1) On-demand culture and big data analytics enable new forms of mobile and monitored spectatorship as media content can now be accessed and viewed anywhere on multiple devices. 2) Services like Netflix collect extensive user data that allows them to predict viewing behavior and tailor recommendations, while also informing media production decisions. 3) Crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter give independent creators and "long tail" projects new ways of financing production and building audiences through social networks, though many projects still raise modest funds.

1. Long Tail, Big Data:
On-Demand Culture and
Media Spectatorship
Chuck Tryon
May 12, 2013
UniversitàCattolica del SacroCuore

2. On-Demand Culture
Chris Anderson : no physical
barriers to media distribution
(The Long Tail)
David Bordwell: “films have
become files” (Pandora’s Digital
Box).
More people watch films via
Internet than on physical
media (DVDs, Blu-Rays)
“Promise that media texts
circulate faster, more cheaply,
and more broadly than ever
before.” But at what price?
Ira Deutchman: distribution as
central problem of movie
industry today

3. Platform Mobility
Platform mobility—“far more than the mere technological
changes that allow mobile access. It also includes the
social, political, and economic changes that make
mobile access more desirable.”
A question of how screens, texts, and viewers move
through space and time (encompasses limits to mobility
as well)

4. Mobile Spectatorship
Imagines an
active, engaged, but
individualized viewer
Move from Lynn Spigel
(“Make Room for TV”) to
platform mobility (“Make
Any Room Your TV
Room”)
Often sold as a means of
promoting “family
harmony” through
personal viewing
http://vimeo.com/2332899
0

5. New Distribution
Models/Logics
National Association of Theater Owners: by the end of 2013, movies no
longer distributed on celluloid
3D as “Trojan Horse” that supported conversion
Social media (Twitter, Facebook) open up new modes of engagement, but
also allow studios to measure audience interest and create participatory
activities to involve audiences in the “work” of marketing films
“Sentiment mining”
Crowdsourcing and crowdfunding through Kickstarter
Unlimited storage space makes “shelf space” irrelevant: The Long Tail
But this does not eliminate production or promotion costs
New models that alter the distribution “windows” in which films and TV
series are made available.
In some cases festivals (SXSW, Sundance, Tribeca) deliver films via VOD

6. On-Demand Spectatorship:
Major U.S. Players
Subscription Video on
Demand (SVOD):
Netflix, Hulu
Plus, Amazon
Prime, Warner Archive
Instant, Redbox Instant
Transactional Video on
Demand (TVOD):
Amazon, Vudu, YouTub
e
Ad-supported
(ADVOD):
Hulu, SnagFilms, Crackl
e
Download to Own:
iTunes, Vudu, UltraViole
t

7. Big Data
“The ability of society to harness information in novel ways to
produce useful insights or goods and services of significant
value” (2).
Role of Google Search terms in tracking the movement of
H1N1 Virus, Amazon Recommendations in making book
buying predictable
Big data works by taking “huge quantities of data in order to
infer probabilities” (12).
Not interested in why something is happening; instead
focused on documenting what is happening (correlations, not
causation)
Predictive analytics: “widely used in business to foresee
events before they happen” (58).
Big Data: A Revolution that Will Transform How We Live,
Work, and Think, Viktor Mayer-Schonberger and Kenneth
Cukier (2013).

8. House of Cards: Binge
Viewing
Produced by David Fincher
(The Social Network, Fight
Club), starred Kevin Spacey
Calculated to attract reviews
from tastemakers in
film, tech press
Reported $60 million budget for
13 episodes
Not the first example of SVOD
original programming (Hulu’s
Day in the Life)
All episodes released
simultaneously on February
1, 2013
Defies traditional distribution
models based on scarcity

9. House of Cards and Big
Data
Audience behavior can be
measured, calculated, predicted
, commodified (also used by
Amazon and other retailers)
Netflix knows
when, where, what you
watch, when you pause or fast-
forward
Netflix records “hundreds of
millions” of events on a daily
basis
Collective screenings and
shared accounts introduce
Big Data challenge for
recommendation algorithm
Allows Netflix to market directly
to consumers rather than paying
for expensive TV advertising

10. Big Data and Production
Potentially allows studios to calculate what
narrative techniques should be included in a
given film or TV show
Worldwide Motion Picture Group: use of data
analysis to assess script marketability
Potentially arbitrary: Company has calculated
that movies with scenes in bowling alleys less
likely to be profitable
Similar model with Amazon Pilots: 14 original
TV series and audience votes on which will get
produced

11. Mobile/Monitored
Spectatorship
New media technologies “provide the media and
culture industries with the means of surveillance
and control” (Bolin 2012).
Mark Andrejevic: “monitored mobility”
Andrew Leonard, Salon.com: Big data turns
audiences into “puppets” (February 1, 2013).
But these models fail to account for non-monitored
activities, as well as attempts by fans and
independent producers to use data for alternative
modes of distribution
Reintroduces but complicates classic juxtaposition
between active viewers and passive audiences…

12. From Audiences to
Crowds…
On-Demand Movie
screenings:
Gathr, Tugg, Rain (Brazil)
Girl Rising: generated
100,000 reserved
tickets
Star-driven feature
about girls’ experiences
across the globe
Crowdsourcing:
Wreckamovie, Snakes on
a Plane, social
media, Amazon pilots
Crowdfunding:
Kickstarter, IndieGogo.

13. Kickstarter and
Crowdfunding
Allows “long tail” creators to solicit funds for a creative project (movie, web
series, music, games, software) online
Continuation of older practices: we are accustomed to paying for films before seeing
them
Currently available only in the US and UK
Most projects raise less than $10,000 US (see chart below)
Film and music by far the most common projects

14. Kickstarter and
Documentary
Three of the best-
reviewed films of 2012
used Kickstarter
Recent Sundance
favorites: American
Promise, Citizen
Koch, etc.
Allowed filmmakers to
leverage existing social
networks (social capital)
built around causes
Indie filmmakers use data
to target potential
supporters (and
audiences)

15. Kickstarter and
“Independence”
Romanticized ideal of
the independent artist
pitching her passion
project
More recently, boundary
between studio and
independent has been
blurred
Paul Schrader, The
Canyons
Rob Thomas/WB,
Veronica Mars
Zach Braff, Wish You
Were Here

16. On-Demand Spectatorship
Active, mobile, individualized viewers who
blog, tweet, remix, and share movies
Content can be accessed on multiple devices
and viewed on-the-go
Monitored audience that is rendered
readable, analyzable, and predictable through
Big Data
This “freedom” thus enables the very condition
of monitored mobility

17. Questions or Comments?
Chuck Tryon, Fayetteville State University
ctryon@uncfsu.edu
http://chutry.wordherders.net/wp
Grazie!