Why a Consortium?
Founded in 2016 by Amanda Lotz and Ramon Lobato, the Consortium initially developed to bring grounded and specific knowledge to the complicated growth of Netflix and other national and regional services that span national boundaries. Such internet-distributed television services often differ markedly based on the particular regulatory, technological, economic, and cultural practices of specific countries, while simultaneously seeming like a consistent global entity. The Consortium seeks to establish and maintain conversation and research among scholars expert in the particularities of various national contexts to better understand the implications of multinational, internet-distributed television services.
Though media conglomerates have long spanned national boundaries and operated globally, internet distribution has introduced considerable disruption to the standard practices of broadcast, cable, and satellite industries, and has enabled previously impossible strategies. The implications of this new mechanism of distribution remain highly dynamic and difficult to track in any single context, let alone by any single scholar attempting a comparative assessment. By pooling expertise our Consortium hopes to explore new and effective methods, concepts and theories for understanding the international dimensions of internet-distributed TV services.
Objects of study
The first phase of our research focused on Netflix, the largest and most aggressively international SVOD service. Over time we have expanded our focus to include other national and regional services. Each Consortium member has contributed a dossier describing the impact of a particular service in their country, with reference to relevant cultural, regulatory and market factors. In the future we also hope to track the extent of change over time in these various markets, and identify relevant internal and external factors driving this change.
Scholarly protocols
While presently focused on Netflix, the Consortium recognizes the need to account for the array of competitors pre-existing and joining the competition in each market. The Consortium seeks to be as dynamic as this subfield of video distribution and will broaden its focus according to the development of the industry.
Our aim is to create a forum for the collegial exchange of ideas, methods, and findings amongst an international network of scholars, which we hope may lead to other research collaborations within and beyond the Consortium. Individual researchers naturally retain all rights to their own data and analysis; the aim is to provide an infrastructure for networking existing research and expertise. Information drawn from the reports published here should respect the usual scholarly conventions and not reuse or distribute any data or analysis without permission from the original author.
Acknowledgement: This research was supported by the Australian government through the Australian Research Council (project DE150100288).