Deadline: June 30th
Details Below ____________________________________________________________________________
“Digital Voyeurism:” Binge-watching, Streaming, and Individual Screens
SCMS (Society of Cinema and Media Studies) Annual Conference, Montreal, March 25-29, 2015
Webcasting of video, television and audio started circa 1993. Inspired by two decades of ever-growing consumption of streamed visual content, as well as by the growing popularity of streaming platforms such as Netflix, Hulu and Amazon, this panel explores the ways nascent modes of non-theatrical spectatorship transform the role cinematic and televised works play in our vernacular experience. By focusing on what Wendy Hui Kyong Chun calls “Habitual New Media,” we seek papers studying the fragmentized nature of digital voyeurism, as well as its invisible materiality and hidden anxieties.
While streaming websites are touted by Netflix’s founder Reed Hastings as “seamless, wait-free and on-demand” utopia, we are looking for a more careful examination of the “newness” of streaming: Should we describe “streaming” in terms of “format,” “medium” or “technology”? Is the VOD model substantially different from “traditional” models of movie-going? And if it is, in what ways does it change the distribution, consumption, and content of moving images?
Possible topics may include (but are not limited to):
– Binge-watching/ “Cord-cutters”
– Historical, cultural and technological analysis of Netflix, Hulu, and other streaming websites
– Compression and format theory
– Individual/mini-screens
– Digital disruptions/ “noise” (buffering, etc.)
– Viewing as scrolling (and vice versa)
– Digital materiality
– Fragmentized/ mobile voyeurism
– Online film festivals
– Downloading, torrents, codecs, and piracy
Paper proposals of maximum 300 words – along with institutional/departmental affiliations and current email – should be sent to Neta Alexander at na889@nyu.edu by June 30, 2014.
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