Audiovisual streaming, networked memory & Netflix: the spectator-interface

In the current mediascape, streaming services have fundamentally changed the ways in which spectators consume audiovisual media. Moreover, they have contributed to the creation of a new kind of viewer that I would like to call the spectator-interface--that is, a human-digital hybrid that is constituted through the different process of browsing, watching, and migrating in consuming audiovisual media. This article outlines the main attributes of the spectator-interface while connecting this type of subject to other kinds of digital users. First, it analyzes the behaviors of streaming users within the realm of algorithmic culture. Second, it links these practices with the re-configuration of the digital users memory. Third, it connects the apparent infiniteness of streaming catalogues with the elimination of wait time and various processes of continuous consumption. Finally, it studies the double dynamics of catalogue customization and binge-watching that anchors how the spectator-interface accesses and consumes content within the streaming scenario.

Audiovisual streaming, networked memory & Netflix: the spectator-interface Articles