Binge-Watching and Contemporary Television Studies
Edited by Mareike Jenner
- Includes original research from different sub-fields of television studies
- Develops a nuanced understanding of binge-watching by exploring it from the perspectives of fan studies, audience research, transnational television studies and narratology
- Takes an in-depth look at contemporary television culture
- Individual authors have exchanged and developed ideas together, creating consistency and coherency across the collection
‘Binge-watching’ has become an umbrella term for a number of analytical questions in contemporary television studies, serving to describe the structure, marketing and publication model of Netflix and other streaming platforms.
Because the term describes a range of different ideas linked to streaming television programming, research on binge-watching can bring together a number of different and related questions. This edited collection explores binge-watching and its role in contemporary television from the perspectives of fan studies, audience research, transnational television studies and narratology. This breadth of scope makes it possible to explore a broad variety of meanings and functions of the term and concept in contemporary television studies.
AcknowledgementsAuthor bios
1. Introduction
Section I: Bingeing fans
2. Historical Binge-Watching: Marathon Viewing on Videotape, E. Charlotte Stevens
3. "A small Christmas for me": A Study of Binge-Watching and Fan Engagement on Reddit, Rhiannon Bury
4. Binge-Watching and Fandom: Conclusion, Rhiannon Bury and E. Charlotte Stevens
Section II: Binge-Watching Audiences
5. Commercial Constructions of Binge-Viewers: A Typology of the New and Improved Couch Potato as Seen on TV, Emil Steiner
6. Binge-Watching Conditions and Multitasking: The Enjoyable Ephemeral, Lisa Glebatis Perks
7. What Defines a Binge? Elapsed Time Versus Episodes, Ri Pierce-Grove
8. Binge-watching and the organization of everyday life, Lothar Mikos & Deborah Castro
9. Conclusion: Binge-Watching Audience Typologies, Lisa Perks, Emil Steiner, Ri Pierce-Grove, Lothar Mikos
Section III: Transnational Bingeing
10. National, Transnational, Transcultural Media: Netflix – The Culture-Binge, B. G.-Stolz
11. National TV as transnational ‘cinematic’ object: How binge-consumption frames the critical vocabulary, Robert Watts
12. Transnationalising Genre: Netflix, Teen Drama and Textual Dimensions in Netflix Transnationalism, by Mareike Jenner
13. Conclusion: Transnational Bingeing, B. G.-Stolz, Robert Watts and Mareike Jenner
Section IV: Binge-Watching Narratives
14. Digressions and Recaps: The Bingeable Narrative, Lynn Kozak and Martin Zeller-Jacques
15. ‘Next Episode in 5…’ – Binge-watching and Narrative in Streaming Television Comedy, Tom Hemingway
16. The Bingeable Ms. Gilmore: A Comparative Analysis of Narrative Structure in Broadcast TV Show ‘Gilmore Girls’ and Netflix Original Show ‘Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life’, Orcun Can
17. Netflix Feminism: Binge-watching Rape Culture in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Unbelievable, Julia Havas and Tanya Horeck
18. Conclusion: Bingeing Narratives, Lynn Kozak and Martin Zeller-Jacques, Tom Hemingway, Orcun Can, Julia Havas and Tanya Horeck
There is much useful material in this collection, with detailed case studies of series such as J´ulia Havas and Tanya Horeck’s feminist critique of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (2015-9) and Unbelievable (2019), Stevens’s discussion of fan responses to Starsky and Hutch (1975-79) and Orcun Can’s analysis of the narrative structure of Gilmore Girls (2000-7). The writing is clear and accessible; the evident hesitancy throughout in asserting boundaries and definitions helpfully symbolises the messiness of television and indicates understandable caution on the part of the authors, especially for concepts such as this that circulate outside of academia.
This book is a welcome addition to research into binge watching. By connecting scholars with each other, it develops a complex picture of what really goes on: that Netflix both disrupts television with its bingeable texts and genres, but that its texts, press coverage and audiences also continue to shape Netflix as television as we know it.
This edited collection restores to binge-watching its full complexity as a phenomenon both historical and new, based on audience, fan and industry-driven practices, circulating transnationally and informing the narrative strategies of bingeable programming. The book argues that grasping binge-watching in its complexity is essential for understanding the pleasures and affordances of contemporary television.
- Binge-Watching and Contemporary Television Studies - Ebook (ePub)
- Binge-Watching and Contemporary Television Studies - Ebook (PDF)
