[csaa-forum] New book - Netflix Nations: The Geography of Digital Distribution (open-access)

[Ramon Lobato]

*apologies for cross-posting*


NETFLIX NATIONS: The Geography of Digital Distribution
Ramon Lobato | New York University Press, 2019

Free open-access version:
http://openaccessbooks.nyupress.org/book/9781479804948/
Paperback (US$25): https://nyupress.org/books/9781479804948/


Television, once a broadcast medium, now also travels through our
telephone lines, fiber optic cables, and wireless networks. It is
delivered to viewers via apps, screens large and small, and media
players of all kinds. In this unfamiliar environment, new global
giants of television distribution are emerging -- including Netflix,
the world's largest subscription video-on-demand service.

Combining media industry analysis with cultural theory, Ramon Lobato
explores the political and policy tensions at the heart of the digital
distribution revolution, tracing their longer history through our
evolving understanding of media globalization. Netflix Nations
considers the ways that subscription video-on-demand services, but
most of all Netflix, have irrevocably changed the circulation of media
content. It tells the story of how a global video portal interacts
with national audiences, markets, and institutions, and what this
means for how we understand global media in the internet age.


< Table of contents >

Introduction
What is Netflix?
Transnational Television: From Broadcast to Broadband
The Infrastructures of Streaming
Making Global Markets
Content, Catalogs, and Cultural Imperialism
The Proxy Wars
Conclusions


< Endorsements >

"In exploring how internet-distributed television services are
reshaping the national boundaries of the industry, Lobato offers a
cutting-edge study that advances our understanding of Netflix and
cultural globalization and reconceptualizes the relationship between
'old' and 'new' media. Netflix Nations will change the way we think
about infrastructure, globalization, power, and the television we know
and love."  -- Amanda D. Lotz, author of The Television Will Be
Revolutionized

"In this most valuable book, Lobato gives us a highly nuanced account
of the global spread of Netflix that emphasizes how extraordinarily
diverse are the infrastructural, policy, and consumption conditions
within which it finds is place. The breadth of the research is
impressive, and its insistence on a comparative approach across (at
least) four continents brings a much-needed dimension to our
understanding of the Netflix phenomenon." -- Graeme Turner, author of
Re-Inventing the Media


Ramon Lobato is Senior Research Fellow in Media and Communication at
RMIT University, Melbourne.