BINGE-WATCHING KILLED THE IDIOT BOX: THE CHANGING IDENTITIES OF VIEWERS AND TELEVISION IN THE EXPERIENTIAL, STREAMING VIDEO AGE

Abstract

In this dissertation I explore what binge-watching is, how it is practiced, and its relationship with contemporary identities of television and viewers. Building on the theoretical frameworks of ambivalent cultural studies, post-structural feminism, and collective memory, I examine binge-watching and binge-viewers through their mediated articulations and ritualized actions. In Chapter 2, I chronicle the history of the terms’ usages in journalism from 1948-2016 and use that data to construct a functional definition of binge-watching. In Chapter 3, I analyze advertised constructions of binge-viewers in the commercial rhetoric of media companies from 2013-2015. In Chapter 4, I explore the rituals of contemporary television viewers through semi-structured interviews to understand how and why people binge-watch. In Chapter 5, I synthesize my findings on the articulations and actions of binge-watching and provided a reflexive narrative of my subject position as a binge-viewer studying binge-watching. I conclude that binge-watching is a techno-cultural phenomenon, which, through its action and articulation, is reshaping the identities of and relationships between television and viewers.