Streaming Culture: Subscription Platforms And The Unending Consumption Of Culture (SocietyNow)

The explosion of services such as Netflix, Spotify, Disney+, Apple Music, Amazon Prime and YouTube, which allow us to access content at the click of a button, has turned the norms surrounding cultural consumption upside down. How has this shift to an apparently unending supply of content affected the way we consume our favourite binge-worthy show, blockbuster movie or hot new album release? Positioning streaming alongside a major shift to contemporary capitalism, David Arditi demonstrates that streaming platforms have created an economy where consumers pay more for the same amount of consumptive time. Encouraging us to look beyond the seemingly limitless supply of multimedia content, Arditi calls attention to the underlying dynamics of instant viewing - in which our access to content depends on any given service's willingness, and ability, to license it. Cover 1 STREAMING CULTURE 2 SocietyNow 3 Endrosements 6 STREAMING CULTURE: Subscription Platforms and the Unending Consumption of Culture 8 Copyright 9 CONTENTS 10 1. Introduction: Caught in the Stream 12 Culture 17 Streaming 20 Why Does Streaming Culture Matter? 23 Interactions with Cultural Texts 23 Shifting Capitalism 25 Layout of the Book 29 Notes 31 2. Digital Retail: Disruption, Distribution, and Disintermediation 34 Sharing 37 Disruption 42 Distribution and Disintermediation 44 Conclusion 49 Notes 50 3. Streaming Music: Unending Consumption Begins 52 The Album Replacement Cycle 53 Beats, Spotify, Apple and the Streaming Era 58 Listening in the Streaming Era 62 User-Generated Music Streaming Platforms 66 Notes 68 4. Streaming Film: Simultaneous Release, Circumventing Censorship, and Indies 72 The Changing Film Experience 74 Independent Streaming 79 Censorship 83 No More DVD Collections 85 Conclusion 88 Notes 89 5. Streaming TV: The Golden Age of TV and Flow Interrupted 92 From VHS to DVR: Trying to Watch a Show 94 Political Economy of Streaming Television 97 Binge-watching 104 Golden Age of Television 106 Conclusion 109 Notes 111 6. Streaming Video Games: Never Own a Game Again 114 The Changing Video Game Commodity 115 Video Game Streaming Culture 124 Conclusion 130 Notes 131 7. New Cultural Forms: Dominant, Residual, and Emergent 134 Streaming Culture: “Dominant, Residual, and Emergent” 135 Dominant Streams 139 Instant Ink 140 Software, Spyware and Anti-virus 141 Residual 143 Vinyl 143 Emergent 144 Vloggers 145 Twitch 147 Conclusion 149 Notes 150 8. Conclusion 152 Subscriptions and Unending Consumption 154 Caught in the Stream 156 Streaming in the Future 158 Notes 160 BIBLIOGRAPHY 162 INDEX 176 Encouraging us to look beyond the seemingly limitless supply of multimedia content, David Arditi calls attention to the underlying dynamics of instant viewing - in which our access to our favourite binge-worthy show, blockbuster movie or hot new album release depends on any given service's willingness, and ability, to license it.