umbruch: Die Anzahl der Marktteilnehmer und Distributionswege wächst, gleichzeitig sinkt aber das Produktionsvolumen der Sender für unabhängige Filmhersteller. Joachim Knaf analysiert die bestehenden Geschäftsmodelle der AV-Produzenten und stellt mit einem Fa
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llbeispiel ein mögliches Geschäftsmodell in den Neuen Medien vor. Er untersucht, wie Ertragsmodell, Wertschöpfungskette und Value Proposition, also Nutzenversprechen in den Zukunftsmedien aussehen." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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