Jul 2026· Television & New Media· 0 citations· 14 references
Abstract
Streaming has transformed the landscape of screen production since Netflix launched its video-on-demand service in 2007 and later moved into commissioning content. Rather than treating streaming as a universal industrial logic, this special issue foregrounds the contextually-bound practices, infrastructures, and technologies that condition the creative labor behind these productions. “Streaming production cultures” emerges as a subfield within production studies that deserves scholarly attention, and the featured articles surface empirical findings that help demarcate the debates fueling this area of inquiry. Despite challenges in accessing streaming production networks, we argue for a bottom-up approach that attends to the lived experiences of workers in the online screen industry. The contributions apply this lens to a range of production cultures, spanning diverse media services that operate at national, regional, and global scales. As such, this special issue provides a kaleidoscope of streaming production research in order to advance this critical field.
This study explores how Netflix has transformed traditional genres of South Korean television dramas, commonly known as K-dramas. The growing presence of Netflix has disrupted established production and distribution mechanisms, prompting local stakeholders to adapt to compete more effectively on a global scale. Interviews with twenty-nine industry practitioners suggest that Netflix’s perceived flexibility and creative autonomy, supported by its financing models and regulatory differences, motivate creators to explore a broader range of genres—something traditional television networks cannot provide due to their financial and regulatory constraints. By analysing how those involved in domestic television production recognise the changes brought about by foreign streaming giants, the findings provide insights into how genres function as industrial arrangements, how local stakeholders have responded to shifts in the media landscape during the streaming era, and how power asymmetry between global players and domestic creators influences television genres.
Taeyoung Kim· Television & New Media· 0 citations
This study shows AI enables a cohort of “Internet entrepreneurs” to enter cultural production, driven by a “money hustling culture” that encourages formerly idle and low-skilled individuals to pursue rapid monetisation.
Jiaru Tang, Xiaoting Yu, Patrik Wikström et al.· AI & SOCIETY· 0 citations
The rapid diffusion of digital technologies has reshaped how music is created, taught, distributed and performed, altering the working conditions of instrumental musicians across both the Global North and the Global South. This article examines how these transformations affect live music performance and the livelihoods of rural instrumental musicians in South Africa, with reference to the Vhembe District in Limpopo Province. Drawing on a narrative review of scholarly and policy literature published between 2015 and 2025 and informed by the Social Construction of Technology perspective and debates on platform capitalism, the study synthesises evidence on digital music production, streaming services, arts education and the position of rural musicians in the contemporary creative economy. The review indicates that digital tools have expanded creative possibilities and audience reach for some musicians, while intensifying competition, compressing earnings from recorded-music and marginalising instrumental performers who lack reliable connectivity, digital literacy and industry networks. Rural musicians in the Vhembe District appear particularly exposed, remaining dependent on live performance in an environment where such opportunities are shrinking and where participation in digital markets is uneven. The University of Venda's Jam Sessions are considered as a local counter-practice that seeks to preserve live performance while engaging with digital media. The article contributes to debates on platform capitalism, digital labour and cultural policy in the Global South, and outlines directions for arts education, digital-infrastructure development and targeted policy support for rural music economies in South Africa.
Thulani G. Zulu· Journal of Science, Innovati...· 0 citations
In traditional theatrical productions, audiences are ushered to seats, house lights dim, and curtains rise. When this experience moves into digital space, these audience engagement techniques shift. This poster outlines the onboarding tactics theatre-makers deploy in digital sites (i.e., social media platforms, video games), claiming that, as the first point of entry for digital audiences, onboarding is necessary for effective audience engagement. Through the lens of live productions made for and staged in digital sites – a new genre of performance we call “digitally site-specific theatre” – we explore a representative sample of eight theatrical productions and outline four major audience onboarding tactics. These theatre-makers bring creative insights to onboarding processes that help technologists incorporate world-building and quickly cement “rules of engagement” within a variety of digital sites, which can inform HCI approaches to onboarding workflows beyond performance contexts.
Emma Dorfman, Melissa Terras, E. Gledhill et al.· Creativity & Cognition· 0 citations
This article examines the contemporary digital audiobook through the lens of platformization and develops a conceptual framework for understanding platformized audiobook culture. Drawing on an integrative review of interdisciplinary scholarship, supplemented by market reports, industry statistics, and audience studies, it uses the German audiobook market as an analytically illuminating example through which broader processes of platformization can be explored. The article situates audiobooks within wider transformations of everyday digital media practices, highlighting the shift from physical formats toward downloads and subscription-based streaming services. Conceptually, it distinguishes platformized audiobook culture from digital audiobook culture through two complementary analytical perspectives adapted from book studies, digital publishing, and media and communication studies: an integrative platform model and a data-environment model of streaming services. Building on this synthesis, the article proposes an ecosystem model of platformized audiobook culture to support future theoretical and empirical research.
Sven Stollfuß· New Media & Society· 0 citations
This article recovers a largely undocumented history: the DIY fanzine culture of 1970s Japan and its foundational role in shaping Japanese popular media. Drawing on archival research, primary sources, and oral history interviews with key participants, it argues that amateur cultural production in this period was constitutive of the media industry’s development. These communities generated shared knowledge, preserved production materials, cultivated future professionals and developed participatory practices that professional publishing later inherited and expanded. In an era before specialised magazines existed for manga, animation, or
tokusatsu
(Japanese special effects productions), enthusiast groups created their own platforms for research, criticism, and knowledge exchange. The article traces this history through three case studies:
Monster Club
, a tokusatsu fanzine group with direct ties to Tsuburaya Productions; the
Space Battleship Yamato
fan groups, whose activities pioneered enthusiast engagement that dedicated magazines like
Animage
would later build upon; and the
Brave Raideen
Fan Club, led by women but open to all, whose activities revealed an industry blind spot regarding female audiences. Together these cases illuminate how the collaborative practices of these groups, bridging enthusiasts, studios, and publishers, transformed the landscape of Japanese popular culture. The grassroots infrastructure they built in the 1970s not only laid the foundations for specialised anime publishing but created the conditions for Comic Market (Comiket), the world’s largest fan convention, demonstrating that amateur cultural production was not peripheral to Japanese media history but foundational to its development.
A. Longo· Journal of Consumer Culture· 0 citations
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