Centered on streaming media platforms, this book explores how digital technologies have fundamentally transformed the way we understand entertainment and the tightening nexus between technology, culture, and capitalism. Building on a wide-ranging body of interdisciplinary inquiry, extending from media industry studies and critical political economy to media archaeology and film and media studies more generally, this book presents a unique critical approach that moves from macro-level analysis of industry economics to micro-level considerations focusing, for example, on streaming’s impact in changing narrative styles, genre formation, and related text-based aesthetic trends. The book’s core chapters develop in-depth analyses of streaming media’s three most emblematic platforms, Disney+, Netflix, and YouTube, highlighting their specificities while also assessing their place within a larger, shifting ecosystem. In offering a comparative account attentive to the importance of both historicizing and theorizing the changes brought about by streaming, this book lays out a path for renewed critical thinking about the contradictions in contemporary media and their impact on life in the 21st century. This is essential reading for advanced students and scholars interested in the ever-evolving relationship between technology, media, culture, and economics.
